# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Virtual Tabletop/Battlemap Mapping >  4e Tomb of Horrors - Garden of Graves

## Formic

My group will be running the first part of this adventure soon, and here's the battle-map I'll be using for the Garden of Graves. It's such a massive thing I figured someone else might find some use for it. It has the Dark Angels map ready for areas 21-23, but I think I need to make another version with that area blanked for changing from within maptools. I learn PS stuff as I need it for this, and I'm a little disappointed with the lack of "mood." Any suggestions that would make the map look a little more cohesive?

Thanks!

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## geamon

I haven't really looked at the Tomb of Horrors for 4e yet to be honest. From what I can see, personally the roads, paths and rooms seem overly angular to me. Another thing is the resolution of some of the textures used are blurry or stretched in comparison to others. Also try to find endless texture or make your own, this would prevent the evident lines formed from the edge of the source texture used for the cliff or escarpments. Very minor things to be sure, aside from that is just adding polish to what you have. Then again I'm pretty inexperienced myself and could be wrong.

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## Avengeil

One thing I would prefer would be if you're textures blended in a bit better because at the moment they seem a bit weird (especially those brown soil puddles something textures). You can do that easily using layer masks and blurring the mask so that the gray areas would be semi-transperent.But because my explanation sucks check out jfrazier's excellent tut on layer mask's masks and blurring the mask so that the gray areas would be semi-transperent.But because my explanation sucks check out jfrazier's excellent tut on layer mask's(here).I hope it will work.




> I haven't really looked at the Tomb of Horrors for 4e yet to be honest.


Neither have I but I so want to get around doing so.

Edit: oooooh, I just found out that this post 100!

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## tilt

for your first battlemap this looks great - yep, as the comments above say - work on seamless textures (in the tuts) and try to blend things more together so they look more natural. But what your map really needs are some drama and depth - and that comes with shadows. Gotta work on those shadows to make stuff POP. 
Are you using this in some software driven game or is it supposed to be printed - cause if you print it, you'll probably need a bit higher resolution to make the print sharp. Calculate with 200 dpi - so for every 1 inch square your picture should be 200 pixels wide for a good print (or 150 might do it).

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## Formic

Thanks for the advice folks! And thanks for the link Avengeil, I've never used layer masks, that was very informative. I'll be at work on it for awhile, I'll repost when I think there's some improvement.

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## NeonKnight

Are you aware that there IS an official 4e conversion for the Tomb of Horrors?

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## Formic

Yep, this is the map used for most of the first adventure in the official adventure.

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## cpouliot

Any place we can find the other maps for the campaign?

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## Avengeil

Well nobody over here has made the Tomb of Horrors battlemaps, I believe that you can download them at wizards of the coast's site but you need to have a d&d insider account which means that you have to pay a monthly subscription which is pretty much not worth it. 
If you want though I might be able to make the first few battlemaps of the adventure just for fun mostly...

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## tilt

I beg to differ Avengeil, but that is of course personal taste  :Smile:   ... I gladly pay my monthly subscription, it gives me the character generator, dragon magazine, dungeon magazine, monster generator - so I feel its well worth the money. One thing that IS lacking in quality however are the battle maps you can download - those suck.  
And with your subscription you get 5 monthly downloads to character generator, which I would guess are supposed to make sure that at least 4 players and 1 GM are able to use it, since they only update once a month.   :Smile:

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## Aval Penworth

> I beg to differ Avengeil, but that is of course personal taste   ... I gladly pay my monthly subscription,


Hey Tilt, not everyone is a high flying entrepeneur with cash to burn.

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## Redrobes

Steady on there Aval, its about value for money not just the money. It sounds like tilt thinks theres plenty of value in it and is not just burning his money on it.

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## tilt

*lol*... now the subscription (in my eyes) aren't that much - I believe I pay 6 dollar a month - or just about what a beer costs in a cheap bar overhere - or a gallon of coke  :Wink:

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## Aval Penworth

> Steady on there Aval, its about value for money not just the money. It sounds like tilt thinks theres plenty of value in it and is not just burning his money on it.


Don't worry, Tilt knows that I was completely joking. :Laughing:

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## Avengeil

> I beg to differ Avengeil, but that is of course personal taste   ... I gladly pay my monthly subscription, it gives me the character generator, dragon magazine, dungeon magazine, monster generator - so I feel its well worth the money. One thing that IS lacking in quality however are the battle maps you can download - those suck.  
> And with your subscription you get 5 monthly downloads to character generator, which I would guess are supposed to make sure that at least 4 players and 1 GM are able to use it, since they only update once a month.


I actually have never felt the need for D&D Insider.Maybe I might buy a Dungeon Annual Magazine sometime but that is pretty much it.

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## tilt

I'd actually pay for just the character generator - but don't tell wizards *lol* ... it just works and all options are presented for you, from all the books and all the dragon magazines - and all that you can't choose is filtered out - love it, but thats just me (and my group)   :Smile:  ... but enough thread-jacking for now  :Smile:  ... *passing the thread back to formic*   :Smile:

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## Formic

So I actually had to start using the map before I could do anything except correct the planar-shift portion in the room with the statues. It's still a lot fancier than what the players are used to, although the general consensus is that the place is pretty sunny for something called the Tomb of Horrors. The Big Bad hopefully goes down this weekend.

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## Widfara

Thanks for sharing the Battlemap Formic.  This will make it so much easier to prepare to run the adventure. :-)

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## TheyCallMeTomu

Thank ye, thou hath potentially saved me hours of troublesome labor.

Also, curse ye! Though hath returned me to boredom that would have been eliminated via hours of troublesome labor  :Very Happy:

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