WIP Mad Wizard's Tower based on an adventure by MT Black
Bruce Pilcher
Traveler
This is the current project I am working on.
I found a mirror that I used on the third floor. The description of the room includes the mirror and several framed paintings. I found some open source oil paintings. I used GIMP to alter the perspective of the oil paining images so that they fit into the frame for the mirror.
Bruce
Comments
You may want to post some images in addition to those .fcw's. While .fcw's can be great to have available, people can only see them properly if they have all the same fonts and add-ons installed as you used in the drawings. And when you use custom artwork you made (or modified) yourself like on the third floor, nobody but you will have access to that, everybody else will only get some big red X's showing up when they open it. Sometimes people also read the forum from a machine where they don't have CC3+ installed, like on their phone.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Note that if you use the image function instead of the attach function when uploading them, you can also get the images to show directly in the forum post.
Look at that! Now everyone can see my lovely mirror and framed pictures. I realize that they aren't actually the correct perspective. For this style of map the pictures and mirror should be just the top surface of the frame but I think it looks ok and is easier for a viewer to identify what those objects are. There are no windows on this level of the tower. They aren't mentioned in the description of the published adventure. I may add some anyway as I think there should be windows.
Anyway this is a work in progress and any feed back is appreciated.
Bruce
Looks like a good start there, Bruce :)
Do you have your sheet effects turned on?
I like how you managed to get us to see the art on the wall.
I am thinking I see two sets of stairs. I can't really tell from the symbols. If I am right, then I suggest either different symbols or find some way to indicate which stairs go up and which one's go down.
The ends of the wooden walls overlap a bit with the stone. I don't know if you intend that or not. I'm assuming you are drawing on a grid and it is just snapping to a point on the grid.
Other than that, just add some sheet effects and it will look really nice.
Really love what you have done to show that artwork and mirror. I think it looks great! Are those images that you found that show in that perspective?
I am no expert so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.
The rugs, do they serve a purpose, or just filling up space? It feels like there are an abundance of rugs that could be better used elsewhere, unless this mage really likes rugs! The other rooms seem really bare so maybe if there was more furniture in the rooms it might give more purpose to the rooms and the rugs might not look like they have just been placed for the sake of filling in blank space. If the purpose of this floor is really the mirror room, then could consider removing rooms, and make that a larger area?
Scale bars also do wonders. They allow your viewer or audience to visualise size and space! :)
Looking forward to how this progresses.
Hi All:
Thanks for your responses and feedback.
No I don't have sheet effects turned on. I have seen a few videos and read a couple of articles on sheet effects but I am not sure what I am doing with them. I am going to wait until I have populated all 5 floors of the tower then experiment with sheet effects. Is there a sheet effect I can use to make everything look very dusty?
The art was a bit of work. I found the mirror as shown and used it as found. I then found three images of oil paintings. I opened the mirror in GIMP. I opened one of the oil painting images as a new layer. I used the perspective tool on the oil painting image until it fit in the frame covering the mirror. I am not an experienced or knowledgeable GIMP user but I managed to do what I wanted fairly easily and quickly.
Stairs: Hum! What to say about the stairs. I thought that the stairs having one end darker than the other end indicated which end of the stairs is down. Well at least one person didn't get that so I will have to address that issue. I am not really happy with the stairs at this point. I liked them when I put them in but not so much now. As has been said before WIP.
I fixed the ends of the wooden walls by playing with putting the selected object to the back. I think that is what I used. Anyway I have addressed that on the 2nd floor. I think I will need to go back and fix that on all the floors.
Rugs: Mostly just filling up space. That being said I just plopped them down as I laid out the walls. I am now going through the printed description of each room one-by-one and adding details as presented in the published adventure. The second room I have now finished the description states that there is a crimson carpet. I found a carpet in one of my symbol catalogs and fooled around in GIMP a bit and managed to change some blues to crimson. At one point that carpet wasn't beneath the desk and book case but I fixed that. The next room is now empty. That is the way the room is described in the published adventure. There is an invisible chest in the room but as it is invisible I haven't added it.
I think this floor now matches the description I am working from. A few things to fix up. I won't be able to work on it for a while. real life is about to interfere with fun time.
Thanks for all the feedback and help!
Bruce
Hi Bruce, thanks for sharing your technique for the pictures! They definitely came out really well. Very impressed. :)
Sorry, I also just noticed the satairs seem to cover the access to the doors, especially on the stairs to the right.
Is it possible to use sheet effects to make everything look dusty?
Bruce
I'm having trouble envisaging what you mean by dusty.
There's no 'dust and scratch' filter, if that's what you mean, but you could place a suitable image over the map and use a Blend mode sheet effect perhaps?
Best to turn on sheet effects and see how it all looks with the built in effects that come with the style, maybe play around editing some of them to get more familiar with how they all work.