Wyvern - they can be whatever you want them to be. So far, on the FB page, I've had parasols, gourds, and cupcakes! Heheheee! That last one made me feel seriously hungry. I had to take a break and go out and get some cake!
Lorelei - Mapper's block?!! No! Not you! :O
The next annual is the other half of the Japanese set - all the village/town buildings - though they could be used for most Eastern Asian style settlements. I did too many for a single annual you see (nearly 100 symbols in all, and way over the usual size in MB).
These domes are part of an additional 'allsorts' set of temple related objects sparked by ideas and suggestions that came out of the Japanese Temple set. Its a third set, but not an actual annual - temple bits from around the rest of the world - Russian Orthodox domes, Mosque and Synagogue domes, giant Hindu statues - that sort of thing. There are a couple more complete buildings planned as well, but they aren't on the scale of the Japanese temples - just a handful of single buildings representing other interesting architectural forms. I really love the Chinese Buddhist temples. I'm just hoping that my actual drawing skills are up to doing all those massively complicated roof sculptures - dragons and phoenix, and so on. And the colours... well, this is turning into one of the gaudiest sets I've ever seen, but that means I'm right at home with it :P
I just noticed they all have gold caps.... what about a few other caps (silver, copper, metal, etc) as stand alons symbols that could be used to place on top of the gold cap for making even more variety in the domes?
By rights they should all have a whopping great big gold cross on them, complete with at least four stays (complete with decorative ball-balls) to hold them up in a wind, since they are all based on the domes of St Basil's Cathedral. The trouble with sticky-outy-pointy bits on a building like that is that its almost impossible to make them look like they are sticky-outy-pointy bits without drawing some very definite internal shadows, and that tends to ruin the symbol for rotation - so yes, there will be a set of inter-changeable finials
So far I've got these on my list of additional finial symbols: giant cross, sickle moon, simple ball... and then there are the more complicated arrangements with flower-like bases, though I'm not really sure about how to make them easily interchangeable since every dome is a different colour. Varicolour finial decorations, I suppose.
Oops! I forgot to upload a screen shot I did yesterday of the first few tiled domes.
Never mind. Here are the second batch of tiled domes. I'm not sure whether these are metal tiles, or what, but I've tried to get them reasonably close to the photo.
Well if the St Basil's domes have been likened to beach umbrellas and these are eyes, I'm not sure what to call this collection anymore. It was meant to be a second temples set, or "Temples II", but the domes have kind of taken over. Most temples seem to have large, extravagant and totally unnecessary roof adornments, and they usually have some kind of dome or spire. So to keep the set small enough to download, yet include as much variety as possible, I'm having to make just the bits that aren't readily available, and which are difficult and costly on resources if you make them from shaded polys.
So it looks like I will have to leave the actual building work to all of you, but I hope that people will see that as part of the fun of making a dungeon map. For cities they can just be plonked down on standard building symbols, or buildings created using the House command. Although it doesn't look like it where I've shown them in isolation for the most part, I have tried to make them and their fills harmonise with the existing CD3 fills where I can.
As I understand it, Jim, a building set of bits of buildings was tried some time ago and never really took off. Most people, it seems, prefer whole buildings ready-made. The unfortunate thing about temples is that they are generally speaking a whole lot bigger than your average house, so the resulting symbol would be simply massive, and come in sets of maybe 5-10 buildings at most.
To illustrate what I mean, each of these domes are over 4000 pixels across and if they were imported at 40 pixels per unit at default city scale would appear roughly 80-90 feet across. They are about the same size as the largest city symbols already, so making the building that goes underneath them (for example the entirety of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, which is actually on the small side for a cathedral) would mean a symbol that is well over 15,000 pixels wide - using the domes at the scale that they are. And that is just ridiculously gigantic.
I am aware that they are far too large for purpose if they were only intended to ever be used to build and rebuild St Basil's over and over again, but they are of an ample size to be used as far more impressive fantasy temple adornments - all things in fantasy being generally larger and more fantastical than reality.
I could have shrunk them down to less than half that size, but then, if you wanted to make a really gigantic dome in a fantasy city map, they would pixelate on you if you tried to enlarge them to a suitable size, so it seemed like a waste of time to make them that way. These are very large symbols, and will be imported at 100 pixels per map unit (dungeon map scale) to appear as normal sized on a city map. This will make them perfectly usable in your average city map if you just want normal sized domes, while at the same time it will be possible to enlarge them to 2.5 times that size without any degradation of quality in comparison to other city symbols, simply because they are in essence dungeon symbols.
I have a feeling that was a very roundabout way of explaining what I'm trying to do, but in essence I'm making symbols that are dungeon symbols so that they can be used in either dungeon or city maps to equal effect.
Some of the less textured domes, like the transparent domes and the St Basil's domes can be used much larger than that, since the less fine details there are on a dome the larger it can go before it starts to look ridiculously pixelated.
Temples overall just seem to be large and extravagant, unfortunately. Maybe call Set II "Temple Domes" instead, unless you're planning on more types, of course
I could do a full set of only domes, but I am also working on a couple of other things in the same set that are nothing to do with domes. These are dragon and phoenix sculptures to go on a Chinese temple roof that I am also making, and giant statues of Buddha, Shiva, and Durga (that's the many armed Hindu Goddess - wife to Shiva). Giant statue temples already exist in the real world, so to not include them in the second temple set would leave it strangely incomplete.
I think about this nearly every day, and I do wonder if it wouldn't be better to do two sets to be sure of being able to include everything, but if it can be adequately done as a single set that would be better than littering the place with numerous different sets of similar things.
Those sculptures sound wonderful, Sue, and with at least as many non-temple mapping applications as your domes, I'd say. I'd be tempted to think of a "Temple Statuary" set as separate from the Domes/Rooftops project, just so you don't end up having to compromise too much on what each (part of the) set(s) can contain.
Uh. That‘s going to become really impressive. A long way gone, but now it really blowes the eyes. I see a Ninja or Monk sneaking along the roofs, climbing up the floors, his task in his mind...
Now that would be a sight, since its based on a very real Russian Orthodox church, but everything to do with Profantasy is about fantasy mapping in all its various shades, so like the domes of St Basil's/beach umbrellas, they can be whatever you want them to be
But here is one of the reasons - a half finished roof sculpture to go on top of the Chinese temples in the second temple set
(Still to do: Statues of Durga, Shiva, Buddha... if I feel brave enough because tbh my figure drawing was always my weakest point... and a couple of actual buildings)
Comments
Wyvern - they can be whatever you want them to be. So far, on the FB page, I've had parasols, gourds, and cupcakes! Heheheee! That last one made me feel seriously hungry. I had to take a break and go out and get some cake!
Lorelei - Mapper's block?!! No! Not you! :O
The next annual is the other half of the Japanese set - all the village/town buildings - though they could be used for most Eastern Asian style settlements. I did too many for a single annual you see (nearly 100 symbols in all, and way over the usual size in MB).
These domes are part of an additional 'allsorts' set of temple related objects sparked by ideas and suggestions that came out of the Japanese Temple set. Its a third set, but not an actual annual - temple bits from around the rest of the world - Russian Orthodox domes, Mosque and Synagogue domes, giant Hindu statues - that sort of thing. There are a couple more complete buildings planned as well, but they aren't on the scale of the Japanese temples - just a handful of single buildings representing other interesting architectural forms. I really love the Chinese Buddhist temples. I'm just hoping that my actual drawing skills are up to doing all those massively complicated roof sculptures - dragons and phoenix, and so on. And the colours... well, this is turning into one of the gaudiest sets I've ever seen, but that means I'm right at home with it :P
So far I've got these on my list of additional finial symbols: giant cross, sickle moon, simple ball... and then there are the more complicated arrangements with flower-like bases, though I'm not really sure about how to make them easily interchangeable since every dome is a different colour. Varicolour finial decorations, I suppose.
And thank you also for the complement
Don't pay any attention to old boring me.
Anyway several people around here turn out most excellet maps !
Never mind. Here are the second batch of tiled domes. I'm not sure whether these are metal tiles, or what, but I've tried to get them reasonably close to the photo.
But if not, just say so and I'll take it down
Weirdly, the top-down view looks like a multi-eyed creature staring up
Well if the St Basil's domes have been likened to beach umbrellas and these are eyes, I'm not sure what to call this collection anymore. It was meant to be a second temples set, or "Temples II", but the domes have kind of taken over. Most temples seem to have large, extravagant and totally unnecessary roof adornments, and they usually have some kind of dome or spire. So to keep the set small enough to download, yet include as much variety as possible, I'm having to make just the bits that aren't readily available, and which are difficult and costly on resources if you make them from shaded polys.
So it looks like I will have to leave the actual building work to all of you, but I hope that people will see that as part of the fun of making a dungeon map. For cities they can just be plonked down on standard building symbols, or buildings created using the House command. Although it doesn't look like it where I've shown them in isolation for the most part, I have tried to make them and their fills harmonise with the existing CD3 fills where I can.
Say, the ability to add a dome to a dungeon floor ? Or a small rectangular building with 1 or 2 domes on it ?
My players don't like surprises, but I do like to surprise them.
To illustrate what I mean, each of these domes are over 4000 pixels across and if they were imported at 40 pixels per unit at default city scale would appear roughly 80-90 feet across. They are about the same size as the largest city symbols already, so making the building that goes underneath them (for example the entirety of St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, which is actually on the small side for a cathedral) would mean a symbol that is well over 15,000 pixels wide - using the domes at the scale that they are. And that is just ridiculously gigantic.
I am aware that they are far too large for purpose if they were only intended to ever be used to build and rebuild St Basil's over and over again, but they are of an ample size to be used as far more impressive fantasy temple adornments - all things in fantasy being generally larger and more fantastical than reality.
I could have shrunk them down to less than half that size, but then, if you wanted to make a really gigantic dome in a fantasy city map, they would pixelate on you if you tried to enlarge them to a suitable size, so it seemed like a waste of time to make them that way. These are very large symbols, and will be imported at 100 pixels per map unit (dungeon map scale) to appear as normal sized on a city map. This will make them perfectly usable in your average city map if you just want normal sized domes, while at the same time it will be possible to enlarge them to 2.5 times that size without any degradation of quality in comparison to other city symbols, simply because they are in essence dungeon symbols.
I have a feeling that was a very roundabout way of explaining what I'm trying to do, but in essence I'm making symbols that are dungeon symbols so that they can be used in either dungeon or city maps to equal effect.
Some of the less textured domes, like the transparent domes and the St Basil's domes can be used much larger than that, since the less fine details there are on a dome the larger it can go before it starts to look ridiculously pixelated.
I think about this nearly every day, and I do wonder if it wouldn't be better to do two sets to be sure of being able to include everything, but if it can be adequately done as a single set that would be better than littering the place with numerous different sets of similar things.
Sorry Ralf!
Great work, please continue :-)
Now that would be a sight, since its based on a very real Russian Orthodox church, but everything to do with Profantasy is about fantasy mapping in all its various shades, so like the domes of St Basil's/beach umbrellas, they can be whatever you want them to be
But here is one of the reasons - a half finished roof sculpture to go on top of the Chinese temples in the second temple set
(Still to do: Statues of Durga, Shiva, Buddha... if I feel brave enough because tbh my figure drawing was always my weakest point... and a couple of actual buildings)
I try my best.