Just found out that I have a work meeting that starts halfway through this tutorial. I'll pop into the Live in the beginning to say hi to everyone but will have to watch the rest later on.

Here's a bit more for the summer version of Arbor Hollow. I've added some pine and deciduous trees (wanted them scattered enough to still show the terrain changes over the seasons). Also added label numbers and a legend. Just noticed, though, that I've forgotten to draw in the stone bridge and cliff shadows. Anything else I should address?

Hoping to get this submitted tomorrow because I'm not sure how much time I will have this weekend to work on it. If things go well tomorrow, I might have a chance to do some of the other seasons, but there isn't the same deadline for those since I will only be submitting Summer for the contest.

Here's Autumn. Each grass section has moved a shade drier. The evergreen pine trees remain green, but the deciduous trees have changed to oranges, reds, and yellows -- except for a few that have already lost all of their leaves and just have barren branches standing over piles of leaves. Oh, and I changed the cartouche as well.

Here's Spring. Deciduous trees are a little lighter, reflecting new foliage. Grass all shifted one shade darker, reflecting the lushness from April showers before they start to dry out a bit in the summer. Most dramatic change: the rivers are swollen with snowmelt, and the waterfalls are a little wider, too. Cartouche has changed, too, perhaps as a nod to the Hungry Ravenous Tiger Inn.

Winter will take more work, since it's the only one that will actually need to be imported into a different style, and then most of the symbols will have to be swapped.

That’s a good point that I hadn’t thought about. When I’m designing a new map, I often draw polygon blobs on a temporary sheet to get a sense of what I want to do, and what goes where. This would be a fun way to sketch out a rough layout.

I made the changes that you recommended, Sue, and it appears to work on-screen. I was able to move the light sources for the four stained glass windows on the sides of the church to a point where the lights look normal. Here's a screengrab.

But something weird is happening (which is why I had to do a screengrab instead of saving an image). Whenever I go use "save as" to create a JPG or PNG image of the map, it crashes during the first pass of rendering as soon as it reaches the "Lights - End" sheet. It does that regardless whether I am trying to save an image of the entire map or just a rectangular section of it.

I just did a test and turned off the RGB Matrix effect on the "Buildings Low" sheet, the first sheet to have that effect on it (on the assumption that if the problem was with the RGB Matrix, it would get through the "Buildings Low" before crashing). It still crashed at the "Lights - End" sheet. Then I did another test, turning off the "Wall Shadow, Point of Light Finalize" effect on the "Lights - End" sheet, and it was able to render a JPG correctly (except it's no longer night without that effect).

Hmmmm...?

Thank you both so much! Yes, my export was set at 4 million and changing it to 40 million resolved it. Appreciate the help so much. Now to bring in the plaza furnishings from the daylight version, and then start working on floorplans.

Wow, that’s really beautiful. Nicely done.

I've mapped the balcony areas on the second floor of the church, but I can't decide which effect I prefer to obscure the outdoor and lower floor areas. I did two "Parchment" sheets, one that covered just the outdoors and another that also covered the first floor of the church. That way both would be shadowed, but the outdoors even more so.

Here it is with the regular parchment:

Here it is adding a sepia effect to the parchment (not sure it helps):

Here it is putting the Solid 30 darker fill on each of the parchment layers instead of the parchment. My only fear with this approach is that it kind of makes it look like it's nighttime, though the reflections from the stained glass show that sunlight is coming in from outside. But it does make the balcony areas "pop" a little more.

Here it is using the Solid White 30 fill for both parchment layers.

Preferences?

Here it is with Solid White 10.