WIP: Pagoda
Dogtag
Moderator, Betatester Traveler
Hi folks,
This is the WIP thread for a pagoda I'm mapping for my campaign. I moved this post from my initial thread, asking about pagoda resources, to keep that discussion on-topic (resources). This is more about the work in progress.
Well, here's my first attempt. I'm starting with the top level (just below the [final] roof and spire) since that's where the PCs are headed on their flying carpet (darned PCs and their magic items). This simple beginning took me a couple of hours (yep, you read that right) so I figure I'd best start mapping the areas I'll most likely need first!
(Click for a higher resolution version)
 WIP01_tn240.PNG)
The trickiest part so far has been the roof. The texture file shows the tiles vertically, so I reasoned that the 0° angle of the Shaded Polygon, which I knew points to 3 o'clock, would be the default fill, unaltered. Whoops. If I'd though about it, I would have realized that CC3 treats the Shaded Polygon angle as the bottom of the polygon. So an angle pointing to 3 o'clock rotates the fill so that the bottom of the texture points toward 3 o'clock. An angle of 90° points the bottom of the texture fill toward 12 o'clock, and so on. I think I knew it subconsciously because as soon as I saw the weird result I got, I immediately understood what had happened. Anyway, for anyone who has not yet played with this feature, remember: The bottom of your fill texture will point toward the selected Angle of the Shaded Polygon.
The real difficulty, though, was in drawing the Shaded Polygons, since they didn't snap to the grid, even with a grid of 1' Angled 2 Snap! What I did was draw a second polygon, on a custom TRACE layer, 5 feet out offset from the floor. Then I manually drew in the trapezoid polygons for each of the eight angles of the roof. My poor eyes! What I should have done was draw two trace polygons, one (1) around the floor (probably just copy the floor to the Trace layer), and another (2) 5 feet out. Then, explode the trace polygons. That would let me use Endpoint modifier on the exploded trace polygon sides to precisely draw the roof parts.
I had a devil of a time creating the posts for the balcony railings. Each post is just a square poly. I thought I could use the Escarpment tool. In fact, I thought I had done so for another map I did a few months back, but If I did I can't remember how to place an array of polygons. The tool seems to only use symbols. So, instead, I did one side and then used the Copy and Rotate functions instead. It took more work but it did the job.
I'm actually pretty pleased with the map so far. Thanks again to JDR, and to Anomiecoalition who posted the roof tile texture a ways back. I left the texture color as its default yellow/gold color — rather than apply an RGB Color Matrix effect to it — because this will be the Pagoda of the Golden Sun, so it made sense.
Next step is to add some walls, doorways and windows, pillars, and stairs.
If anyone has any criticisms, comments, or suggestions, please post them. I'm grateful for any and all feedback.
This is the WIP thread for a pagoda I'm mapping for my campaign. I moved this post from my initial thread, asking about pagoda resources, to keep that discussion on-topic (resources). This is more about the work in progress.
Well, here's my first attempt. I'm starting with the top level (just below the [final] roof and spire) since that's where the PCs are headed on their flying carpet (darned PCs and their magic items). This simple beginning took me a couple of hours (yep, you read that right) so I figure I'd best start mapping the areas I'll most likely need first!
(Click for a higher resolution version)
 WIP01.PNG)
The trickiest part so far has been the roof. The texture file shows the tiles vertically, so I reasoned that the 0° angle of the Shaded Polygon, which I knew points to 3 o'clock, would be the default fill, unaltered. Whoops. If I'd though about it, I would have realized that CC3 treats the Shaded Polygon angle as the bottom of the polygon. So an angle pointing to 3 o'clock rotates the fill so that the bottom of the texture points toward 3 o'clock. An angle of 90° points the bottom of the texture fill toward 12 o'clock, and so on. I think I knew it subconsciously because as soon as I saw the weird result I got, I immediately understood what had happened. Anyway, for anyone who has not yet played with this feature, remember: The bottom of your fill texture will point toward the selected Angle of the Shaded Polygon.
The real difficulty, though, was in drawing the Shaded Polygons, since they didn't snap to the grid, even with a grid of 1' Angled 2 Snap! What I did was draw a second polygon, on a custom TRACE layer, 5 feet out offset from the floor. Then I manually drew in the trapezoid polygons for each of the eight angles of the roof. My poor eyes! What I should have done was draw two trace polygons, one (1) around the floor (probably just copy the floor to the Trace layer), and another (2) 5 feet out. Then, explode the trace polygons. That would let me use Endpoint modifier on the exploded trace polygon sides to precisely draw the roof parts.
I had a devil of a time creating the posts for the balcony railings. Each post is just a square poly. I thought I could use the Escarpment tool. In fact, I thought I had done so for another map I did a few months back, but If I did I can't remember how to place an array of polygons. The tool seems to only use symbols. So, instead, I did one side and then used the Copy and Rotate functions instead. It took more work but it did the job.
I'm actually pretty pleased with the map so far. Thanks again to JDR, and to Anomiecoalition who posted the roof tile texture a ways back. I left the texture color as its default yellow/gold color — rather than apply an RGB Color Matrix effect to it — because this will be the Pagoda of the Golden Sun, so it made sense.
Next step is to add some walls, doorways and windows, pillars, and stairs.
If anyone has any criticisms, comments, or suggestions, please post them. I'm grateful for any and all feedback.
Comments
A few nit-picky things you could do if you have the time/inclination. Could add a line to cover up the edges between the roof tiles where they meet (perhaps in that same redwood fill you have for the posts.) Also could add a shadow to the rail so that it indicates elevation over the roof tiles. Finally, you could try to accomplish a sort of gradient effect so that the bottom of the roof tiles are darker than the top (to indicate the slope of the roof). I don't think there is an easy way to do this with CC3, but maybe just drawing black shapes and then using a transparency effect would do the trick.
In any event, cool stuff.
I do plan to cover the "seams" between the roof sections, but I want to go back and look at the pics I have of real pagodas. I'm not sure if I want to use "wood beams" or tiles.
I was also thinking about roof shading, but I'm thinking more of a shadow along the middle of the roof sections to give the impression of a concave curve. A lot of ancient Chinese roofs curved back up at the edges. I was thinking of maybe modifying the shading PNG you posted to darken and then lighten again. Another option might be to create a ROOF SHADE sheet and add a black poly along the middle of each section, with a glow or fade + transparency. We'll see.
Right now, I'm just concentrating on mapping the map itself. I've been a ProFantasy customer for well over a decade, but I've barely ever actually made any maps! Ha ha ha.
Thanks for the feedback and the support. It really helps!
~ Dogtag
So... I switched to a 1' Angled 4 Snap grid. That could be annoying to use but, to help, I added a blue 5x5 grid overlay to the GRID layer, and I unchecked the snap options for the overlay. Then I created a new GUIDELINES layer and a matching GUIDELINES sheet. I created green guidelines along the major angles of the map, and then I froze the GRID and GUIDELINES layers. It's hard to see the green guidelines unless you view the high-res image full-size (they're easy to see in CC3). But, putting those things down showed me just how out of whack my alignments were. The guidelines also helped me to add a new octagon for the walls. I haven't made any adjustments yet. I stopped to post my progress. The misalignment of the pillars and rail posts is more noticeable with the pillars placed along the angled sides, but I removed them before I took these pics and decided to leave them off rather than put them back to make new WIP pictures (sorry).
(Click for higher resolution versions)
I ran into an interesting issue when I tried to cut the doorways into the walls. I wanted 6'-wide doorways but there is no 6' wall cutter. I used the 3' wall cutter twice. Later I realized that I probably could have just scaled it to 6'. I plan to test that idea later.
However, the really weird part happened after I'd made three of the four cuts in the wall. I cut both parts of the west doorway and the north part of the east doorway but the south part wouldn't cut! At least, it wouldn't cut right at the end of the wall (from the north cut) like the west side did. It would cut if I slid it down partway first, but I needed it flush against the north cut. In the end, after about 10 minutes of acting like a chimp trying to figure out Tupperware, I deleted the south wall and then used a Mirror Copy of the north wall, using my new guidelines to draw the mirror line.
I added the guidelines thinking about various desktop publishing programs and Visio and PowerPoint but, when I stopped to think, I realized that a lot of JDR's tutorials use them too! D'oh, if I'd just thought about it first. One thing that I'm picking up while making this map is that I should just stop and think things through a little longer. It will save me time in the end, I think. This must be the learning part of the learning curve.
More to come.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
Honestly, the issue is more about pasting them around the center. That's where it seems things go off-kilter. I don't think the top edge of the octagon is perfectly horizontal or something. Is there some way to paste a distance and an angle from a given (center) point? That would confirm or disprove my theory.
~ Dogtag
You can especially see my anti-geometry trick if you look at the upper left and right corners, and the center rail posts, by the rail.
(Click for a higher resolution version)
Actually, looking at it up close like this, it isn't horrible, but it is imprecise. *shrug* In any case, it's something I'm going to have to work around. As much as I'd like to go back and make this precisely symmetrical (I mean, the Chinese did, and without CAD, for crying out loud), I'll need to settle for appearing symmetrical to my embattled PCs. Perhaps their eyes aren't what they used to be, either.
~Dogtag
Update: I think another part of the problem could be the size of the pagoda. I made the floor 50' diameter, from side to side (as opposed to corner to corner). That may have played a part with why it was difficult to match up to the grid (the drawing grid, not the square/hex map grid). But, again, it's just speculation at this point for me since I need to plow forward. The group is hoping to game this Saturday!!! Gah!
~Dogtag.
That's where the circular array comes handy. See the attached file.
Note: if you don't own CD3 you'll see the dreaded red cross instead of the roof tiles...
I swear to you that I do, in fact, have a brain and that it is, in fact, in my head. And I appreciate the virtual smack on the side of said head.
I hope to get some mapping time this evening so I will, naturally, post an update afterward. But I am curious about something regarding the circular array. The pillars around the perimeter (say that 5 times fast!) number 4 per side, but they share pillars at the vertices (technical term!). If I used a circular array, would I use a row/column of all four pillars? If so, would I end up with two copies of each of the corner-pillars? Or, would it be better (easier?) to make an array of the four "inner" pillars and then either do another array of the corners or, probably, a simple Rotated Copy? Would an array be easier than a Rotated Copy or just faster?
JDR, thank you again for your patience. You should teach high school math!
~Dogtag
With an octagonal shape, you rotate each new set of pillars by 360÷8 = 45°. If you use the Rotated Copy once, you get two sides. Then you could use the Rotated Copy again, using the intial pillars and the new pillars with an rotation angle of 90°.
This will yield 4 pillared sides. Then you Rotated Copy with all the pillars a last time by 180° and you get all 8 sides pillared.
Or you can use the Circular Array tool only once... Noticed how I only made three pillars first to avoid duplicating the pillars sharing two sides of the octogon?
For pure CC3 users, vertices are usually named nodes in paths and polygons. Sorry. I didn't meant to smack anyone's head (well, I have some student's name on my list...), just trying to be helpful. In fact I'd like to get out of it...
Once you reminded me what a Circular Array does, I realized that it was exactly what I'd used on my other map, with great success. It was certainly easier than trying to manually copy/paste 52 objects evenly around a column (even using Rotated Copy). I'll monkey with it again here, since I already know Rotated Copy fairly well and need to delve into some of these other, more powerful features. Right. Build me up, then tear me down!
Thanks again for all your help so far!
More to come.
(Click for higher resolution versions)
I mentioned quirks. Two things caught me off guard.
- One of the parameters for the command is "Number of spokes" which indicates the number of times the source entities should be pasted. An octagon has eight sides, so I used 7 as the value, thinking it would paste 7 more "spokes." Not so. If you use the Circular Array function, keep in mind that the Number of Spokes parameter is the TOTAL number of spokes, including the source.
- Items are pasted counter-clockwise, or anti-clockwise if you prefer. The only reason this was an issue was because I initially deleted the LEFT pillar, thinking the array would paste clockwise. But as soon as I realized that wasn't the case, I switched pillars.
Anyhow, I'm excited this came out so nicely. Thanks again to JDR for the sound advice.Next, I will continue working on the main structure of the building before I turn my attention to furnishings or minor structures such as raised platforms. Things still to do:
- Stairs down. This is the top floor and will only have stairs down.
- Stairs up. I am going to use this as the source for the middle levels as well, but they will have stairs up, as well as down.
- Windows. The pagoda has paper-covered windows on each side that doesn't have a door.
- Doors. The east and west walls each have doors.
- Roof hips (the ridges between the angles). Most of my pagoda photos show large wooden beams used between the roof sections so I'm going to put "wood" there.
More to come!~Dogtag
(Click for a higher resolution version)
Bed time for now. Then work tomorrow (stupid real life getting in the way of my gaming). Got my brother's game tomorrow night so I'm going to be cutting this close, with the Saturday game deadline looming over me. Not too much left though, I think. Hopefully I'll be able to finish on Friday.
More to come then!
~Dogtag
More soon, though.