Oh, I forgot, well it was still dark outside, anyway. The castle was on Palma, Majorca in the Mediterranean. Most of it was pre-14th century with some parts older.
I found this virtual tour of one of the castles there, but I don't think this is the one I saw back in 1970. No stairs, just the various parts of the building.
Thanks Sue, I was thinking about that. Unfortunately, like an idiot, when I finished the tiles I exported the .png but didn’t save the Affinity file. I should be able to recreate it though. When you say shadows are you talking about the glow on the treads or more a general shadow?
If you want to make them tiled, make sure that they are rotated with the steps. If a spiral staircase is , it would be because it is made from large stones dropped into a stair formation, and those would follow the rotation of the steps, not the alignment of the floor above or below. Same goes if you make them from planks.
Spiral staircases are notoriously difficult to draw because the shading is quite difficult to get right. I do remember spending absolutely ages getting this one to look right in GIMP (didn't have Affinity back then), and the image still doesn't seem to be working to perfection. However, since I spent all that time doing it and it kind of half way gets there I thought I would show you how I went about it. Maybe you will do yours differently and manage to hit the right mix.
These are the various bits and pieces layer by layer. You might not need them all, or you might need some of your own instead of some of these, but this is what mine is made up with. And you might need to soften or harden some of the lines if you do it the same way. You might not need the cap shadow, or you might... I think you get what I'm saying. Every spiral staircase is its own thing.
I was going to annotate each one, but I can't seem to separate them now I've pasted them. If you have any questions just ask.
This work was from Beaumaris Castle. I didn't have Affinity back then, so every last bit of this staircase was worked in pixels rather than conveniently drawn as a nice editable polygon with a bit of gradient shading. So don't let the fact that this took me a while put you off. It probably wouldn't have taken more than a week of short work sessions to draw in Affinity Designer.
I realised this morning that, apart from highlights, shading etc, my spiral staircases, from a castle/historical POV, are incorrect. I believe traditionally such staircases were built to descend anti-clockwise, so a defenders right arm was free, whereas an attackers (ascending the stair) would be hampered by the central column... Your post above, which is really quite good BTW, serves to highlight that error among other things.
I think for my purposes, I'll re-draw the stairs which is a bit of a pain in the you-know-what, so they go in the right direction firstly (so the current UP will go down and vice-versa, then I'll change the fill to more or less match the tiles without the 'grid-lines'. I'll put some shadows in using shaded polys in CC3+. I saw a forum post where @Ralf did this and I might 'borrow' his technique and call them done.
As this project is intended to help Game Master's generate random dungeons for VTT and print, I don't think it needs to be 100% realistic, so long as it's clear which direction the stairs go and they look good.
I used to believe that too - about staircase rotation, but I've also seen many spiral stairs that are the 'wrong' way around. I guess it depends more on whether you are anticipating an invasion downwards from the roof, or upwards from the gound. Maybe the whole thing is just a myth, or maybe it is something we woke up to over time and only the later castles have them the 'right' way around.
If you make a shaded polygon staircase you can always export it to convert it to a bitmap symbol if you prefer it that way.
@Loopysue and some times a staircase is just a staircase, a means to get from one level to another. I think though it will be better to assume the people building downwards would want to make the rotation work in their favour for both attack & defence...
When my shipmates and I visited the castle on Palma, Majorca, we asked why the spiral stairs went the way up as to expose the sword arm ?
Someone working there said it was so that people attacking up the stairs couldn't use their shield very well, unless they rarely were left handed and held the shield in their left hand.
As with other things taken as "universal beliefs" by many (especially elsewhere on the Internet...), the spiral-staircase thing seems to have been a purely late Victorian/Edwardian speculative invention; see this usefully-referenced blog posting, for example.
A spiral staircase, going anti-clockwise up, and clockwise down, inside The Royal Château de Blois, in the Loire Valley, France. The Château has 564 rooms, a 100 which are bedrooms and 75 staircases. The residence of several French kings, it is also the place where Joan of Arc went in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her army to drive the English from Orléans.
Here's an update on the spiral stairs. Rather than messing about having double sheets to avoid pixel acne I've decided to just use a fill and draw polygons for the shadows and lines for the edges. Needs a bit of refinement particularly in regards to shadow widths and whatnot but it's looking ok. This is the up version.
@Quenten That is much larger than the one I saw. The one I walked up was barely wide enough for two people in regular clothes. In chain mail, with sword and shield, likely only one person could go up it with the next person behind them.
Looks as though we'll be coming out of lock down on the 11th Oct which means I'll be back at work, so I thought it best I remove the digit and get these finished...
Here is test in Roll20. As you can see, the JPEGs are picking up the border of the screen I drew. Is there any way to avoid this other than re-drawing the screen 1 snap away? If I change the background colour in Roll20 to the same as the screen I'm still going to have the same issue...
I’m talking about the yellow/white boarder around the tiles, it shouldn’t be there. I thought, given your experience, you may have had an idea. I think it will probably be easier to redraw the screen 1 snap further away so when I do the rectangular section export there’s no possibility of getting part of the screen.
Make sure you also move the corners of the background out 1 snap as well so that it protrudes beyond the extent.
If you are relying on the MAP BORDER layer to automatically crop the extent of the export, leave them exactly where they are, and turn them black, instead of the usual bright green.
Thanks @Loopysue , I've got one map file per tile type, Chambers w/- connectors - stairs & joining pieces, Passages & Starting Area's. I ended up doing as I posted above, drew guide rectangles 1 snap out over the top of my hand drawn screens then deleted the screens, worked a treat and wasn't really that onerous:
These are 3 starting areas just as a test in Roll20. I'm saving the VTT tiles at 100px per inch and the file name includes the size in inches, i.e 17x5, 7x5 & 9x9 respectively, so customers can easily re-size to suit their preferred VTT.
Ok, so a big part of this project is to create the tiles to be as universal as possible, by that I mean for use as either; a printed (and preferably laminated) 2d file for use at a face-to-face gaming table with actual miniatures, the same but for the 2.5D crafter GMs and of course finally for VTT whether online or via a projector/monitor, e.g. Maptools, Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds and so on.
Now for standard flat printing and VTT use what I've got in the above (less the black background for printing) is fine, however, it does create some issues for the 2.5D application. For those unfamiliar with 2.5D, the floor and wall textures are printed separately and glued to cardboard then cut-out and assembled to give a semi 3D appearance, hence 2.5D. As part of the package I'll be offering the wall and floor textures so 2.5d crafters can create their own tiles in whatever shape they desire. The only issue is that generally for 2.5D crafting, the wall texture is cut into strips 0.5" wide and the floor texture is cut with a 0.5" border, the wall is then lined up on the grid line which is great for the table top but not so great for VTT use. Many VTTs use line of sight lines which prevent the players seeing areas beyond walls and so on and a quick and neat way to do this is by snapping the line to the grid. Now, if you were to do that with a wall with the inside edge on the grid line, the players wouldn't see the wall texture. Thankfully, as you can see , CC3+ centers the wall on the grid line which is great for VTT but not so great for 2.5D - my solution is shown below. I'll offer strips of the 2.5D walls of the appropriate width for straight edges and the circular rooms & connectors without the floor. NB: I've got to fix the connector, the floor texture is off.
Comments
Oh, I forgot, well it was still dark outside, anyway. The castle was on Palma, Majorca in the Mediterranean. Most of it was pre-14th century with some parts older.
I found this virtual tour of one of the castles there, but I don't think this is the one I saw back in 1970. No stairs, just the various parts of the building.
Thanks Sue, I was thinking about that. Unfortunately, like an idiot, when I finished the tiles I exported the .png but didn’t save the Affinity file. I should be able to recreate it though. When you say shadows are you talking about the glow on the treads or more a general shadow?
If you want to make them tiled, make sure that they are rotated with the steps. If a spiral staircase is , it would be because it is made from large stones dropped into a stair formation, and those would follow the rotation of the steps, not the alignment of the floor above or below. Same goes if you make them from planks.
@jmabbott All the shadows.
Spiral staircases are notoriously difficult to draw because the shading is quite difficult to get right. I do remember spending absolutely ages getting this one to look right in GIMP (didn't have Affinity back then), and the image still doesn't seem to be working to perfection. However, since I spent all that time doing it and it kind of half way gets there I thought I would show you how I went about it. Maybe you will do yours differently and manage to hit the right mix.
These are the various bits and pieces layer by layer. You might not need them all, or you might need some of your own instead of some of these, but this is what mine is made up with. And you might need to soften or harden some of the lines if you do it the same way. You might not need the cap shadow, or you might... I think you get what I'm saying. Every spiral staircase is its own thing.
I was going to annotate each one, but I can't seem to separate them now I've pasted them. If you have any questions just ask.
This work was from Beaumaris Castle. I didn't have Affinity back then, so every last bit of this staircase was worked in pixels rather than conveniently drawn as a nice editable polygon with a bit of gradient shading. So don't let the fact that this took me a while put you off. It probably wouldn't have taken more than a week of short work sessions to draw in Affinity Designer.
Thanks @Loopysue ,
I realised this morning that, apart from highlights, shading etc, my spiral staircases, from a castle/historical POV, are incorrect. I believe traditionally such staircases were built to descend anti-clockwise, so a defenders right arm was free, whereas an attackers (ascending the stair) would be hampered by the central column... Your post above, which is really quite good BTW, serves to highlight that error among other things.
I think for my purposes, I'll re-draw the stairs which is a bit of a pain in the you-know-what, so they go in the right direction firstly (so the current UP will go down and vice-versa, then I'll change the fill to more or less match the tiles without the 'grid-lines'. I'll put some shadows in using shaded polys in CC3+. I saw a forum post where @Ralf did this and I might 'borrow' his technique and call them done.
As this project is intended to help Game Master's generate random dungeons for VTT and print, I don't think it needs to be 100% realistic, so long as it's clear which direction the stairs go and they look good.
I used to believe that too - about staircase rotation, but I've also seen many spiral stairs that are the 'wrong' way around. I guess it depends more on whether you are anticipating an invasion downwards from the roof, or upwards from the gound. Maybe the whole thing is just a myth, or maybe it is something we woke up to over time and only the later castles have them the 'right' way around.
If you make a shaded polygon staircase you can always export it to convert it to a bitmap symbol if you prefer it that way.
@Loopysue and some times a staircase is just a staircase, a means to get from one level to another. I think though it will be better to assume the people building downwards would want to make the rotation work in their favour for both attack & defence...
When my shipmates and I visited the castle on Palma, Majorca, we asked why the spiral stairs went the way up as to expose the sword arm ?
Someone working there said it was so that people attacking up the stairs couldn't use their shield very well, unless they rarely were left handed and held the shield in their left hand.
As with other things taken as "universal beliefs" by many (especially elsewhere on the Internet...), the spiral-staircase thing seems to have been a purely late Victorian/Edwardian speculative invention; see this usefully-referenced blog posting, for example.
Fascinating. The guy seemed pretty certain. Ah well, onward.
A spiral staircase, going anti-clockwise up, and clockwise down, inside The Royal Château de Blois, in the Loire Valley, France. The Château has 564 rooms, a 100 which are bedrooms and 75 staircases. The residence of several French kings, it is also the place where Joan of Arc went in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her army to drive the English from Orléans.
Hi ya Folks,
Here's an update on the spiral stairs. Rather than messing about having double sheets to avoid pixel acne I've decided to just use a fill and draw polygons for the shadows and lines for the edges. Needs a bit of refinement particularly in regards to shadow widths and whatnot but it's looking ok. This is the up version.
@Quenten That is much larger than the one I saw. The one I walked up was barely wide enough for two people in regular clothes. In chain mail, with sword and shield, likely only one person could go up it with the next person behind them.
Hi Ya folks,
Looks as though we'll be coming out of lock down on the 11th Oct which means I'll be back at work, so I thought it best I remove the digit and get these finished...
Here is test in Roll20. As you can see, the JPEGs are picking up the border of the screen I drew. Is there any way to avoid this other than re-drawing the screen 1 snap away? If I change the background colour in Roll20 to the same as the screen I'm still going to have the same issue...
@Quenten Any suggestions re getting a clean edge mate?
@jmabbott Not sure what you are getting at, nor why me - I am FAR from an expert.
I’m talking about the yellow/white boarder around the tiles, it shouldn’t be there. I thought, given your experience, you may have had an idea. I think it will probably be easier to redraw the screen 1 snap further away so when I do the rectangular section export there’s no possibility of getting part of the screen.
Make sure you also move the corners of the background out 1 snap as well so that it protrudes beyond the extent.
If you are relying on the MAP BORDER layer to automatically crop the extent of the export, leave them exactly where they are, and turn them black, instead of the usual bright green.
Thanks @Loopysue , I've got one map file per tile type, Chambers w/- connectors - stairs & joining pieces, Passages & Starting Area's. I ended up doing as I posted above, drew guide rectangles 1 snap out over the top of my hand drawn screens then deleted the screens, worked a treat and wasn't really that onerous:
These are 3 starting areas just as a test in Roll20. I'm saving the VTT tiles at 100px per inch and the file name includes the size in inches, i.e 17x5, 7x5 & 9x9 respectively, so customers can easily re-size to suit their preferred VTT.
Ok, so a big part of this project is to create the tiles to be as universal as possible, by that I mean for use as either; a printed (and preferably laminated) 2d file for use at a face-to-face gaming table with actual miniatures, the same but for the 2.5D crafter GMs and of course finally for VTT whether online or via a projector/monitor, e.g. Maptools, Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds and so on.
Now for standard flat printing and VTT use what I've got in the above (less the black background for printing) is fine, however, it does create some issues for the 2.5D application. For those unfamiliar with 2.5D, the floor and wall textures are printed separately and glued to cardboard then cut-out and assembled to give a semi 3D appearance, hence 2.5D. As part of the package I'll be offering the wall and floor textures so 2.5d crafters can create their own tiles in whatever shape they desire. The only issue is that generally for 2.5D crafting, the wall texture is cut into strips 0.5" wide and the floor texture is cut with a 0.5" border, the wall is then lined up on the grid line which is great for the table top but not so great for VTT use. Many VTTs use line of sight lines which prevent the players seeing areas beyond walls and so on and a quick and neat way to do this is by snapping the line to the grid. Now, if you were to do that with a wall with the inside edge on the grid line, the players wouldn't see the wall texture. Thankfully, as you can see , CC3+ centers the wall on the grid line which is great for VTT but not so great for 2.5D - my solution is shown below. I'll offer strips of the 2.5D walls of the appropriate width for straight edges and the circular rooms & connectors without the floor. NB: I've got to fix the connector, the floor texture is off.
Thoughts?