Crystals and Mushrooms wanted
Hi folks!
I'm new here, and am just learning CC3+, DD3+ etc. Had some experience with CC2 but am new to CC3.
Anyhow... looking ahead to when I have a novice level's skills... I've got a big underdark cavern filled with massive glowing colored crystals in mind to draw, and other underdark related maps in mind, possibly for future commercial release. (ahem, sequel to Journey Through the Center of the Underdark... maybe)
Are there any image collections out there, or annuals, that might help? Giant Mushrooms and big (or scalable) crystal formations are what I'm looking for.
Thanks!
I'm new here, and am just learning CC3+, DD3+ etc. Had some experience with CC2 but am new to CC3.
Anyhow... looking ahead to when I have a novice level's skills... I've got a big underdark cavern filled with massive glowing colored crystals in mind to draw, and other underdark related maps in mind, possibly for future commercial release. (ahem, sequel to Journey Through the Center of the Underdark... maybe)
Are there any image collections out there, or annuals, that might help? Giant Mushrooms and big (or scalable) crystal formations are what I'm looking for.
Thanks!
Comments
Getting crystals to glow will likely need you to gain familiarity with the sheet special effects that let you do things like this in CC3/CC3+, but if you search around this Forum, I think (somewhere...) there are tutorials on lighting effects as well that may be helpful. I KNOW there are people here who can advise you better in this respect than me though!
The "Cave" symbol catalogues are usually where you'll find both rock and fungi, but it's worth hunting around in the other symbol catalogues too, because you may find something you can reuse or adapt from there in addition.
Several of the add-on and Annual dungeon sets expand the DD3+ symbol-set options, including for fungi and rocks, while I think the overland style for underground mapping Charles mentioned is that from the June 2016 Annual. That lets you create entire subterranean realms and regions at the scale of a typical overland map, which include mushroom forest symbols - so it depends how large an area of the Underdark you'd like to construct!
This would be battle map style or dungeon style for inclusion with a module, not overland... but the overland underdark samples in that annual look great.
I knew about the existing mushroom colony icons in DD3, SS2 and Schley... which are going to be great filler now that I look at them. But I was thinking more of individual mushroom icons, that I can scale to look like 30 foot high with 20 foot diameter caps and such. And large crystalline formations akin to the crystal caverns in Mexico. Being angular items I might successfully draw what I need for those.
Good points about learning the effects too. The crystals will sprout from floor, or walls, or ceilings - with ceilings not being on the map... but I will want multiple, different colored light sources through the cavern. I expect sheet effect and lighting effect experimentation will be in order.
Thanks, and I'll be sure to check the 2016 annuals, and the CSUAC and Dundjinni archives when I get the chance, I might stumble on something useful or easily convertible.
For the lighting effects, there were two earlier Annual items which dealt with this as well, from July 2008 and February 2015, but they will only work with CC3, not CC3+, as far as I'm aware. I believe the intention is to upgrade all the Annuals to work with CC3+ in time, but of course there are a great many of them, and they're not the greatest priority right now.
Good luck with the mushroom and crystals hunting!
EDIT 2 hours later: Checked and discovered the Feb 2015 Annual IS actually available for CC3+ as well as CC3. [Would have been back to say so sooner, but found CC3+ had decided to corrupt itself in the intervening day I wasn't using it, so have had a fraught evening doing an Install-Repair to get it up and running again; joys of computers, eh...]