How to make nice Gridlines

The Battlemap shows a Backyard Alley of Port Grim. The small port is located on the east coast of Maracasar. The alley is well suited for an ambush. So far I like the Map - the only thing I want to change are
the Lines of the Grid.
If someone has a idear how to make some nice Batllemap Gridlines, i will be happy

Comments

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited March 2018
    Hello Telnango :)

    I recognise that map! :P

    Welcome to the PF forum.

    Sorry I haven't had a chance to comment on your Guild thread (I'm Mouse), but I haven't said very much over there for quite a few days. Now that I've stumbled over your thread here, though, I shall take the opportunity to say how talented I think you are. Not everyone here will know that this is only your 3rd or 4th map in CC3 ;)

    Battlemap gridlines are always a tricky one. I don't tend to use them, but when I have in the past I leave the gridline as 0 line width, add a very small glow effect to the GRID sheet, then a Transparency effect. You have to adjust the settings till you're happy with the way they look, and whether you have them light or dark, the glow always seems to look best if its the light to the dark, or the dark to the light.

    If you mean how do you get them to appear only in places where you want them to appear, I'm not an expert in that field, but there are plenty of people around here who can give much better advice on that front ;)
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    Generally, I like to move the grid sheet a bit earlier in the drawing order to get somethings appearing on top of the grid instead of below it, such as the trees. I also like to use a bit of transparency on the grid lines to blend them better with what's below them.
    Sometimes I also change the line style to a dashed/dotted style to make it less intrusive.

    Posted By: Loopysuebut when I have in the past I leave the gridline as 0 line width
    Be very carefull with this, 0-width lines have a host of problems. Because a 0-width line means "always render it as thin as possible", it tend to disappear on hi resolution exports and printouts. Check out this article for details.
  • TelnangoTelnango Traveler
    Hola all,
    and hello Mouse ;-) I knew it was you - and thanx again for having some ideas ... it seems like u have a fulltime job by helping out and make coments to all the coments ;-)
    and also thanx to you monsen, i will try a few things in tomorrow ;-)
  • TelnangoTelnango Traveler
    Well, I've reworked the Dark Alley. I think I can leave the Gridlines like that even if I have one more question.
    There are two main problems here, on the one hand the shadows of the alley seem very dark. The second is that I would like to have gridlines and the floor layer below the furniture layer.
    To shade the Alley, I drew an extra line (Shadowline) on the Shadowlayer and then used the Sheet effect Outer Glow and Blur. These effects however ensure that the shadow on both sides of the Shdadowline is active

    If the shadolayer is now above the floor layers, the shadow shines inside the building as well. I want to avoid that.

    The Shadowlayer must therefore be located below the Floorlayers and above the Furniture layer so that the shade goes over the Furniture.

    But if I now want the Gridlines run above the Floorlayers but below the Furniturlayers I get a problem. Since I have to place the furniture layer below the shadow layer, which is below the floor layer, while the gridline layer is above the floor layer.
    Hell it is complicated, the easiest way is to create the four layers just with dd3, then the problem is probably clearer
    or perhaps even easier to explain to me how to get a shadow that shines only to one side of my Shadowline.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Ummm....

    You have succeeded in completely confusing me :P

    However, I did catch hold of one thing you said a couple of times.

    I can't remember what the separate shadow sheet was used to cure on one of your earlier maps, but I do remember suggesting it in that one particular case. I think, therefore, that I may be guilty of unintentionally confusing you quite a bit as far as shadows generally go.

    The floors are usually used to cast the building shadow using a directional wall shadow effect (I think... since its a long time since I did a dungeon scale map), and symbols used outside the building are on a separate sheet to symbols inside the building, so that the interior symbols are above the floor, and exterior symbols are below the floor and have the building shadow cast upon them.

    I didn't understand the rest of the problem, though, so I'll wait for someone else to help ;)
  • TelnangoTelnango Traveler
    well maybe u already helped me by leading me to the floor sheet in combination with a shdow effect it should work, i will try ;-) this
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