WIP - Rowanhold Village - My first map
clithgow
Traveler
Hello all! Been lurking around the forums since GenCon this year when I finally bought the software (having recently gotten back into RPGs after a 20 year hiatus.) Would love to hear some feedback on my first attempt.
In my game I've placed this village in the very north west of Western Mirkwood, a days south of the Forest Path & Gate and 2 days north east of Beorn's house. Rowanhold is a fortified farmstead, inside a simple palisade. There are no more than a score of inhabitants in total.
I'm mostly done with it except for a few things:
- I've not put much effort into the title yet
- I want to add a numbered index of what the buildings are
- I'm not sure I'm happy with the textures.com fill of the bulk forest area - but I couldn't come up with something less photo-y that I liked.
Thanks!
Curt
In my game I've placed this village in the very north west of Western Mirkwood, a days south of the Forest Path & Gate and 2 days north east of Beorn's house. Rowanhold is a fortified farmstead, inside a simple palisade. There are no more than a score of inhabitants in total.
I'm mostly done with it except for a few things:
- I've not put much effort into the title yet
- I want to add a numbered index of what the buildings are
- I'm not sure I'm happy with the textures.com fill of the bulk forest area - but I couldn't come up with something less photo-y that I liked.
Thanks!
Curt
Comments
Very well done
Maybe the only way to avoid having to use more than one sheet for those fields is to avoid using a TO as well as aligning the fills?
And yes - I would say you have mastered it, because its not something you usually see in a mapper's maps until several months down the line. It doesn't seem to be one of those things that people pick up all that readily
There you go, you see - I didn't realise that you weren't using aligned fills
If you switch off the TO effect on one of those sheets, and then use the change properties button to change the fill of the polygon to the actual imported bitmap fill of the fields it will look either perfectly horizontal, or perfectly vertical - whichever way up the fill is.
Then right click the draw polygon tool and pick Shaded Polygon (angle by edge) and click the test field in a side that you would prefer to be the new 'bottom' edge of the fill.
This will turn the fill around within that one polygon, but it will also shade it as if the polygon has become a roof with an angled pitch (a slope).
Type EDITSHADING on your keyboard, and you will see that the prompt is asking you for the entity to edit. Click the test field again and a dialog pops up. In that dialogue check the box that's called something like 'Shade only copy', and click OK
Sorry! Can't check the exact wording of that just now - I'm off to an interview in 5 minutes...
And the interview was one of those where they just didn't realise how old I was before I walked through the door. You can tell by the way the smiles vanish so quick you'd think a cloud just passed over the sun.
Not to worry. I don't particularly want to work for a bunch of people who are so extremely shallow that they would judge a wrinkly like that before she even opens her mouth. The government says I still have a good 14 years of working life left in me yet!
Tried adding some perimeter circulation between the gate and the two forest paths...but couldn't make it look good based on how narrow the path already was and how high my edge fade is. Figured it wasn't that important and added a few gates to make it make more sense.
Changed the fills over from TOs to aligned fills. Makes the map a bit snappier during editing. Takes some getting used to seeing the fill with the effects turned off.
I think I like the border not quite sure
Now I have to learn some output techniques before I give it to my players as a hand out.
Thanks again for all the input!
When you render the map for your players you can adjust the settings (resolution, size etc) by clicking the options button once you have selected the bitmap output. The best type to use is either the Rectangular section PNG, or Rectangular section JPEG.
Using either of those renders will require you to define two diagonally opposite corners to define the rectangle before the output starts. I usually either set the grid and snap to make sure I can get the corners of the map spot on, or type the coordinates of the corners in.