Mountain Battlemap with Levels

This is terrible ugly, I want to make it better. What I'm trying to do is create an mountainous map for players to work their way up. I want a visual sense of moving up a mountain as the party works up the path. I'd also like advice on any sheet effects if you've got a good idea on what effects would show the path a bit better.

Comments

  • DogtagDogtag Moderator, Betatester Traveler
    edited September 2017
    A quick and easy way would be to use a series of polygons — along the path or simply covering whole portions of the map — filled with decreasing shading. CC3 has several bitmap fills named solid xx Bitmap, where xx is a number from 10 to 90, The fills are semi-transparent layers of black (or dark gray). So solid 10 Bitmap is the fill with a 10% opacity (90% transparency). These fills are commonly used for sea and land contours.

    For example, you could do something like this:
    1. Add several new sheets, one for each level of shading, such as CONTOURS 10, CONTOURS 20, etc. I recommend putting the lighter shades higher in the sheet list so that darker shades are rendered after them. And since the shading should affect everything on the map, you may want to place the sheets near the bottom of the sheet list, though you may want to keep them above sheets for text and grid and so on.
    2. Add an Edge Fade, Inner effect to each sheet. Ideally, add the effect to one sheet and then use the new and useful Copy Effect feature to just copy the effect to each sheet.
    3. Place a poly with the lightest solid Bitmap you want to use a little way down from the highest elevation. There's no need to add shade to the highest elevation, after all.
    4. Continue adding polys with increasing numbered solid Bitmap fills, toward the lower elevation until you reach the lowest.
    You'd probably want to experiment with small polys in one small part of the map, to experiment with the fills you want to use and the edge fade effects and all that.

    And, again, this is just one, simple option. I'm sure others will suggest additional ways to achieve the effect you're after.

    I hope this helps get the creative juices flowing, though.

    Cheers,
    ~Dogtag
  • Shessar has a wonderfull tutorial on how to do streams and cliffs using DD3. Maybe you can adapt her tutorial for your needs :).
  • 13 days later
  • Ugg, took longer to get back to this than I wanted. I've been arguing with sheets from the start but when I put down a bkrnd 2 & bkrnd 3 they both eat the stone path I laid out before.
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