# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Virtual Tabletop/Battlemap Mapping >  Three towers

## pasis

Here is the latest project I'm working on. It features three ruined towers looking over a deep chasm. This is a low resolution version due to size limitations, but it will give you a view what is to come.

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## RecklessEnthusiasm

Wowza! How do you get such convincing impressions of height on your terrain? That's something I always struggle with. Is there a 3D program involved here?

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## bradlavario

Wow that is amazing looking terrain.

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## Dain

Amazing indeed ^^
Can't even start to think where to begin to match same style ...

Guys, he is PASIS. No mere guild adept here  :Cool:

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## mearrin69

Yeah. Wow. You're going to have to share your secrets someday...that's some *amazing* looking terrain. The tower looks awesome too. Have some rep.
M

[edit: Spoke too soon. Have to spread it around first...I've been remiss in my repping duties!]

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## Mark Oliva

The terrain looks great.  The tower ruins and bridge all appear to be from the Dundjinni (TM) forums.

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## pasis

Indeed the towers and the bridge are not my creations. I have just done simple modifications to fit them into this map. The credit goes to the artists in Dundjinni. I tried to create the towers myself, but the results were so poor and you would have got good laughs (I sure did...right after I had stopped crying).

The terrain elevation is a created using a gray scale 2D heightmap and then applying several layers of various textures on top of it. I use Geocontrol to create the heightmaps and save them as normal bitmaps (as I'm no pro on geocontrol I tend to create several heighmaps and use only the best parts of them). I also tried to create the heightmap for the chasm, but failed constantly, so I created it manually by drawing using standard black brush with low opacity.

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## pasis

> Wowza! How do you get such convincing impressions of height on your terrain? That's something I always struggle with. Is there a 3D program involved here?


I use geocontrol for the heightmap and you can actually export a real 3D data out from it to be used with and 3D program. But I don't have any 3D program and those are really expensive, so I just work on the 2D gray scale image in Photoshop. If you are interested in using Geocontrol, please seach for a tutorial created by our fellow cartographer Jykke. It is a tutorial that got me started with Geocontrol.

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## aegean

WOW ! this is an epic art piece! I think the two completely ruined towers started out as mine at some point ( I hope :p ). your depth of field is amazing, you pulled off the gorge like I have never seen and your "very semi ISO" trick on the waterfall works fantastic!

I'm linking this through to Dundjinni (if I may?)

ae

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## pasis

> WOW ! this is an epic art piece! I think the two completely ruined towers started out as mine at some point ( I hope :p ). your depth of field is amazing, you pulled off the gorge like I have never seen and your "very semi ISO" trick on the waterfall works fantastic!
> 
> I'm linking this through to Dundjinni (if I may?)
> 
> ae


Sure you can. It is just great when more fellow mappers get new ideas and inspiration!

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## Bogie

Great Map Pasis!  I am also impressed by the elevation techniques you used.  Since Aegean pointed out the tower ruins he made, I spotted the campfire I took a photo of. :Smile:

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## pasis

The campfire is actually semi self made  :Smile:  I had a picture of a burnt logs and then used a rock texture to draw the rocks around the campfire. It is actually quite fun way to create rocks as you can create single rock or pile of rocks depending on how much you paint (you just remove the unwanted pieces if you draw too much). Then just add drop shadow and a bit of bevel to make them pop out. It is a lot faster way than adding individual rocks and I'm currently working on creating similar texture for bigger rocks too. 
I have also taken several photos of a tree trunks and other objects to create reasonable library of self made objects. So it will take a while before I get a reasonable update to this map as the background work takes so much time.

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## Bogie

Now that I look close I can see that yours is a little different.  That's funny that we both took burnt campfire pics that look so much alike.

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## pasis

I'm pretty much done with the basic texturing and it's time to add more objects (trees, rocks etc).

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## Ramah

Your texturing is amazing, man. And your rivers, as always, are superb. Great stuff.  :Smile:

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## pasis

> Your texturing is amazing, man. And your rivers, as always, are superb. Great stuff.


...But I lack direction where to take this map. In the meantime while waiting for reasonable idea I decided to draw a cave leading down to darkness.

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## Bogie

Cave entrances are not easy and this one looks great!

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## Kiroshi

Very cool work!

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## templar12

Very nice! I like it a lot and can imagine several VTT encounters for it!

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## corycubbage

Wow! This map is awesome and I'm going to be using it in my campaign!  Do you happen to have a full version with the cave included in it?

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