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Royal Scribe

Royal Scribe

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Royal Scribe
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Birthday
February 5, 1968
Location
San Francisco, California
Real Name
Kevin
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Mapmaker
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11

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  • [WIP] Temple of Fah (May Annual: Stairs and Steps)

    Okay, I made some screen captures and JPG saves to illustrate the process.

    The first thing to know is that there are 18 levels to the temple, with a wider landing (15 feet instead of 5) on the 6th and 12th levels. And the second thing to know is that every level actually has three sheets:

    (1) the main sheet for the level, with the stone fill;

    (2) a sheet below it of a different color, because the beveling effect on the main sheet can cause weird pockmarks if it gets confused with the colors below the sheet with the beveling effect; and

    (3) a sheet above the main one for the level for the sandy debris.

    I called the sheet below the main one for each level of the temple "Inlay," because at one point I thought I might have brass or gold inlays on each level, but I ended up only doing that at the top.

    Here's what Level 6 looks like with all three of its sheets on but all of the other sheets hidden (except for the 5th level as well as the stairs, just to provide perspective):

    You can see erosion around the sides as well as some cracks (like from the stairs on the south side, as well as a little above the western stairs).

    On the "inlay" level below, I put a polygon of solid color. I made it brown, because if it was the same gray as the stonework above, the beveling on the sheet above it would get confused and create weird pockmarks. But I also added a gray inside GLOW effect so that it look gray when it showed through the erosion:

    Okay, here's how I did the erosion. First, I added the COLOR KEY sheet effect to that sheet, using the default magenta #6. (Also, it's important to put that sheet effect first on the list, before the Glows and Bevel and Wall Shadow).

    This effect tells CC3+ that when it sees anything of that magenta color on that sheet, cut through whatever's on that sheet and instead show the sheet below it (in this case, the brown-with-gray-glow on the Temple Level 6 Inlay sheet).

    I then used the fractal polygon tool to create small bits with that same magenta color, as well as the fractal line drawing tool to create the cracks. Here it is with the sheet effects turned off so you can see the magenta color, along with a zoomed-in version to see it a little better:

    (There's a fractal crack in the stone above the fractal blobs. You can barely see it but it works when the sheet effects are turned on.)

    When the sheet effects are turned on, anything on that sheet that's covered by by the magenta polygon will be cut away, showing instead whatever is on the sheet behind the stone. It doesn't matter if the color key cutout extends onto the white part, because there's nothing to cut away there and the sheet below would have been shown anyway.

    Here's what the whole thing looks like with sheet effects turned off.


    Crazy how powerful CC3+ is to be able render all of those effects to turn this mess into an identifiable ziggurat.

    If anyone is interested, here is the FCW file. (It's slow loading when the sheet effects are turned on because of all of the nodes added by the fractal bits.)


    QuentenLoopysueMonsenWyvernCalibreroflo1seycyrus
  • Floors disappearing when placing a door.

    Maybe check to confirm that your floors are in the FLOOR sheet and layer, and didn’t accidentally end up in a WALL sheet or layer? If it did, the door may be trying to make a break in it like it would on a wall.

    C.C. Charron
  • WIP - Senan

    Good luck with the surgery. Hope to see you back to mapping your wonderful maps soon.

    Glitch
  • EUREKA MOMENT: CA15 Heraldic Symbols as CA180 Marine Dungeons 2 Brass Inlays

    Another revelation that will be obvious to more experienced cartographers here: the TEXTURIZE effect!

    I have been wanting to use heraldic symbols stitched onto fabric to make carpets, table runners, banners...and I kept looking in vain for fabric fills. The Modern set includes different colors of carpeting, but it was a little too photorealistic to work with things like Dungeons of Schley.

    Through trial and lots of error, I stumbled across the Texture effect and was able to apply it to both a color polygon and the heraldic symbol on top of it to create the effect of fabric with the symbol stitched on. I experimented with a lot of textures, but the one that seemed most "fabric-like" to me was the DD3 Hay_Dry fill. (If anyone knows of a fill that looks more like linen or other woven fabric, please let me know. Maybe there's a good one in an Annual that I have not yet purchased.) And of course, different fills can create the effect of looking like your sigil was painted on wood, or the cobblestone floor (though with more trial and error, I learned that some fills don't really translate well when used with the Texturize effect).

    Anyway, here are some heraldic banners or carpets or table runners or whatever:


    MonsenCalibreLoopysueQuentenGlitchWyvernRicko Hasche
  • floathing Island and Babel Tower style city

    Very cool!

    fil