[WIP] Entry for Loreleis Competition
Fersus
🖼️ 10 images Surveyor
I'm going to submit a battle map. It'll be kinda generic and features a hideout of bandits or whatnot in a cave in the woodlands. Woods near mountains are plenty on the map, so I'm sure it can come in handy.
The Idea is to create to create the outside first, but the top half of the map (the elevated part) is on an extra layer. That way one can start the battle on the outside and once one of the two entries was found the cave can be revealed.
Here's what I got so far:
[Image_14727]
It works pretty well, but I've got troubles where the two layers meet:
[Image_14728]
(Here with the second Layer deactivated)
[Image_14729]
Any ideas on what I can try to make the two layers blend into each other better?
The Idea is to create to create the outside first, but the top half of the map (the elevated part) is on an extra layer. That way one can start the battle on the outside and once one of the two entries was found the cave can be revealed.
Here's what I got so far:
[Image_14727]
It works pretty well, but I've got troubles where the two layers meet:
[Image_14728]
(Here with the second Layer deactivated)
[Image_14729]
Any ideas on what I can try to make the two layers blend into each other better?
Comments
[Image_14760]
It's looking way better already thanks to your great advice!
However I do have some troubles with the shadow effects:
1) the Shadow that's been cast by the wall makes it look more as if it's a cloud casting that shadow instead of a steep hill
[Image_14761]
2) The Tree trunks (the round table symbols out in the open) do cast a nice long shadow, to indicate that that is something big, but one can see the end of those shadows and they are lacking a shadow representing the upper part of the trees.
and finally I did already a lot for the hideout itself:
[Image_14762]
Here I'm not quite happy on how the ramp along the water is looking. While the upper part looks fine-ish, the bottom part, where it should merge with the ground floor does not do much of the antizipated merging :/
[Image_14763]
As always I'd be really grateful for any advice you can give me :)
[Image_14771]
I added a Shadow layer for the treetops, then I changed the background bitmap as the old one got too dark with all the shadows looming around.
Some more debris was added, especially along the creek to guide it's path and along the cliff for some rubble that has fallen down.
In addition, the walls are now stone-clouds no more:
[Image_14772]
In the hideout I could improve the vanishing of the path to the upper floor quite a lot.
[Image_14773]
And as a last treat I show you the overview of the hideout itself:
[Image_14774]
I'm pretty happy with the project now, but I'm always open for more suggestions :)
And yes: he is right: I did not find any propper tree trunk symbols, so I used round tables as a substitue.
Does anyone know of a CC3+ add on that has tree trunks in it that would fit this map? Or if there isn't one, how to improvise said trunks?
Either a bitmap fill, or different shades of brown.
And it also helps others. A finished great looking map may be unapproachable for many, but when it gets broken a bit more into steps and pieces, it gets much easier to approach the process.
Those tree trunks look great.
I'm sure anyone of you could have done it in a fraction of the time, as it's just two polygons on top of each other and placed on two different sheets to apply different sheet effects.
But I'm happy, that I found a somewhat manageable way to draw some tree stumps.
The question that arises now of course is: can we make our life somehow even easier. I mean: drawing a Tree stump like polygon, hit redraw to see where the bevel effect ends, changing the sheet and then drawing the brighter part over the darker part of the tree is doable, but not as convenient as just clicking on a symbol with the "r" tag and placing a random predefined object with every click.
I'm totally fine with drawing about, I don't know, maybe 10 tree trunks by hand for this map, but if I ever want to do something like that again, it'd be great to be able to import the sheets with the respective effects and to place the the fitting polygons with as little effort as placing a "single tree object".
Is it possible to define two polygons on two different sheets as one object?
I'll try to follow your steps with a vanilla empty Dungeon file...
Edit: Ok, here is what I got so far: I draw a few trees, each composed of two polygons on two different sheets (dark part and light part). I set the line style of each polygon to the line stile with the same name as the corresponding layer. I choose "define symbol", mark the two polygons, choose "do it". Then I go to the symbol manager, choose the tree symbol, go to options, set "symbol is part of a collection", they differ by the number in the end (tree_ms_01, tree_ms_02...), I tick randomly select from selection and arrow keys select different symbols, as well as some random transformations and finally, the important part: I tick "Convert Line Style names to Sheet"
And hooray: I do get a collection of tree objects, that will be randomised when placed while also being placed on the correct sheets.
so far so good, but wat I also get is the parts of the trees as Symbols (e.g. tree_ms_0306 and tree_ms_03_07). What's even worse: when I place my trees, at some point it randomly chooses one of those tree parts as symbol. That part does not have "part of random collection" active, as it seems, because as soon, as I got one of the parts, I keep getting it.
What am I doing wrong?
I am guessing the issue happens because you are creating a numbered collection. Since these partial symbols also differ from the original by a number, I am betting they confuse the collection. I haven't tried this, but I am guessing if you make a collection "numbered" by letters instead, you shouldn't encounter that particular problem.
As for the crashing, are you running the latest version of CC3+? I did a test right now, and it does indeed crash in 3.93, but one I ran the latest update, it stopped crashing.
As for the crashes: I can load it as a symbol catalogue, but not as fcw. I do run 3.94.