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Zeus
March 13th, 2011, 13:24
After being swamped with requests for a guide on how I produce my 4E maps, I have finally been able to find some time to collate some useful resources as well as pull together the first in a series of short (15 minutes or less) instructional videos.

Those of you who have followed my mapping will know that I work exclusively in Photoshop. The resource packs I have made available should work with all versions of Photoshop including Photoshop Elements and I believe can also be imported into GiMP using various plugins.

I have bundled the Photoshop patterns, textures and styles I use in my maps and have uploaded these to my resource site (under Misc Items). These are:


4E Styles.asl - This is a pack of Layer Styles including wall, floor, water, and various other effects. The .asl file should be placed in your User Library/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CSx/Presets/Styles folder
4E Grids.pat - This is a pack of tileable patterns for the various grid styles used in 4E maps, it also includes a difficult terrain marker pattern. The .pat file should be placed in your User Library/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CSx/Presets/Patterns folder
4E Patterns-Textures.pat - This is a pack of tileable patterns and textures I use in my 4E maps, it also contains some nice rock/stone textures. The .pat file should be placed in your User Library/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop CSx/Presets/Patterns folder


Once copied to the correct folder, start Photoshop and select Preset Manager from the Edit menu. Once Preset Manager is open, select Patterns from the pull down menu and then navigate to and load the two pattern packs. Next Select Styles and load in the Style packs. In both cases Photoshop will load with a default set of patterns and styles, I leave it to you to decide if you want to remove these or not.

The packs are my own creation with the exception of a few scanned textures which are available for personal use but cannot be used in any commercial offering. I am happy for the community to use these for their own gaming needs however would ask that you all refrain from using these in any commercial offering.

Having said that, if anyone would like me to produce maps for a commercial offering I am open to accepting private commissions, if anyone is interested.

Right, now onto the first video. Please excuse me for not having included any audio commentary (I am working on it), this first video walks through the initial creation of a basic tactical dungeon map, nothing special but enough for you to get an understanding of how I approach the basic foundations.

The video starts from the point that the patterns and style packs have already been copied to the appropriate folders and Photoshop started. Over the course of the next few weeks I will walk through using some of the other styles and patterns for outdoor encounters, underground maps and maybe even town/city. I also plan to expand on the packs over time, the intent being to provide a one stop shop for all your Photoshop 4E D&D map creation needs.

Please leave some feedback if you find the video and packs useful.

Enjoy!

DrZ.

Part 1 - Rooms, Walls and Doors

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Part 2 - Stairs, Plinth and Wells

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Part 3 - Pillars and Changing the Colour of the Rock Walls

PewoDc7Dgn0?hd=1
Blue Haven
March 14th, 2011, 14:18
Thank you so much for this work :) i´m starting to use PS (i´m a paintshop pro user) and i´m getting there ;)
One thing the textures file is not working...i mean i can´t download it from your site.
Thanks
Zeus
March 14th, 2011, 15:11
Thank you so much for this work :) i´m starting to use PS (i´m a paintshop pro user) and i´m getting there ;)
One thing the textures file is not working...i mean i can´t download it from your site.
Thanks

Thanks. The link was broken, its fixed now so you can try again, it should work.
Spikenog
March 14th, 2011, 16:19
Completely awesome! Thanks for this!
VenomousFiligree
March 14th, 2011, 19:04
Great article, can now be found at RPG VT (https://rpgvirtualtabletop.wikidot.com/tactical-mapping) so all VTers can enjoy! :)
Galeric
March 16th, 2011, 01:07
You do great work doc!
ddavison
March 16th, 2011, 03:15
Fixed. To do the YouTube video, use the YouTube button and put the code inside the YouTube tags. Remove any and all URLs, http, and additional parameters.
Zeus
March 16th, 2011, 14:33
Thanks Doug.
gmkieran
March 17th, 2011, 15:44
MANY kinds of awesome! You rock, DrZ!!!
sturtus
March 17th, 2011, 21:52
Fantastic. I will stick to CC3 for overland maps and wide area maps, but this will speed up my tacticals. wouldn't be using FG without your hard work and contribution.
AnAxeToGrind
March 18th, 2011, 04:58
I dig the simplicity of this. However, I use gimp which takes the patterns as individual pngs, jpgs etc. Any chance you could share these in that format maybe a zip of them...
Blue Haven
March 19th, 2011, 00:51
Sorry to ask this friend but there are 3 textures that are a little messed up...i guess...Cobbles 2, Grass and Water...is this right?? or you add them like that?
The rest is just great but right now i have no time to work with them :( my visit to south park is very near lolol :)
Thanks
Zeus
March 19th, 2011, 12:27
Sorry to ask this friend but there are 3 textures that are a little messed up...i guess...Cobbles 2, Grass and Water...is this right?? or you add them like that?
The rest is just great but right now i have no time to work with them :( my visit to south park is very near lolol :)
Thanks

Ooops, I just noticed I included some scans of tiles in the texture pack. This was unintentional.

To note though, I use those three for underlay texturing rather than for patterns. I like the grainy texture effect you can achieve when using them. :)
Hornet
March 21st, 2011, 19:03
I was able to follow the video most of the way but when it got to the point of applying the 'dungeon walls 3' style to the walls layer mine would apply it to the the mask edges AND the edges of the map.

Do you have an idea what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks

EDIT: Ah, I found it. The style you have up on your site has the transparency shapes layer turned on while the one in the video does not.
Astinus
March 22nd, 2011, 00:37
Just phenomenal. Thank you so much for this. Can't wait for anymore tutorials you share with us. What an amazing resource.
Zeus
March 22nd, 2011, 01:04
Thanks all for the comments, glad to hear the packs are proving useful. Looking forward to seeing what maps the community can come up with. With a common style it might make it easier for everyone to share each others creations, who knows :)

Next video should be up tomorrow, day after latest. The video continues on from the last and covers:


Adding Stairs
Adding a Raised plinth/platform
Adding Columns
Adding a Well or Pool
Varying the colour of the rock walls


I'm also planning on releasing the original PNG/JPGs for the home grown pattern/texture maps, for those not using Photoshop. It might take a few days or so though cause its a bit fiddly. Bare with me.

DrZ.
Ictinike
March 28th, 2011, 01:26
Thank Dr. :D

All of your additions to the community are well done, documented and fun to use. Thank you again for all your work..
Spikenog
March 29th, 2011, 21:30
:D
Thanks again for all this!
Zeus
April 5th, 2011, 17:44
Part 2 - Adding some stairs, a raised platform/plinth and well (https://youtu.be/RE7xvdOb48s?hd=1)

RE7xvdOb48s?hd=1
Zeus
April 5th, 2011, 17:47
Part 3 - Pillars and changing the colour (hue/saturation) of the rock walls.
(https://youtu.be/PewoDc7Dgn0?hd=1)
PewoDc7Dgn0?hd=1
Zeus
April 7th, 2011, 15:10
All,

I am interested to understand how you are finding the video tutorials and the style pack in practice. I am also keen to see what maps the community can create from them. Post them up please.

Judging from the number of thread views (circa 600 at last count) and video views (circa 275), people are looking at them but it would be good to know how these are being applied practically.

Also, as we are rapidly filling up the existing dungeon I will shortly start a new map in the tutorials. What would you like me to cover next?

My thoughts:

- Cave/Uneven Walls
- Ice
- Pits
- Lava pool
...

Let me know what you want next.

DrZ
mallias
April 8th, 2011, 13:07
Dr. Z,

I am using your textures and styles heavily to prep for an upcoming campaign.

I admit that I find the textures more useful than the styles, as I like to fiddle with blending affects on my own... Your texture pack has seriously increased the speed at which I create my battle maps, as well as their quality.

As for the video tutorials, they are a great resource! It is difficult to figure out how you had originally intended the styles and textures to be used without them. The one thing that would make the tutorials infinitely more useful would be audio commentary or a highlighted mouse pointer--it's hard to follow the pointer at times.

I'm very happy with the battle map results I have had using your resources, and will definitely share them in the future... However, a number of my players frequent this forum...

Oh, if there were a tutorial I would find most useful it would be Winter Scenes... anything with snow or ice.

Many thanks for all the great tools and add-ons you have contributed to the community,

Mallias
Blue Haven
April 10th, 2011, 16:23
Well my vote goes to Caverns and Ice stuff :)
jgmac
June 16th, 2011, 13:02
I love the tutorial. I just started playing with it and have a question. I'm going to try to walk through what you do to get my question asked.

You create a box with the marquee tool, then you use the paint bucket tool to create an exclusion? Is that correct?

After that, instead of going back to the paint bucket tool you change the background/foreground, and then it looks like your hitting a key combination to make that exclusion happen again. What is the key combination?

Can you answer those questions for me?

Other than that, so far it has been extremely helpful. This makes creating maps very simple. Thanks.

One more question, did you ever get a chance to do a tutorial for outdoor maps? I'm assuming the basics would be the same, but I'd be curious to see what you would use to get trees and other landmarks on the map.

Thanks,
Zeus
June 16th, 2011, 17:32
I love the tutorial. I just started playing with it and have a question. I'm going to try to walk through what you do to get my question asked.

You create a box with the marquee tool, then you use the paint bucket tool to create an exclusion? Is that correct?

Yes, you are correct.


After that, instead of going back to the paint bucket tool you change the background/foreground, and then it looks like your hitting a key combination to make that exclusion happen again. What is the key combination?

Backspace key.


One more question, did you ever get a chance to do a tutorial for outdoor maps? I'm assuming the basics would be the same, but I'd be curious to see what you would use to get trees and other landmarks on the map.

Not yet, been too busy with other projects and haven't had time to map for a while. In essence the approaches are similar, although I use different textures and subtler blending techniques. For trees, I have a vast collection of assets that I have collected over the years, in worse case situations where I don't have anything close to what I want, I'll draw and paint one myself.

Hope that helps.