Help using CD3 with Bitmap B style
Hello!
I'm new to this forum and still very inexperienced with CC3 and CD3. I'm hoping to get some help working with Effects on a map I'm making for my campaign. I am using CD3 with the Bitmap B drawing style, as the symbol sets seemed to fit my needs most
Now, this is still very basic and I've only added some of the key buildings. More will come and then I will fill out the rest with the more irrelevant houses - primarily hovels and huts. I wan't the town to lay sprawled on the steep sides of the hills - with many old stone stairs winding their way through the stone houses - I might need to create some new symbols for this, or alter some existing (if anyone has something relevant lying around...).
But, what I seek help for is:
1) The ground and especially the contours. Even with all effects applied, the ground through all the contours look very ... crunchy. Does anyone have any tips on effects or anything similar I can apply to the ground layers to make them prettier? Perhaps blend a bit into each other but primarily look less "Bitmappy"?
2) The river. Canon-wise, the river is filled with iron from the rocks beneath the hills, so it has a natural rusty-red hue, and the banks along the river should be very coloured. I have however been unable to make even the slightest advance into making this effect. I can't even seem to change the colour of the river to red - but of course ideally I would like it to be blue, but with a rusty hue and rusty banks. Can anyone help me?
I hope someone can share their wisdom and shed some light on this. I am looking forward to reading your proposals
And thank you all in advance.
- Dan
I'm new to this forum and still very inexperienced with CC3 and CD3. I'm hoping to get some help working with Effects on a map I'm making for my campaign. I am using CD3 with the Bitmap B drawing style, as the symbol sets seemed to fit my needs most
Now, this is still very basic and I've only added some of the key buildings. More will come and then I will fill out the rest with the more irrelevant houses - primarily hovels and huts. I wan't the town to lay sprawled on the steep sides of the hills - with many old stone stairs winding their way through the stone houses - I might need to create some new symbols for this, or alter some existing (if anyone has something relevant lying around...).
But, what I seek help for is:
1) The ground and especially the contours. Even with all effects applied, the ground through all the contours look very ... crunchy. Does anyone have any tips on effects or anything similar I can apply to the ground layers to make them prettier? Perhaps blend a bit into each other but primarily look less "Bitmappy"?
2) The river. Canon-wise, the river is filled with iron from the rocks beneath the hills, so it has a natural rusty-red hue, and the banks along the river should be very coloured. I have however been unable to make even the slightest advance into making this effect. I can't even seem to change the colour of the river to red - but of course ideally I would like it to be blue, but with a rusty hue and rusty banks. Can anyone help me?
I hope someone can share their wisdom and shed some light on this. I am looking forward to reading your proposals
And thank you all in advance.- Dan
Comments
Any ideas on the tight, on-top-of-each-other huts and hovels?
I'm thinking like a greek mountain village combined with celtic iron age settlements. I'm just unsure how to give the impression of houses stacked on top of each other with tight and hidden alleyways inbetween- especially without having to make new symbols.
But gonna give it a try tomorrow.
- Dan
- Dan
JSM
You might want to consider doing multiple maps. Use this as your main, "regional" map. You can then make separate maps for each of the more important or relevant clusters of buildings. At the slightly larger scale, it will be easier to show alleys and such.
You can even link the "sub-maps" to the regional map and back. The online help can explain how to make the hyperlinks better than I can, once you have the maps made (or at least the files saved). One trick, though, is that for the sub-maps, you might want to pick something like the compass rose on each sub-map to use as link back to the regional map (that way you only really have to open one of the maps to get to all of them).
This looks really good so far. I especially like the tower in the top left.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
I decided to shrink the town a bit - it was simply growing too large for my wishes. So far it's looking like this:
I am not extremely happy with how the stacked-upon-each-other-stone huts have turned out, but I'm not sure if I'll make it better by staring more at it.
I'm gonna add some more buildings, fields and perhaps some earthwork fortifications and then I think I'll call it a day. I also have a Cairn with a dungeon beneath to draw, so I wanna get on with that.
- Dan
Edit: and here is the final result. Again, any tips on further editing to make it look nicer (also in photoshop/gimp) will be much appreciated.
I'm not sure what is the grey line that circle most of the town north of the river. Is it a protection wall? If so, maybe it needs some towers, especially where the roads cross it, or at least some doors and a way to climb on it?