Stairs of Girion WIP
clithgow
Traveler
Morning all!
So I'm in the middle of this CD map that represents just over a 1/4 mile square. I think I would have preferred to use an overland CC style but I had trouble getting fractional overall scale to play nice. In any case.....
This is the southern end of The Long Lake in Middle Earth. The few houses are a couple of families worth of boat tenders who work the Stairs. The snakey cobblestones there are intended to represent a switchback road descending a couple hundred feet that the workers use to portage boats past the falls to the Celduin River below.
Any thoughts on how I might represent the gradual decent of the topography? I intend to root through some overland map styles and see about swiping some tools out of them but would love to hear your thoughts - about both the topography and any other things!
So I'm in the middle of this CD map that represents just over a 1/4 mile square. I think I would have preferred to use an overland CC style but I had trouble getting fractional overall scale to play nice. In any case.....
This is the southern end of The Long Lake in Middle Earth. The few houses are a couple of families worth of boat tenders who work the Stairs. The snakey cobblestones there are intended to represent a switchback road descending a couple hundred feet that the workers use to portage boats past the falls to the Celduin River below.
Any thoughts on how I might represent the gradual decent of the topography? I intend to root through some overland map styles and see about swiping some tools out of them but would love to hear your thoughts - about both the topography and any other things!
Comments
Thanks Lorelei. I'm not sure I would really know what to do with someone else's map. Most of the shadow effects I've done on my own maps have been trial and error exercises, and all are different. That's why I've never done an actual tutorial on how to do it. There's no definitive 'best solution'. The only thing I can do is ask the same series of questions that I would ask myself.
First, what does it look like if you add a Directional Wall Shadow to the rocks sheet - quite a long one as if its being cast by a cliff?
If that doesn't work or looks all wrong I would then consider drawing shadow shaped polygons in solid black on a new sheet called SHADOWS on top of everything else. This SHADOWS sheet would have an Edge Fade Inner sheet effect on it, and also a Blend Mode set to Multiply with an opacity of about 15%. There would also be a Magenta Colour Key effect under the EFI, but above the Blend Mode, so that I could draw magenta polygons to cut a sharp top edge to the shadows along the line of the cliff. Its a bit difficult to describe, but try it and see. (I'm a little tied up with drawing buildings at the moment to do an example, but if it doesn't work out for you I can probably do one sometime next week.)
I did try the Wall Shadow on those rocks - but I think I ultimately want to move away from the rocks cliffs and make it more of subtle thing.
I think I'm on board with your SHADOWS sheet idea - check out the image below. Only thing I'm not getting is the point of the magenta poly. I'll keep playing with it.
*EDIT* Ah! Got it....lost the Color Key effect of the line because it got lost beneath road effect. When extending the effect out across the basic green space I see it. I'll keep working with this.
It's a bit complicated to visualize, but the magenta shape needs to be at least as thick as the EFI effect so that it doesn't completely disappear. The point is to still have the line where the two shapes overlap visible when the colour key comes into play. I've never been good at trying to describe this!
I have found an example file I uploaded some time ago for Quenten and adapted it to suit the current situation here. Its on a City template. I hope you have CD3, but even if you don't you should still be able to see the shadow.
Also, you don't have to use Multiply as the Blend Mode setting. Its not a case of multiply or die. The example FCW above uses Overlay.
Maybe I should write that tutorial and go into all the little details about how to use this technique...
So here's where I'm going to leave it, game is in the morning. Funny thing is, they'll likely spend less than 30 minutes of game time here. Oh well.
Thanks for the compliments, all!