vari-color fog/clouds ?

JimP

I am definately not an artist...

I was wondering if anyone has vari-color clopuds and/or fog in the works ?

That would help with some dungeons I'm working on. The Annual Issue 99 Alyssa Faden works for white/gray clouds/fog, but not otherwise. I know I could wangle tyhem around and make the vari-color... but I think it would be great if there were some vari-color ones made from scratch.

Loopysue

You can make a very good fog by adding a sheet with a huge blur effect on it, and then drawing simple lines on it till you have the required fog shape and extent. That way you can have any colour fog you want

It really doesn't take much artistic skill - just a straight line in most cases.

Works best with a blur effect that is at least as large as the line width - eg if the line width is 10 units, set the blur effect to be at least 10 units, preferably slightly more.

Loopysue

An adaptation of this is to use one of these two textures:

[Image_7210]

FOG_White

[Image_7211]

FOG_Black

On a sheet with a large enough blur effect to loose the detail, so that you end up with something like this smoke plume from Merelan City:

[Image_7212]

The smoke stack is on two sheets. The black smoke is FOG_Black on a sheet below the white smoke, which is FOG_White. Both sheets have the same blur effect. I haven't used any fancy drawing techniques. These polygons are totally basic in shape - a couple of splodge shapes - like the clouds in a child's drawing. It is the transparency of the textures that allows the black fog to show through the white fog in that curly way that smoke has about it.

Incidentally - the seaweed in this extract is FOG_Black, but its placed on a sheet with the very tiniest amount of Edge Fade Innner, and an RGB Matrix Process effect that turns the black reddish brown.

Both these textures are ones that I created myself in Corel Photopaint. They are free to use, but not for resale - in other words you can do what you like with them, except sell them on as textures in their own right. Incorporating them in maps for sale is perfectly fine by me.

Loopysue

Incidentally I recently discovered that you could hand draw totally perfect seamless tiles with or without transparency in Krita - a free piece of software that's like a more user-friendly and painterly version of GIMP.

Just saying that here while I remember to tell people about it. You could very easily create your own perfectly seamless swirly scribble thing like those I've uploaded above in about 5 minutes flat - by just scribbling in circles on a single transparent layer

Wyvern

Actually, you may not even need to draw your own patterns, depending on exactly what size and shape of fog/mist/cloud you need. I know I managed to get a nice misty patch of fog just using a small group of the "Handdrawn" Fog symbols from Symbol Set 1, setting the symbol patches up on their own sheet with a strong blur effect, just as Loopysue said. Those symbols are particularly useful because they come in three variants, Filled, Varifilled and Hollow, with the latter two options meaning you can change both fill and line colours separately, if you wish. I know you're somewhat "Effects-averse" Jim, but fog/mist is an element where such things really can help.

JimP

I'm not averse to effects... they do things I didn't plan on.

And this would be for isometric maps, not overhead. But I may be able to figure that out. Punt ! :-)

CharlesWayneRobinson

Dracula's Dossier has a nice White Fog that I used for the Shrouded Isles.
DD3 Color also has a nice Green Fox that I have been toying with.
SS2 Bitmap A also has a greyish fog.

That only gives white, green, and grey.
A variable color Fog would be nice.

You could probably use any color poly with edge fade and transparency to create fog affect as well.

Gathar

Posted By: LoopysueIncidentally I recently discovered that you could hand draw totally perfect seamless tiles with or without transparency in Krita - a free piece of software that's like a more user-friendly and painterly version of GIMP.

Hello Sue, I'm glad that you tried Krita, as I suggested you might. How do you find it up to now?
I've tried to use it myself a little bit, but my lack of artistic talent shows a lot more with such a tool than in CC... But I think you might do quite well with it!

Loopysue

At the risk of further distending Jim's thread in a sideways direction (I'm sorry Jim!) I haven't really used it for very much because I've been doing a lot of actual sketching with pencil on paper in response to a sort of friendly unofficial challenge over at the Guild. I'm colouring that in GIMP when I've finished it, but I don't like the way that either GIMP or Krita deal with text. That is already to me the biggest drawback in using software that was never designed to create a map. I'm also trying to work out if I can afford a small Wacom tablet, and whether it would be worth the outlay, although it would certainly help me draw better mountains and make new symbols.

I could start a thread about all this stuff, but I'm not sure that its really very relevant to the PF forum, and might even confuse some of the newer users. That's why I've gone a bit quiet just lately - but I am here - watching and diving in every now and then

EDIT: I am however, seriously impressed with the texture making facility in Krita

JimP

No problem... thread drift happens.

JimP

I have instaleld Krita, I'll see what I can do with it when I have time.

Loopysue

Just a note of warning about the way Krita works, Jim. I've discovered the hard way that if you give it too much to chew on (like a massive image and several layers) it freezes up, and then all you can do is CTRL+ALT+DEL (Task Manager), and close it down without saving.

Other than that it works well

JimP

Okay, but I'm not an elaborate drawer. Too many details can confuse me.