Instead of just inverting the vari map image from a desaturated copy of the colour original and removing the black and leaving only the white in the vari map file, I first removed the mid grey, then the black, which gave me a totally different pattern on the vari map.
I then replaced the desaturated main image with the full colour version, so that nothing was totally black or white, and so that the original colours show through where the vari file is a bit thin and would otherwise show grey.
If I do this with all the crystals around the colour circle it should be possible to produce a huge number of variation on a set of about 20 originals.
Lovely! Sue, you are like a cartographic Dr. Frankenstein, creating this wonderous stuff out of nothing! I've said it before and I shall say it once again, you are a Mapping Maestra! Bravissimo!
I've been rendering all these crystals top view. Do we need crystals side view to stick on the walls?
Well, I don't think anyone has ever said: "no, we don't need more symbols, we have enough!" So I would say yes to side-views. But ultimately it's up to you since you are the one putting all the time and effort into it.
I think I may be able to convert a couple of the existing symbols by chopping one side off them anyway
This is where I'm at right at the moment. Its not terribly impressive, but I've had a few false starts thanks to the complicated rendering controls. Honestly, its trial and error.
All those pictures are so nice it really makes me want to buy Genetica. But I'm pretty sure that, should I try to use it, I would never get even close to that quality and prettiness. It would probably be much more safe and profitable to buy Loopysue instead, but unfortunately slavery is no longer allowed...
LOL! Sorry Gathar, I'm all used up and past my best, so I wouldn't be a good investment anyway :P
The cobble textures are all made in Genetica, but true to form I've changed tack mid-thread, and I'm now making symbols in Blender, which is a free 3D app.
I haven't used Blender to do very much over the last couple of years, save a handful of trees, but the app is constantly being developed so I had to go and do a bit of hasty revision, which means that I can now point you to the two vids I used to teach myself how to make these things. Understanding what's going on in these vids does require a basic understanding of what Blender is for and how it generally works, but I don't think they are too difficult to follow if you are just curious about how its done. At least, the first one isn't. The second one is a little bit confusing, but I needed a more realistic shader (that's a set of nodes that create the surface texture and colour of the crystal) for crystals that would defract and shine properly and not just look like a piece of glass. That second vid adds a smaller inner crystal to enhance the material. I didn't bother to go that far since I thought is was just a tad OTT.
First vid:
Making the crystals. I used a modified version of this which uses a single crystal and an emitter modifier to make it grow a number of times from another small object - to form the clusters (instead of laboriously drawing each and every piece of the crystal cluster by hand).
Second vid:
Making the material for the crystals (no need to watch the first half)
Definitely way off the original topic of this thread, but here are a couple more seamless textures on the theme of crystals. I made these to add as patches or seams in the rock.
Unfortunately I have had to turn them into jpg files to make them small enough to upload, but I think most of you know that all you have to do is open them in GIMP and export as png to convert them.
I'm not uploading all of them just yet anyway, since I'm not entirely happy with the colours on some of them.
I think I've come reasonably close to solving the vari symbol problem. This is a sample of the main crystals (first column) with two vari symbols shown in all the strong colours of the palette in the second two columns, including black and white. Please let me know what you think - including if you think they would look better if the vari symbols were done more like the previous set, where some of the original colour shows through for a bit of interest
Ok. I won't be looking at anything right now. I am Involved in arranging the Norwegian national air gun/rifle championships this weekend, which eats almost every waking minute of my day, so everything else is basically on hold for next week. (Even with my more limited presence here right now, I still managed to ban a spammer within 3 minutes of him creating an account.)
No worries. I have loooooooads of other stuff to keep me occupied, like all the fills... and I think I might have a go at some half reasonable stalagmites.
Oooh, Sue, these are just really pretty! You are amazing. I wish i had your skill of picking up these programs like you do. I've tried free versions of various programs and its all too much for my brain to compute, lol! Thank the goddess we have the likes of you
I'm not that great at it really. I've been meddling with Blender for at least 10 years, and even now I have to go watch a few videos before I can do a specific thing. Most of my graphics experience is a lot older than CC3. I started with very primitive drawing tools on my Atari, and I have a copy of CorelDraw that is so old it won't actually work on my Win 10 machine :P
It was no trouble. I'd already done the whole set the first way and decided I didn't like them, but I never delete stuff unless I'm sure it won't be needed so they were still there
I've moved back towards a more realistic colour scheme. After all, if anyone really wants to have green rock and green paving there's the HSL Sheet effect.
[Image_10559]
I've also been working on a reasonable compacted earth texture I hope you will like.
[Image_10560]
Comments welcome - please tell me if its too red/yellow/bright/dull? Thanks
A mostly transparent symbol that allows the background to show through.
[Image_10563]
[Image_10564]
This is the actual symbol if anyone wants to give it a go on a smooth-ish rock texture of their choice. (I don't think it will work at all well on rough rock textures)
All these textures and symbols will soon be available in an as yet un-named community art collection that Monsen (one of our Admins, and a huge fountain of CC3 knowledge) has very kindly offered to set up and administer, so it would probably be better to wait a few weeks to download the official folders with any Profantasy style adjustments that might be made to the artwork to make it more suitable for general use, and to make sure that you have them all stored in the same place as everyone else.
However, if you are desperate and cannot wait, or if you have your eye on other textures that aren't necessarily going to be added to the collection, the way to do it is to put your collected texture fills into a new folder created within the Bitmaps folder here:
Then open the CC3+ map where you wish to use the fills, and from the Tools menu pick "Import Bitmap Fill Styles". You will need to browse to the new folder in the dialog that opens. Leave all bar four of the default settings 'as-is'.
The very first time you ever import a set of fills you must tick the "Create Other resolutions" tick box at the top right of the dialog, tick the scale box and give an appropriate width and height scale, and then click OK.
You will have to wait a few seconds for CC3+ to create all the other resolutions, then it will tell you that X new fills have been imported, and that's all there is to it. You will then be able to pick the new fills (as well as adjust the scale if you didn't get it quite right) from the Fill Style Properties dialog.
If you are importing a set of fills that have already had other resolutions created by a previous import to an older map, you don't need to tick the create other resolutions box, and the import will be fairly instantaneous.
As I said earlier, though, it would be better in the long run to wait for the official version of everything to appear in the new collection. Quite apart from the fact that doing so will ensure that you can share map files with other mappers if you wish, knowing that they will also have exactly the same folder setup as yours, there are probably going to be quite a few adjustments made to the fills by me before I send them to Monsen for inclusion. That most recent dirt fill, for example, is looking a bit colourful and a bit too flat to me this morning, and will be adjusted before I am happy to send it to Monsen
As for any of the symbols in particular - I most definitely recommend waiting for the official collection, since there are no complete sets available here, and no symbol catalogues for you to download. This would mean that you would have to make your own catalogues and run the risk of having compatibility issues with newer updates to the official collection and other users.
Its still quite early for me (I'm a night owl), so I hope I have explained that all in clear English
Yes, Sue, the transparency really makes these stalagmite symbols. Otherwise, as you said, they look good on the same background, but on something different... well, all I can think of is the giant dino poop pile in Jurassic Park! Sorry! LOL! But adding that transparency really makes them.
I also like your soil fill and the more earth-toned stone and cobbles symbols just above. As you say, if someone wants a different color cobble or paver they can be adjusted quite easily with the HSL filter.
Comments
[Image_10527]
Instead of just inverting the vari map image from a desaturated copy of the colour original and removing the black and leaving only the white in the vari map file, I first removed the mid grey, then the black, which gave me a totally different pattern on the vari map.
I then replaced the desaturated main image with the full colour version, so that nothing was totally black or white, and so that the original colours show through where the vari file is a bit thin and would otherwise show grey.
If I do this with all the crystals around the colour circle it should be possible to produce a huge number of variation on a set of about 20 originals.
They will both (that's just one original and one varicolour version) be in the new community collection of symbols once its set up.
I'm aiming to do about 20 originals, which means 40 symbols in all. I hope they will mean that no one is ever scratching around for crystals any more.
After this I'm thinking of stalagmites
I'm just very determined to make things work once I set my mind to a task, and I'm as stubborn as hell about giving up! :P
I've been rendering all these crystals top view. Do we need crystals side view to stick on the walls?
This is where I'm at right at the moment. Its not terribly impressive, but I've had a few false starts thanks to the complicated rendering controls. Honestly, its trial and error.
It would probably be much more safe and profitable to buy Loopysue instead, but unfortunately slavery is no longer allowed...
The cobble textures are all made in Genetica, but true to form I've changed tack mid-thread, and I'm now making symbols in Blender, which is a free 3D app.
I haven't used Blender to do very much over the last couple of years, save a handful of trees, but the app is constantly being developed so I had to go and do a bit of hasty revision, which means that I can now point you to the two vids I used to teach myself how to make these things. Understanding what's going on in these vids does require a basic understanding of what Blender is for and how it generally works, but I don't think they are too difficult to follow if you are just curious about how its done. At least, the first one isn't. The second one is a little bit confusing, but I needed a more realistic shader (that's a set of nodes that create the surface texture and colour of the crystal) for crystals that would defract and shine properly and not just look like a piece of glass. That second vid adds a smaller inner crystal to enhance the material. I didn't bother to go that far since I thought is was just a tad OTT.
First vid:
Making the crystals. I used a modified version of this which uses a single crystal and an emitter modifier to make it grow a number of times from another small object - to form the clusters (instead of laboriously drawing each and every piece of the crystal cluster by hand).
Second vid:
Making the material for the crystals (no need to watch the first half)
Unfortunately I have had to turn them into jpg files to make them small enough to upload, but I think most of you know that all you have to do is open them in GIMP and export as png to convert them.
I'm not uploading all of them just yet anyway, since I'm not entirely happy with the colours on some of them.
[Image_10541]
[Image_10542]
[Image_10546]
OR... I could do them like this:
[Image_10547]
[Image_10550]
But I'm still working on the varicolour versions of the last 5
[Image_10551]
(Even with my more limited presence here right now, I still managed to ban a spammer within 3 minutes of him creating an account.)
The marvellous, miraculous Mr Monsen
No worries. I have loooooooads of other stuff to keep me occupied, like all the fills... and I think I might have a go at some half reasonable stalagmites.
Have fun!
I'm not that great at it really. I've been meddling with Blender for at least 10 years, and even now I have to go watch a few videos before I can do a specific thing. Most of my graphics experience is a lot older than CC3. I started with very primitive drawing tools on my Atari, and I have a copy of CorelDraw that is so old it won't actually work on my Win 10 machine :P
It was no trouble. I'd already done the whole set the first way and decided I didn't like them, but I never delete stuff unless I'm sure it won't be needed so they were still there
I've moved back towards a more realistic colour scheme. After all, if anyone really wants to have green rock and green paving there's the HSL Sheet effect.
[Image_10559]
I've also been working on a reasonable compacted earth texture I hope you will like.
[Image_10560]
Comments welcome - please tell me if its too red/yellow/bright/dull? Thanks
I think I've just discovered why there aren't many stalagmite symbols lying around.
If you use them on the very same background where they were created they look passable.
[Image_10561]
But, if you change the background...
[Image_10562]
Its ok - laugh at will.
I certainly did! :P
A mostly transparent symbol that allows the background to show through.
[Image_10563]
[Image_10564]
This is the actual symbol if anyone wants to give it a go on a smooth-ish rock texture of their choice. (I don't think it will work at all well on rough rock textures)
[Image_10565]
Warning, Noob Question incoming.
How do I got about adding such textures to CC3+ so I can use them?
Do I make a subfolder for them and put it in a correct folder in the installation?
All these textures and symbols will soon be available in an as yet un-named community art collection that Monsen (one of our Admins, and a huge fountain of CC3 knowledge) has very kindly offered to set up and administer, so it would probably be better to wait a few weeks to download the official folders with any Profantasy style adjustments that might be made to the artwork to make it more suitable for general use, and to make sure that you have them all stored in the same place as everyone else.
However, if you are desperate and cannot wait, or if you have your eye on other textures that aren't necessarily going to be added to the collection, the way to do it is to put your collected texture fills into a new folder created within the Bitmaps folder here:
C:\ProgramData\Profantasy\CC3Plus\Bitmaps\Tiles\[new folder]
Then open the CC3+ map where you wish to use the fills, and from the Tools menu pick "Import Bitmap Fill Styles". You will need to browse to the new folder in the dialog that opens. Leave all bar four of the default settings 'as-is'.
The very first time you ever import a set of fills you must tick the "Create Other resolutions" tick box at the top right of the dialog, tick the scale box and give an appropriate width and height scale, and then click OK.
You will have to wait a few seconds for CC3+ to create all the other resolutions, then it will tell you that X new fills have been imported, and that's all there is to it. You will then be able to pick the new fills (as well as adjust the scale if you didn't get it quite right) from the Fill Style Properties dialog.
If you are importing a set of fills that have already had other resolutions created by a previous import to an older map, you don't need to tick the create other resolutions box, and the import will be fairly instantaneous.
As I said earlier, though, it would be better in the long run to wait for the official version of everything to appear in the new collection. Quite apart from the fact that doing so will ensure that you can share map files with other mappers if you wish, knowing that they will also have exactly the same folder setup as yours, there are probably going to be quite a few adjustments made to the fills by me before I send them to Monsen for inclusion. That most recent dirt fill, for example, is looking a bit colourful and a bit too flat to me this morning, and will be adjusted before I am happy to send it to Monsen
As for any of the symbols in particular - I most definitely recommend waiting for the official collection, since there are no complete sets available here, and no symbol catalogues for you to download. This would mean that you would have to make your own catalogues and run the risk of having compatibility issues with newer updates to the official collection and other users.
Its still quite early for me (I'm a night owl), so I hope I have explained that all in clear English
I also like your soil fill and the more earth-toned stone and cobbles symbols just above. As you say, if someone wants a different color cobble or paver they can be adjusted quite easily with the HSL filter.