# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Virtual Tabletop/Battlemap Mapping >  Ongoing project to map...everything.

## Askren

So I already had a thread months ago for my Tomb of Horrors map, which was really my first foray into the do-it-yourself world of making better maps than the ones provided. It was kind of janky, low-quality, and overall I learned a lot, but had a lot to learn. 

You guys may or may not know, I run a lot of modules and adventure paths, and I come across the same problem for most. Maps not suitable for use, gotta make my own. So that's what you'll see here; my ongoing project to make a homemade version of pretty much every map I will need for the various games I run. Some I use once and never again, but I like the process of making them and if nothing else, they come up on a future google search of someone like me looking for these maps to use in their games. 

These first three I would consider "game ready" in the sense that they are done enough to be used, though I will probably do more work on them at some point. 
-Thistletop Outside; Rise of the Runelords

-Thistletop First Level; Rise of the Runelords

-Thistletop Second Level; Rise of the Runelords


These are some maps from the second book of Curse of the Crimson Throne, both of which have other floors I'm still working on. I'll get around to making the maps from the first book at some point.
-Carowyn Manor First Floor; Curse of the Crimson Throne

-Temple of Urgathoa; Curse of the Crimson Throne (WIP)


Obviously I have more I'm messing around with right now, but as they're for games I'm not currently running, they're not high priority. This includes Carrion Crown maps, Jade Regent maps, Rappan Athuk maps, and some others. I apologize if some of them are not very good, I'm learning more and more about the process each attempt, and hopefully getting better each time, but that's debatable. And yes, I'm aware I use the same floor-tiles for everything. I'm trying to get away from that.

Anyway, thanks for checking my junk out, I'll be back in another month or so with more things finished.

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## mthomas768

The room of corpses in the Temple of Urgathoa is... disturbing.  :Very Happy:

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## idendoit

These are very well laid out. I like the artwork very much.

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## Jacktannery

Great maps - well done.

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## Bogie

Excellent battlemaps, thanks for sharing!

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## Askren

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys. I really appreciate that people like my work.

Here's some more I've been working on, or just got through using in my own games.

Curse of the Crimson Throne:
Carowyn Manor First Floor


Carowyn Manor Second Floor & Basement


Hospice of the Blessed Maiden


Hospice Catwalk overlay PNG



And onto some more work on the Jade Regent maps, where I'm practicing a lot more of using real photo textures, which is not as easy as it seems it should be.

Licktoad Village

*
In Progress* Brinewall Castle

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## madcowchef

These look like they would add a lot to the tactical quality of game play, as well as the fun.  Have you learned a lot about the actual layout as it relates to game play by having your players go through these?  Sometimes I wish I'd remembered to take notes about what I liked and didn't about the map design after an actual game session.  Keep up the good work.

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## Askren

These are all my own per-pixel rebuilds of maps that come with published Pathfinder adventures, so I can't take any credit for designing the layouts. Paizo buys and publishes their maps at a very low resolution, meaning when scaled up to something useable, they pixelate and get ugly. So all I do is scale them up and then start laying down shapes and textures to make the map, which I try and fill, as closely as possible, with what the rooms are described to contain. I can't say whether or not the full-detail maps contribute to the enjoyment of the games from the part of the players, but I know they certainly assist me, and I know that when you have a map that's just walls and floor and nothing in it, the players are in a bit of a struggle to visualize things you describe to them and how they would impact movement/combat/investigation in that room. But when you have a visual representation, they can actually see what things are there and they have more engaged interaction and movement with respect to those objects. Plus it helps me remember to point out details.

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## Askren

Last piece of the Urgathoa Temple from Curse of the Crimson Throne. The actual temple map is still getting last-minute tweaks, I'll edit this post with it tomorrow.

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## Blinded

Hello - I did an account recovery & password reset so I could log in and thank you for these. My game tomorrow will be far, far, far better for them  :Smile:

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## corycubbage

> Hello - I did an account recovery & password reset so I could log in and thank you for these.


As did I!  These are amazing, thank you so much for sharing!  

For RotR, you didn't happen to do the other encounters, did you?

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## Askren

Are you referring to thinks like the goblin encounters? No, I used mostly existing or community-made maps for those. I only do my own version if it's necessary due to one of the maps published in the module being too low-resolution to be useful, so for encounters that outright have no map, I probably wouldn't go through the process of making one if I can find one that suits my needs. I can, however, point to the ones I do use, they may or may not be sufficient depending on your tastes.

I probably won't have much of an update in the form of Runelords maps until my group finishes the first book and moves onto the second one.

Since I forgot to post it, the finished version of my Urgathoa Temple map, incase anyone was trying to use it. 


And one of my current projects, the ridiculously huge Scarwall Castle map from Curse of the Crimson Throne's 5th book.


It may seem large, but more so when you realize this image is scaled down to 50%.

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## Raiko

Your Urgathoa Temple map is awesome, it's really creepy and makes me want to run CotCC just to use it!

And I'll definitely be using your Thistletop maps if my RotRL players head back there, they left after defeating Nualia, they were too scared to investigate the area where Malfeshnekor is trapped.

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## Bogie

Wonderful maps, keep them coming.

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## KenG

These are great.  Where did you get the art and the tiles for the Urgathoa Temple map?

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## Askren

Thanks for the kind words, everyone, I'm glad you guys enjoy this stuff and may even get some use out of it. 




> Your Urgathoa Temple map is awesome, it's really creepy and makes me want to run CotCC just to use it!


I'd recommend it, if you're good at fleshing out a large city and getting your players immersed in a setting like that. I'm not particularly great at it, but my players really enjoy the second book, as do I. I think it's very well-written. My other group is just outside Thistletop, and scared to go in because they have no healer.




> These are great.  Where did you get the art and the tiles for the Urgathoa Temple map?


Pretty much all of it is straightforward objects from Dundjinni and these forums. Most of the props are, at least. The floor tiles are a pack by Shaun Ellis, I think I got them off Roll20, but I don't remember. Everything else was made in Photoshop from found textures online.

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## Askren

Because progress is sometimes a thing I do.

I'm kind of enjoying some of the results on this one, but obviously feedback would be nice so I don't end up making it just one blob of ugly brown as I usually do.

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## Jalyha

I tried progress once but it scared me and I ran away  :Frown: 

I don't know what advices to give, but I just popped in to say I've only seen 2 ugly brown maps on this thread and they were SUPPOSED to be ugly brown so don't be mean to them.

You made them cry.

*goes off to comfort the wittle maps*




Seriously, though, I think they are great and you prolly aren't getting a lot of feedback because you don't *seem* to need it.... or people can't find anything constructive to say!  :Razz:

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## mthomas768

I really like the look of the little keep. Did I miss something or are there no doors to the room in the south wall? I'm also a bit unclear as to how you reach the courtyard.

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## Askren

> I really like the look of the little keep. Did I miss something or are there no doors to the room in the south wall? I'm also a bit unclear as to how you reach the courtyard.


I haven't put them in yet. Not sure how I want to do them, and mostly I just jump around or not. There's no doors to the towers either because I haven't decided how I want to fit them into the circle shapes.

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## Askren

Bunch of other projects on my plate right now, but I figured I would stop by and get some feedback on a thing I'm trying. 

This is something I've wanted to do with my dungeon/building walls for a while now, but haven't really attempted in the past. And let me tell you, I regret that this is the map I chose to do it on, because it's taking forever just to lay out enough for a general idea to extrapolate from. 

Still need a lot of tweaking and whatnot, but I feel like on the whole it's not terrible. So, yeah.

Opinions?

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## Jacktannery

Might be good to articulate what you are trying to achieve. I've also been working on the same thing Askren, using various shades of near-black and off-white to make simple walls and columns within a photorealistic map, with varying levels of success. The main thing is: it's MUCH quicker, and in my mind it looks better. I like the way you are doing it above.

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## Askren

Oh, I thought it would be fairly obvious, but that may just be because I'm an idiot.

I'm referring specifically to the center area of the map where I endeavored to overcome my rampant OCD need for textures to map logically by cutting and splicing brick textures so that they follow the walls in a "realistic" way, rather than just be one tiling texture overlay that has no regard for direction of the surface, etc.

It's an agonizingly boring process, and unfortunately the amount I got done there was the result of like, two days of on-and-off work which was mostly me trying to solve stupid problems like the fact that most of the wall textures sit like, 2 pixels lower than the grid line even though all my walls should be perfectly even...

But yeah, that's what I was trying to achieve. The black walls are the same as they were in every other iteration, just with their texture overlay turned off. Very much NOT the look I want.

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## Raiko

The walls look excellent so far Askren.

I have similar OCD thoughts about walls (mostly triggered by Jacktannery's amazing Gardmore Abbey dungeon walls), and experimented with that style of walls for my current Dragon's Demand map while I was deciding between GIMP and CC3.

I'm going to revisit such walls at some stage using CC3, but I'm convinced that the secret to laying down great looking bricked walls with absolute control is to use a combination of vector and raster mapping like Meshon did to produce  these cobblestone streets, as described in this tutorial. Unfortunately I can't afford illustrator + photoshop, and GIMP / Inkscape don't behave nicely on my current laptop, because a known bug with the GTK+ toolset and some Windows 7/8 laptops.

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## Jacktannery

> Oh, I thought it would be fairly obvious, but that may just be because I'm an idiot.
> 
> I'm referring specifically to the center area of the map where I endeavored to overcome my rampant OCD need for textures to map logically by cutting and splicing brick textures so that they follow the walls in a "realistic" way, rather than just be one tiling texture overlay that has no regard for direction of the surface, etc.
> 
> It's an agonizingly boring process, and unfortunately the amount I got done there was the result of like, two days of on-and-off work which was mostly me trying to solve stupid problems like the fact that most of the wall textures sit like, 2 pixels lower than the grid line even though all my walls should be perfectly even...
> 
> But yeah, that's what I was trying to achieve. The black walls are the same as they were in every other iteration, just with their texture overlay turned off. Very much NOT the look I want.


Oh that's just hilarious! I thought it was the black walls you were talking about!

Almost as funny, my reply almost works with the actual issue: I did briefly try to do walls like this; on only one map I think; here: http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...er-maps-z1.jpg however, as you noted, it just took too damned long. Since then I've reverted to a much more basic monochrome textureless wall. Swings and roundabouts!

Riako, yes you are right about the cobblestone streets and vector mapping. 

I've also experimented with circular shapes - you can see here http://www.cartographersguild.com/bu...tml#post198139 (posts 25 & 26). I also did some work with Meshon (I think) in the communal theatre thread (in buildings forum I think) on the curving of wooden plank textures.

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## Askren

Man, I was probably going to swing around to that solution to making the towers, but I had anticipated it would come after a long process of trial-and-error of making the bricks fit one by one, which I was NOT looking forward to. So major props for the idea on the round areas. Those battlements are cool too, wouldn't mind snagging the PSD for those if you had it.

Outside of that...yeah, it's tedious. But, I can never take the easy way out, so I'll probably stick it out. Unfortunately, I've got too many other maps on my plate right now to really put the time needed into just the one. Got both of my Pathfinder games rolling over into their next books, and I need to get all the maps ready for those, so less time every day.

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## madcowchef

Jack's solutions there are great.  You can also make a brush and fake a lot of cobbling and bricking by laying it over a mortar or ground texture and using layer masks:  The black in my brush I simply stroke the paths with that and toss some beveling on.  I used the same path to make a layer beneath it with a bit large for the ground between the cobbles.  All quick and hasty but you get the idea.

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## Askren

I figure I should stop by and dump some more stuff, even though nothing is really finished yet. I may be starting Jade Regent soon, so I had to kick myself in the ass to get the early maps done rather than putting them off.

So two days later, I've got these both about 80% done, just needing some tweaks here and there.

First up is Walthus' shack in Brinestump Marsh, both the first and second floors. WIP.



And second is Old Megus' shack, all moldy and rotting. WIP.


Like my last few, I'm doing more and more to use real textures, just because I like the look, but I don't know how successful I'm being.

Also, Jacktannery;
I've had nothing but trouble trying to replicate the Polar Coordinates method of making straight textures fit a circle. This could be because the shape I intend to use is a thin wall, but also because I have no idea how to match a specific diameter of circle, while keeping the bricks roughly the same size as the rest of them in the image. I may end up just laying them in by hand.

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## Jacktannery

> Also, Jacktannery;
> I've had nothing but trouble trying to replicate the Polar Coordinates method of making straight textures fit a circle. This could be because the shape I intend to use is a thin wall, but also because I have no idea how to match a specific diameter of circle, while keeping the bricks roughly the same size as the rest of them in the image. I may end up just laying them in by hand.


I just tried it again and it works - referring to my notes:



> This long line of wall is on a layer which is exactly the width of the image, and about four times as tall as the image, and the image is centred on the layer (changing these parameters makes a huge difference). I then select FILTER>DISTORT>POLAR COORDINATE and press OK without checking any of the settings and I get the circular bottom image


. 
The important thing to note is:
1) your base wall image must be long and thin. It will shrink when you turn it into a circle so its best to start with an oversized version.
2) before you press filter, make sure your base wall layer is the full with of the canvas, and that the canvas AND layer is four-times taller than the wall.

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## Askren

No, I got all of that. It's the process of making the end product properly scaled compared to the rest of the bricks that's the problem. I don't know how wide I need my long, thin wall to be so the end product will be exactly the right size to fit in the circle I need it to. I don't know how thick to make it so it will be the proper thickness to match the wall. I don't know how much I need to squash the bricks down so when they get stretched, they'll be somewhat proportional after the filter. 

I'm sure there's math for it, but I don't know it, so the best I got is trial and error, and that didn't get me very close.

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## Askren

One down, three to go.

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## Phantos

Absolutely thrilling maps!

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## Domino44

A lot of really great maps, that's for sure.

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## Askren

Appreciate the props guys, it really means a lot to me. Feel free to weigh in on how I'm doing, because I know I'm not very good at this yet and kind of just feeling around in the dark as I come up with new techniques. Most of those end up just being "Insert texture, erase edges".

Anyway, this one is about 90% done. Finished the water last night, so it should be good to go as-is, but I plan on adding some more details. I realized my mold and rot stains were not very good, so I'm trying to create a new method for all of that.

I'll probably be throwing in a few props like logs in the water, plants floating on top, and other assorted stains, but I'd really like some input on what can use improving. Aside from the rocky path, I know that's terrible, but I could not figure out a way to blend that well.

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## kaiofhearts

Hey these are really cool! I love the combination of elements. I think you've found a great system for your textures because you've done a great job of blending them together. Props!

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## Raiko

I love them both, looking forward to seeing numbers three and four!  :Smile: 
I really like the way you use the texture, and I think you’re really good at grunging-up the textures and the furniture. I love the water in the last map. You really turn out your battlemaps very quickly as well, especially for so many games! I’ve been under the weather a bit, so I’ve made no progress on my maps for over a week.  :Frown: 

I think the path just needs to be made to look more overgrown at the edges. At the moment the edges of almost all of outermost stones look too clearly defined, which would look great for a dungeon wall or a path in a well-tended garden, but looks wrong when the path should be over grown. I think it might look better if the edge of the grass texture partially covered the outermost areas of the path. Then if you added a subtle shadow along the edge of the grass (over the path texture), it would hint that the path is beneath the grass.

With your rot & mould, in the “one down, three to go” map the black grunge looks really good, the green stuff looks a little “misty”, like it’s floating rather than growing on the wood. Have you tried using grain-merge?

By the way, I just read your post in the obituary thread on the Paizo RotRL forum, glad your players finally plucked up the courage to take on Thistletop, hee-hee! (Which also reminds me that I need to get around to posting my own obituaries on there (all from Thistletop so far, what can I say – they tried a frontal assault on the fort, including charging on-mass across the bridge…)

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## Jacktannery

Superb work Askren. Really love the colours on the last few maps and your water is wonderful (albeit a bit wavy inside the walled area).

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## Askren

So I'm working on a few new things, namely the second floor of my castle even though I haven't finished the first one yet. I probably shouldn't take on that many projects, but I want to try a few new techniques for doing things like windows, battlements, and other details. 

I also started on the Dungeon which is in a very rough state, but you can see where I'm going with it. I'm actually kind of happy with the color going on through the tile floor, and I think the brick edgework came out nicely, I just need to tweak it a bit and then color match  it. Also there's the tile/cave transitions I haven't really done, which I'm experimenting with techniques for. Also this map is gonna have a lot of natural cave features, and as my other cave map I'm working on made me realize, I'm downright awful at natural stone. So I'll be working on those too.

Dungeon WIP


And because I realized no one would ever take up my request to do this map, I just sat down with a beer and started it myself. Because I have no idea how to make realistic-looking region maps with nice textures and stuff, I just took the easy route and went parchment+brushes. It's quick, dirty, and ugly, but it's better than nothing.

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## Askren

Vencarlo's Apartment, Curse of the Crimson Throne


Warden's Shack- Second Floor, Jade Regent


Brinestump Cave, Jade Regent

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## madcowchef

I think your water on the wardens shack is far more convincing than the water you used in the cave.  Good layout for your cave system.

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## Askren

Yeah, I agree. The problem is, water is EXTREMELY hard to get right, and most of the time is just me mashing textures together (good, relatively flat, conservatively-lit water textures are hard to come by), and hoping I can stumble into the same effect I had last time, which I rarely can reproduce. I haven't used the cave map, so I may have time to fix it between now and then, since it was kind of rushed to get done in time for my session on Thursday (shame on me for assuming a simple cave would be easier to slap together than a house or something). 

Personally, I like floor texture you used in your caves much better, but I couldn't recreate it.

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## madcowchef

I feel your pain.  I want someone with an ultralight to fly around taking pictures of water from a top down view day and night!  I set up templates with a layer for each texture and then set up a layer mask so I don't lose any of my textures and import them between files as needs be.  The advantage of my battlemaps is their simplicity so I can take that time to get some nice textures without doing all the hard work of adding much in the way of features, unlike the higher detail work you're doing.  If CG textures allowed it I'd gladly hand out any of the textures I've reworked from their originals.

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## rook420

The Thistletop maps are great and just what I was looking for. It was hard to find the outside map and you've done a wonderful job.
From one DM to another, thanks for the hard work!

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## Askren

So I've been really busy for the last few months, work and such, you know how it goes. Very little time to actually get stuff done.

But, I've gotten some new campaigns going recently, so I got back into mapping, especially since I have some really big ones I need to finish that I've been putting off forever, and more beyond them that just keep getting piled on. I've been testing out some new techniques, too, mostly in pursuit of a final product that's as visually nice as a lot of other people's that I'm envious. There's a few cartographers I'd love to workshop with to learn new things. So yeah, here's the last few days of work from me.

Anyway, I managed some new work on this basement/dungeon map for Jade Regent. A lot of the work here is mostly experimenting with textures on the right-hand cave-like side, as well as color matching the whole thing. The props haven't been blended or anything, still playing with them. Very much a WIP.


And just a tavern I threw together for a game called War of the Burning Sky. It's set up for a fairly specific situation, but it could feasibly fill other rules. There's gonna be a second floor too. Obviously a WIP.


And because I'm just generally an idiot and always want to re-do things better than last time, I decided to re-make Tomb of Horrors for what will certainly not be the last time. 
Playing with new techniques and learning new things here, while trying to make a cooler visual experience for everyone. I actually like how some of it came out, the Mosaic Hall especially, though I don't actually like the patterns I used for it. It's supposed to be a colorful mosaic, and I don't like the black in the pattern. Maybe I'll find better to use. Also, I don't like the floor much, but I just can't find anything to replace it with, so I guess I'm stuck with it. WIP.

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## Kennyt

I really like your work on the top map,your choice of floor textures is spot on!   would you mind sharing your cobblestone texture?   Thanks!

My only critique would be to choose a different wall texture - particularly the "natural" cavern sections.   the bevel seems to regular to be natural and the amount of emboss on the rooms vs the low amount on grey walls seems a bit distracting - maybe consider a light emboss on that?


also maybe take a look at after selecting you walls and before adding the bevel, to "distort selection"  just a tad - then adding the bevel?   sitting at my computer at the moment so just trying to dream this up but may be a viable option?

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## Askren

I'm not sure if you mean the bricks lining the wall or the actual stone, the first of which being an idea I had and put a ton of time into (Those round rooms? Yeah, those were made one brick at a time), but am kind of wishing I used a higher-res texture because they're too blurry for me. I'll try some sharpening filters and overlays to see if I can't salvage them, but I may just replace them altogether. The stone behind it, though, all placeholder. For me, though, the stone walls in dungeons is like, the very last thing I do. But walls are always a weak point of mine, I'm working on it.

The floor I used there is on CGtextures, I didn't do anything special to it other than some tuning to bring out details and get a color I wanted. 
FloorsPortuguese0085

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## Askren

Like I said, I'm an idiot and I re-do a lot of things because what's an artist who doesn't hate his own work?

I went back and started my Thistletop Dungeon level 1 from scratch because my group is just about to get there, and I figure I should have a decent map ready for them. It's still a work in progress, I hate the beds and will swap those out, and the cave area is empty because I'm still messing around with ways to get the walls right. My current experiment (not shown) does the job, but it's not something I can readily repeat on other maps, so it's not really the one I want to go with. Also playing with some lighting here, not shown is my messing around with making the dungeon dark, but I scrapped those ideas because they kind of clash with the idea that players have light in-game.

I've got the second level in the works, but it's not remotely done. Also, an idea I've been messing with is leaving the doors off the map, or doing a door-less version, so that I can do the doors right in Roll20 so they can open and close. Maybe, we'll see.

Also, while I'm here, I'll throw up the progress I made on this Brinewall Castle map. I actually got most of the walls done a while ago, but didn't update with it. I had it on the back burner because the group I need it for keeps cancelling sessions, so at this rate I may never actually need it. The walls are actually pretty simple, just time-consuming and I'm thinking of upping the resolution of future maps to 200x200 to make them a little bit more crisp. It's weird, I haven't been back to this one in a while, so I kind of want to re-do huge chunks of it based on new techniques I've been using. Maybe I will, I don't know yet.

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## Blinded

Thank you for sharing your work - I love the changes in the new thistletop; the layout is the same but they are visually so different I know I will end up using both and changing the rotation. My bet is my players don't notice  :Wink:

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## Forcas

What are you using? Your maps look gorgeous.

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## Falconius

> Like I said, I'm an idiot and I re-do a lot of things because what's an artist who doesn't hate his own work?


Bah, you only hate it because you know what's wrong with it, but no one else does so don't sweat it.

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## Askren

I appreciate the comments. I've got a lot of projects on my desk right now, but my game load has dropped so really I'm just in a process of trying new things and seeing what techniques work.




> What are you using? Your maps look gorgeous.


Photoshop, that's all. Actually, a lot of what I do can be narrowed down to a few really basic techniques. They're not great, but they do the job. And thanks.

Here's something I decided to take a swing at because I might be taking a new run at Curse of the Crimson Throne:

Fishery map, 1st Floor.


Still a huge WIP, but as you can see, there is a lot of wood going on here, from the boat to the building to the walkways, etc. I'm kind having to pull out everything I have so I can sell all of that wood. The problem is it becomes very difficult to see. This is supposed to be a filthy, grimy, run-down dock warehouse making fish sludge, with a broken-down old boat out back. I'll be dirtying up the place as I go along.

You have no idea how hard it is to find useful pictures of piles of dead fish and guts. Seriously, it's hard.

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## madcowchef

Good pictures of piles of a lot of things are hard they tend to have weird lighting when you do find them, and no one take hi resolution pictures of piles of fish guts, corn husks, or whatever else.  The unevenness of the wood work is really selling it for me as far as run down, and I think your varied wood textures are doing a fine job of keeping it distinct as to what's what.  The liquid tank next to the gut pile doesn't look overly liquid to me (I thought it was a table till closer inspection), maybe put a ripple filter on the wood base of the tank and increase the opacity of the liquid were its deepest?

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## Askren

Yeah, the big vat isn't supposed to be filled with liquid, it's supposed to be like the smaller square vat, filled with guts and seaweed and junk, the water is just an overlay. But I wasn't gonna do work on it until I get the actual nasty piles right. Also wanted to re-do it so the planks on the side are angled inwards rather than straight up and down. It'll look better once I get around to really working on it, I just have to figure out how I want to get it looking right.

That's another problem, I'm currently trying to make from scratch bits of seaweed and stuff to spread over the floors and stuff. It's not simple work. I've also been having a huge time coming up with a solution for making the wood floors and stuff look wet and slick with fish slime and water.

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## madcowchef

For standing water or slime try using a funky shaped brush, will the fill turned way down (5% or so), and then add a bevel of a couple of pixels  wide making sure the highlight mode is screen.  Then turn the angle of the light for the bevel way up (70-80 degrees) a bit of texture to the bevel helps too.  Finally you can add a dark glow around it to help define the edges.  Not sure it it will meet your needs and certainly won't meet all of them but might be fun for patches at least.

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## Askren

Yeah, the actual liquid is easy, it's a technique I've used for water and blood puddles before and may do in some capacity. I'm specifically talking about like, taking a normal wood texture such as those crates there, and making it look like it's actually wet and slick.

Like, some dark brown patches on Color Burn with low opacity help a bit, but the don't really sell the slick look that comes with wet wood. Like I said, working on it, haven't solved it yet.

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## Jacktannery

I love that fishery Asken - great work.

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## Askren

Always appreciate the kind words, guys. I'm still working on the Fishery, right now I'm focused on dirtying up the work floor by draping seaweed over everything and covering the floor with it, but also building the second half of the map with the ship's interior, which is more difficult than I expected. But good practice because I have a map coming up that's gonna need lots of ship-building. 

Anyway, here's something I threw together over the last day or so. I'm still working on the mud and fences and stuff, but I'm happy with some of the progress.



I've also noticed that more and more, instead of using pre-existing objects from around the internet, and using them as bases to re-build those objects with my own textures and stuff.

EDIT: 
Also, some progress on the Fishery, replaced the older version. I think I may need this to be useable by tonight, so let's hope I can bust out that last details for this half today. Crunch time!

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## the$im

The fishery so far makes for an eerie piece of scenery. Looking forward to see the final result :>

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## Kennyt

ooooh love the fishery!   very nice!

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## Askren

It's been a while without update, because my game schedule kinda slowed down, and sickness and work kinda cut into my schedule of free time.

But, here's what's I've gotten (mostly) finished recently;



Just some updated maps for my use in my current Runelords game. I may eventually get around to doing the outer areas and upper floors (one of which I built, but it was at half-resolution, so I may do it again in a useful ratio), but at the moment I have other things to get done. Also, there's no doors because I add those in Roll20. 

And this is a snippet of something I'm working at, which kind of represents a bunch of somethings. 


A lot of my upcoming maps feature pretty extensive underground/cave sections, and I've really been working on improving how I can make my natural cave areas look better.  Also, my mud is an ongoing project.

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## wdmartin

Nice thistletop maps.  I particularly like the Lamashtu statue.  Is that available as an asset someplace?

And as for your experimental caverns, they look good!  Care to share some of your techniques?  I'm particularly interested by the multiple-shelves jutting out of the walls.

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## Askren

The statue isn't availible anywhere at the moment, though I guess I can dig it out of the PSD and upload it when I get a chance.

I've been extremely busy with work, but I've been chipping away at this cave system recently, and you can see how massively my experimenting has pulled me away from the original snippet. I decided that this cave should be more dirt and less bare rock, so my effort has basically been put towards trying to get some realistic looking dirt floors. I gotta say, out of all the maps I've done, I've spent more time on the floor here than almost any other. No tiling textures here.



There's a pile of others I'd like to finish fairly soon, but not really much to show for those.




> Care to share some of your techniques? I'm particularly interested by the multiple-shelves jutting out of the walls.


This is actually one of the least difficult techniques as far as actually implementing it, because really all I did was draw squiggly shapes under the Wall layer that matched the basic outline, but were different so they stood out, and then just applied the same layer properties with shadows and stuff. 

For this map, I took them off because while I think they do an interesting job for stone cave walls, I decided the walls of these catacombs were more dirt than stone, and am experimenting with some ways to make that work.

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## Askren

Update time I guess.

Work has really eaten into my schedule the last few months, and it's really cut down on the time I've had to get my maps done. I often find myself racing to get something finished in time to use it, which considering I'm only running one campaign right now, isn't really great.

Anyway, I've got one map in a "useable" state, and a few ongoing side projects right now;

Habe's Sanatorium First Floor

While this certainly isn't a "final" work, and a ton of objects need to be replaced (I put in some placeholders I bought from Roll20), it was enough to use. This is not the actual map from the book, rather the first floor is the same but expanded, the second floor is entirely different.

Habe Sanatorium Second Floor


Habe Sanatorium Basement


And the major project I've got going right now that I'm just sort of chipping away at every now and then is this, my Misgivings Manor attempt. As much as I appreciate Tinangel's crazy-detailed versions, I'm gonna have to take a swing at it myself just for the challenge. Lucky for my, I changed my story so Misgivings happens at the end of the book, so I have a few months to work on this.

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## Askren

Just because I took on the goal of running it as an intro-session, I became interested in the dungeon map from Dragon's Demand.

So, I started it.


The colors and sharpness look awful because I had to crank down the compression to upload it.

This is also one of the first maps I've really done without set, "tiling" pieces, which is why there's some odd blending going on with corners and stuff. Still trying to decide on an appropriate floor texture for the bigger rooms, too.

Lots of experimenting going on, as always.

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## Raiko

That's looking like it will be great Askren, I'm really interested to see how your Dragon's Demand dungeon turns out compared to mine - we are the only two who seem to have taken on this map so far.

I'm considering running Dragon's Demand as a PbP forum game - I've tried before with an Adventure Path but that stalled, Dragon's Demand seems like a nicer length to run on a forum. So I might have a go at the second map soon. Will you be running the whole adventure, or just this dungeon? The Monastery map is awesome, but huge!

I love your recent updates, especially your cavern walls in Thistletop. For your "dug out of earth caves" have you tried a similar method, but with "softer" edges? I thought that that might work.

I also wanted to mention your Old Fishery map, I've tried mapping that a few times myself, and I've always been unhappy with the result - your map is looking awesome, I can't wait to see it finished!  :Smile:

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## Askren

Thanks for the comment. I hadn't planned on running the entire thing, it was really just an interesting module I'd been holding on to for a while, and found the opening chapter to be one I can play out in an engaging enough way that it serves as an introduction for new players to my style of DMing and how I handle roleplaying things. I've been working to put together an E6 Curse of the Crimson Throne game with some hardcore roleplayers, but have been having trouble. This module was supposed to be an introduction for them to how I do things, and see how they all play together.

However, one player dropped so it seems like I might just run most of the module while I search for a replacement.

You're right about the Monastery, it's kind of nuts. If I ever do it, and that's a huge if, it'll be a month-long project for sure. Just scaling that thing would push my computer to it's limits.

A room.

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## Askren

So I recently did some livestreaming of my mapmaking, basically as a thing for the VTT community of map makers/sellers who wanted to workshop or learn new techniques and stuff. Successful? Eh. Productive? Sort of. I got this done;


Not all of it was done live. The gatehouse at the bottom was made by manually stitching together like, 6 completely different medieval brickwork textures done by hand. Which means cutting the edges up and manufacturing bricks to fit the spaces so that the two join seamlessly. That took pretty much all of this past night to do, but I have TV to keep me from getting too bored.

"But Askren, you already made this map, and put way too much time into it. Why do it again?" I hear you say. Well, for fun mostly. But because my process and techniques have changed massively since then, and I wanted to see if I could do it better.

Made some other small little maps for things I'll be running sometime soon, so I'll post those when they're 100%.

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## Askren

For some reason, floor textures matching the grid have been bothering me recently, that's what I spent my last few days doing. I know it kind of feels like I'll never get things done because I just keep messing with them, but hopefully one day I'll get it right.

Actually, I'm more concerned that I'll just run out of good textures to use for future maps and end up recycling them.

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## Jacktannery

Very nice texture on Tiles_4 Asken. Did you create that one yourself?

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## Askren

That's actually the one I did the least editing to, out of the 4 versions that came before it. The rest were the normal grid-style tiles seen in the version a post earlier, and I went through a few iterations of that.

I did do a more "textured" version that I experimented with a little here:


I like how it looks in some places, but the thing that bugs me is the "smoothness" to it, like it doesn't really look like an actual castle's floor. I don't really know.

The other experiment I did was this:


Not necessarily the final texture, but one of the better results with the mixed-size floor stones, and I think it looks a bit more natural, I just have to work on giving it a bit more roughness.

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## Meshon

I just wanted to say, thanks for all these maps! Really, this is a great resource and I'm glad you keep the updates coming.

cheers,
Meshon

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## Askren

I appreciate it. Kinda wish I had more going on that could actually be called "finished", but I like to think that it'll all get done eventually.

Anyway, here's something I threw together today on a whim. The floor isn't bad, but I can't seem to put together enough muddy swamp textures to make the outside of the cave. Also the water is lazy, but I've found that the more work I put into water, the worse it tends to look.

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## Jacktannery

Yeah its a bit regular I guess, but it still looks great. They are a bit small (the last castle I worked on had stone pavers 600mm-1m across) but I love them. I like the one you posted above in 68 more than your two latest versions.

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## jpstod

I did some Dragon's Demand Maps...posted

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## Askren

Progress has been slow, I've sort of been bouncing between different projects recently, starting work on smaller maps and then not finishing them when I need.

I've got more work on my Dragon's Demand map, lots of edging stuff and not much actual progress. 

Also the document is far, far too big to post here without cutting the file size down and making it look horrible.

http://s4.postimg.org/3lhorlb1n/Dragon_Demand.jpg

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## Phantos

I've featured your maps in a few of my campaigns, thanks for all of your hard work! I was pleasantly surprised to see a few extra pages of work since I last checked in.

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## wdmartin

Hey, is that water texture you used in Brinestump Cave available anywhere?  I like the look of it, and it's hard to find good top-down water textures.

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## foremost

Just tuning in to this now, and one word comes to mind; neat!
Great job with the bloodstains on the first few maps.

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## Askren

Thanks for the kind words, guys. Always appreciate it. Real life has put a quash on my ability to finish stuff recently, but I'm trying.


WDMartin:
Sure. Here you go

Credit goes to...TextureLib, I think? Probably.


Also, another WIP I threw together. Still needs polish. Second floor coming soon.

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## wdmartin

Awesome, thanks.  And I hadn't heard of TextureLib before, but it looks like an excellent resource.

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## Hewdamia

I always lurk here and am amazed at the things I find. I've enjoyed everything in this thread and the Brinewall Dungeon and Brinewall itself will make an appearance in my next session if I may beg to ask to use it. Amazing.

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## Askren

I forgot I still had this thread. Life has been weird. I livestream stuff now. 

Anyway, maps.

Dead Warrens, from Curse of the Crimson Throne


Not-really-finished-but-I-used-it-so-I-probably-won't-complete-it version of the Wizard Tower Dungeon from Dragon's Demand


Swamp Cave from Jade Regent


Licktoad Village from Jade Regent


Current Projects:
Rat Sewers from Curse of the Crimson Throne

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## SrgDark

I like your work mate. Great stuff all around.

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## mithosaurion

Beautiful work, if I may say so!

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## Steel_Wind

> Always appreciate the kind words, guys. I'm still working on the Fishery, right now I'm focused on dirtying up the work floor by draping seaweed over everything and covering the floor with it, but also building the second half of the map with the ship's interior, which is more difficult than I expected. But good practice because I have a map coming up that's gonna need lots of ship-building. 
> 
> Anyway, here's something I threw together over the last day or so. I'm still working on the mud and fences and stuff, but I'm happy with some of the progress.
> 
> Attachment 67110
> 
> I've also noticed that more and more, instead of using pre-existing objects from around the internet, and using them as bases to re-build those objects with my own textures and stuff.
> 
> EDIT: 
> ...


The _Anniversary Edition of Curse of the Crimson Throne_ pre-orders are finalized for shipment on September 29, 2016. Next week, the hardcover will ship and the PDF will be released to those who have pre-ordered.

In short, the maps you did are about 1 week away from being in high demand, and none more in demand than the Old Fishery.

Obviously, the thing which leaps to mind is whether you ever bothered to do "Old Fishery" Level 2, or if you finished Level 1. If you did not, would you consider posting your .psd and textures so that others might finish it off?

I am guessing I will be needing this map in ~2 weeks  :Smile: 

Yes, there are other community version of these maps, but they are all bright cheery and happy maps  -- not the depressing, dreary, soul-crushing dens of scum and villainy which you have done!

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## thankful

Hi there, I literally just created an account to say your awesome. I'm currently playing pathfinder going through the Rise of the Rune Lords, and your maps are exactly what I needed! 

Keep up the good work plz and thank you!

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## Niztael

Just hoping you stop by and post more even though it's been a while. Great map work here.

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