Best approaches for tree shadows?
I am working on a wizard's tower, and I am focusing right now on the exterior landscaping. I'm using Creepy Crypts as the base, supplemented with fills from Beaumaris Castle and supplemental symbols from a variety of other sources.
For the trees, I really like the Forest Trails approach where the trees, stumps, and tree shadows are all on separate sheets, so you can have a battle map showing the tree trunks and shadows showing the tree's canopy. I have been able to replicate that approach with Mike Schley's symbols by copying the trees to a TREE SHADOW sheet and then adding two effects: the RGB Matrix Process to turn the tree to grayscale, and then Transparency to make it half-transparent. That doesn't appear to work with symbols from other sets, however.
I'd like to use trees from CA141 Japanese Temple because they are the most exotic, and because they're the only ones I've found in a complimentary style that includes varicolor fruit trees. I want to have an exotic garden on one side of the tower (Japanese cherry, maple, and palm trees), and then a small orchard on the other side with the varicolor fruit trees. I'm trying all sorts of combinations of sheet effects to create shadows of the trees, but I'm not having much luck.
Here's what the the garden side looks like:
Here's what it looks like with the VEGETATION - TREES layer hidden, so the stumps and shadows are still visible (some of those shadows actually make the terrain look lighter, not darker):
And here's what it looks like with just the shadows and stumps (and some ivy that crept in):
The sheet effects I'm trying to use aren't quite succeeding in making it grayscale. Here's a screencap of the sheet effects I'm trying to use (FCW to follow):
As you can see, I'm throwing a ton of effects against the wall to see what sticks. I've tried tinkering with the settings for each, and turning various combinations on and off, without quite getting the effect I was hoping for.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what I could do differently to have tree shadows on a separate sheet from the trees for battle map purposes? Here's the FCW:
Thank you!
Comments
It's an interesting idea, but the reason it's not responding to some of the sheet effects is because you are using symbols instead of polygons.
To best copy the Forest Trail tree shadows, instead of using copies of the trees on the tree shadow sheet, trace the rough outline of each tree with a black polygon on that sheet. Then use the same sheet effects as are used in Forest Trail for the tree shadows. I think that was a blur and a blend mode. Blur to soften the edges, and a Blend Mode set to Multiply, and about 20-30 percent. Adjust to taste.
Ahhhh, okay. I knew many of the sheet effects don't work with bitmap symbols but I was hoping there was a combo that would. Okay, I'll create polygons once I've "planted" all of my trees. I'll check out the sheet effects on Forest Trails for guidance. Thank you!
You can get an idea of how roughly I traced them if you hide the trees and turn off the sheet effects. Then you will see the black polys I drew.
Yup, did that and also experimented by copying over the sheet effect and drawing some test polygon shadows around the trees. Works like a charm! Just have to finish placing all of my trees first.
The nice thing about using solid black polygons and using sheet effects other than Transparency is that you don't get weird extra dark portions when shadows overlap like you do with overlapping Wall Shadows. (I live in hope that CC4 somehow addresses the effect of overlapping Wall Shadows.)
I can't tell you how CC4 will do things, as I'm only involved with the DD4 art assets, but in my opinion it would be reasonable to suspect that what works in CC3 will also work in CC4 - whatever else it may do.