@Dkarr: Thank you. I figured since I was using Herwin Weilink's style in perspectives that his ship would go well with the art style. I think it did, though with adding my own roof bitmap to the house, that kind of broke that aesthetic. I will have to be more conscious of that going forward.
@Shessar: Thanks. I'm actually planning on learning to do whole cities with this. One of the things that is making me have a hard time with this is trying to draw and extrude my own houses. I want to be able to make the houses roofs look a little different. And I want to make things like buttresses that can go on the sides of buildings, so maybe we could draw a cathedral or a Japanese castle or something like that. But I think to do it would require us to figure out what shapes to draw, then turn them into individual 3d extruded pieces. That is why I haven't really been posting much. I've been working on that instead of dungeons.
@Dogtag: Thanks. You know, I'm not really sure about how shadows are supposed to occur with houses in this new program. I'm thinking we are probably going to be left to put them in ourselves because I think it would be too hard for them to shadow something that can change shape so easily compared to the symbols that they usually put shadows on and only change scale, not shape.
I'm glad you like the bridge idea. I was making rivers the other day and made one too large, put a bridge on it, and it stuck out like a pier so I left it. Now it will become part of how I make maps if I need a bridge. I also tried with the wooden sqares that have no rails. Those are great for making wide piers and things like that. But because it is perspective, you have to build it from top down if you want it to look right. sometimes, that can mean trying to guess where to put the pieces. It makes for great fun if you like doing puzzles :P
Well, I've been having a bit of trouble with the explanation on how to create a wall shearing symbol. I don't seem to be able to get it to work, even though I wrote down the directions and followed them word for word. Though I do admit, where it says " Check 'Perspectives Wall Symbol (Sheared)' from the General Options and set the symbol to automatically select the 'Symbols Walls* sheet.' it gets a little bit hard as there is no box to check that says it will set the symbol walls* sheet to be automatically selected...Or are you talking about writing that in the area called " Force Sheet" ?
Hmm, It still doesn't work. I wonder what I am doing wrong?
Here's the FCW if you want to look it over. Note that the wall that has the flat Egyptian symbol is the wall I am trying to get it to shear to but it just stays flat.
Unfortunately, I can't see the imagery, since I don't have the artwork you have used.
But if you are talking about the big 'Egyptian wall' symbol, there is really nothing Perspective about it at all. It doesn't have the symbol options set, the origin of the symbol is wrong (It is set to middle left), and it doesn't have control points at all.
Note that if you are editing these things in a symbol catalog, you must purge the symbol definition from the map before using a new version, as if a symbol already exists in a map, CC3 will use the symbol definition already in the map, so edits in a symbol catalog won't be taken into account. To purge a symbol definition from a map, simply open up the symbol manager and delete the symbol.
Yup. I was talking about the egyptian symbol. It is weird that it isn't a perspective wall shearing symbol as I followed your instructions to the letter on this. I guess I'll have to get a new image of this and try again. Thank you.
I haven't had much time to play lately, but I've been experimenting with making curtains. I've now looked at this long enough that I can no longer tell if it looks right. I need your eyes to tell me if anything looks 'wrong'. Thanks!
First, I find it really pretty! There are some tiny details that I think might be improved, but this is just because I spent too much time looking at this picture, I don't think it would matter much in-situ. - The bottom of the curtain is too smooth, and does not follow the shape hinted at by the shadow - The side of the curtains does not seem to be made out of a straight cut of cloth either - How is the bar at the top supposed to be fixed to the wall? Especially with the shadow, it might look like it's floating magically - For the bar, the light seems to be coming from top-right, for the shadow on the curtain, about the same direction, but the shadow from the curtain on the wall goes in the opposite direction - I like the way the glass is on the left side, not so much on the right side. But then it depends on the role of the middle bar. If it's just something inside to strengthen the structure, it's logical, but if it's crossing the window and the glass is embedded inside it on both side, just like two smaller windows next to each others, then I think the right side texture position should be adjusted so that the diamond shape start exactly on the bar.
When someone asked for a diagram of one of our data center cages I was able to put this together in about 30 minutes. Nothing fancy but it's functional.
There is an old thread here where people mentioned what uses they had put the maping software to other than fantasy/sf maps. Office designs was one of them.
Comments
@Shessar: Thanks. I'm actually planning on learning to do whole cities with this. One of the things that is making me have a hard time with this is trying to draw and extrude my own houses. I want to be able to make the houses roofs look a little different. And I want to make things like buttresses that can go on the sides of buildings, so maybe we could draw a cathedral or a Japanese castle or something like that. But I think to do it would require us to figure out what shapes to draw, then turn them into individual 3d extruded pieces. That is why I haven't really been posting much. I've been working on that instead of dungeons.
@Dogtag: Thanks. You know, I'm not really sure about how shadows are supposed to occur with houses in this new program. I'm thinking we are probably going to be left to put them in ourselves because I think it would be too hard for them to shadow something that can change shape so easily compared to the symbols that they usually put shadows on and only change scale, not shape.
I'm glad you like the bridge idea. I was making rivers the other day and made one too large, put a bridge on it, and it stuck out like a pier so I left it. Now it will become part of how I make maps if I need a bridge. I also tried with the wooden sqares that have no rails. Those are great for making wide piers and things like that. But because it is perspective, you have to build it from top down if you want it to look right. sometimes, that can mean trying to guess where to put the pieces. It makes for great fun if you like doing puzzles :P
Here's the FCW if you want to look it over. Note that the wall that has the flat Egyptian symbol is the wall I am trying to get it to shear to but it just stays flat.
But if you are talking about the big 'Egyptian wall' symbol, there is really nothing Perspective about it at all. It doesn't have the symbol options set, the origin of the symbol is wrong (It is set to middle left), and it doesn't have control points at all.
Note that if you are editing these things in a symbol catalog, you must purge the symbol definition from the map before using a new version, as if a symbol already exists in a map, CC3 will use the symbol definition already in the map, so edits in a symbol catalog won't be taken into account. To purge a symbol definition from a map, simply open up the symbol manager and delete the symbol.
- The bottom of the curtain is too smooth, and does not follow the shape hinted at by the shadow
- The side of the curtains does not seem to be made out of a straight cut of cloth either
- How is the bar at the top supposed to be fixed to the wall? Especially with the shadow, it might look like it's floating magically
- For the bar, the light seems to be coming from top-right, for the shadow on the curtain, about the same direction, but the shadow from the curtain on the wall goes in the opposite direction
- I like the way the glass is on the left side, not so much on the right side. But then it depends on the role of the middle bar. If it's just something inside to strengthen the structure, it's logical, but if it's crossing the window and the glass is embedded inside it on both side, just like two smaller windows next to each others, then I think the right side texture position should be adjusted so that the diamond shape start exactly on the bar.
@Gathar, Thank you! You have a good eye for detail. This is exactly the sort of input I needed.
When someone asked for a diagram of one of our data center cages I was able to put this together in about 30 minutes. Nothing fancy but it's functional.