# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Building/Structure Mapping >  Sea God Temple - I.C.E. contest entry WIP

## Gamerprinter

Sargoseum - the temple of the Sea God is my entry to the I.C.E. map contest. In the style of a greek temple, slightly altered for my purposes, since my sea god, Sargos, has been inspired by Poseidon.

Relying on 3D created objects, Xara Xtreme and photo images from CGTextures.com in the creation of this map.

Map dimensions is 36" x 48", where 1 inch = 3 feet/meters.

The attached is the incomplete main floor, just the floor, no walls yet. I have placed the altar to Sargos, as well as some columns at the entrance way. I still need to create and place my other planned bronze statues: dolphin, crab, fish, shark, manta ray. I plan to place them on the walkway to either side of Sargos.

See the octopus icon on the center circular tile? I plan to fill those eight smaller tiles with the other sea creatures, I've mentioned in the Map Objects thread for this same challenge. I'll use that same green marble on them as well. Once complete, I will put a bevel and slight drop shadow on the tiles themselves to standout above the mosaic.

The pool is open to the sea, as the temple is built right on the sea's edge. This is the place sacrifices are placed. Food items might be placed in the top circle, where the priest speaks to the worshippers or to the god behind him. Gems, jewelry, armor, weapons and other items are cast in the water. (Acolytes must fish the items out once the worshippers are gone, to add to the temple's treasury.)

Those two alcoves to either side of the temple will contain chambers and stairs, though at ground floor, one serves as the vestry, the other the sacristy.

I need to create the other statues and walls next. When the temple is complete I will create the rocky grounds, cliffside and the sea...

GP

WIP so far...  :Cool:

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## Ascension

All I can say is wow!

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## Steel General

GP I am always amazed by the quality of your work!

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## Redstar

I'm guessing your sea god is a kind god?  When I saw the mosaic in at the bottom (which looks great by the way!) I was hoping for an angry, giant squid god of the sea  :Smile:   The statue there looks great though, as does the water around the base.  The top of the columns seem to be lacking something, but I'm not sure what.

Over all, great map!

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## Gamerprinter

My tiles on the mosaic are large so they can be easily viewed by the gamer, they are so large, that it effectively hides the mosaic, beneath. If I used something familiar like an angry squid, you wouldn't be able to see it.

I may place some mosaics in the two side rooms. I might try an angry squid in one of those.

I added walls, stairs up to administrative chambers to either side of the chapel area. I added some additional bronze statues - crab, dolphins, octopus and clams. I added a few more columns, placed a dias for the high priest in the top circle of the mosaic area. Also added stairs in front.

WIP so far...

GP

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## RPMiller

Looking good as always. You do have some alias artifacts around your 3D models though from the cut paste I'm guessing. Can your 3D program render an alpha channel export? I do that in Poser all the time, but I'm not sure if all 3D programs can do that. It gets rid of having to then cut the image away from the background.

There is also a line in the middle of the octopus icon in the big circle.

There seems to be a "stacking" problem with the figures and wall to the left of the sea god as well.

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## Gamerprinter

I have Poser as well, but I'm not doing the main render there - the app I use doesn't render in alpha channel, I'll fix those edges, though.

I'll probably have to shrink those statues a bit and move above the walls, on left of altar.

The line on the octopus tile, however is not a seam, but an actual dark streak at the center of the green marble, so that's not an error.

Small tweaks to fix these, thanks for noticing, RP.

GP

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## RPMiller

Odd about that dark streak. That doesn't seem natural to me so I'm attaching what I'm looking at (highlighted in red) just to make sure.

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## Gamerprinter

OK - I added walls, more chambers, more mosaics: squid, jellyfish, whirlpool and a tidal wave (all from Japanese ukiyo-e prints). I placed some rocky ground, paved street out front, and though difficult to see, ocean on the northern edge.

All I need to do is add some furniture: tables, benches, chests and whatnot into those 4 side chambers, then toss in the hex grid and call this complete!

More tweaks, of course... WIP so far...

GP

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## Redrobes

Its looking really really good. That mosaic floor is dead cool.

I got some pics of some fish I saw in a pool if they will help and I think this is what the problem line RP is telling you about.

My only crit at mo is that the stone block flooring is very pixellated. You will have to find some higher res texture for that.

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## Gamerprinter

Yeah, I was over compensating. I thought the JPG was blurry, so I unsharp masked it - well now its too sharp and very pixelated!

I won't do that again. So what do you think - post 999. One more to go to be able to Bonk with +5

GP

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## Redrobes

What about this one... ok its the side of a wall in an abbey but its like paves

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## Gamerprinter

And for my 1000th post - I'm complete with the design.

Of the four rooms  I imagine the upper left chamber as being the treasury, and the room on lower left to be the "vestry". The room in the upper right is the Cartographer's Chamber (sea charts are kept here), the lower right chamber is an administrative area and library - or the "sacristy".

I added some lawn and trees outside the temple to help define "outside" and I used RR's pavement to replace mine. Finally I placed the I.C.E. grid on top of the floor/ground level.

I need to slice this up into 8 x 10 pieces and create a multi-page PDF file to submit for entry.

Completed map below.

GP

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## RPMiller

Turned out very nice. Love the included maps in the Cartographer's Chamber.  :Very Happy:

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## Steel General

Excellent Job GP! Love all the extra details you've added. 

Can't rep you at the moment but I'll give you some in spirit  :Smile: 

I started working on my submission to the contest but it's barely beyond some scribbles on a notepad in my office.

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## Redrobes

Yeah it looks awesome - somebody's going to have to go for it to top that one. I echo RP's comment about the maps. Its like, yeah and theres more of this if you want it. Heh - sock it to em.

Oh yeah, dont forget that PosteRazor app which cuts images into pages and makes a PDF out of them...

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## Redstar

Nice job!  The finishing touches on the other rooms really brings it together.  Nice choice of mosaics, in particular the angry squid  :Smile:  If I worshiped a shark-riding sea-god i would totally go there.

Ps: It's say I have to rep other people before I can rep you again :\

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## ravells

Stunning work, GP - best of luck in the competition! Make sure your audience are sure to view it at full scale where they can admire the mosaic. The only thing which I don't like so much are the stars around the main mosaic pattern. I think the picture would be better just with the tiles underneath, but that's just me.

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## Gamerprinter

Those aren't stars, Ravs, those are column bases. Think of this temple as a Greek styled Agora temple, columns beneath a dome of bronze is the front of this temple. With smaller square structures to each side and a larger square structure in the rear, containing the altar chamber.

Notice the shadows of the columns on the bases (stars) in the front.

Thanks for the comments, guys!

GP

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## Gamerprinter

So I decided to create a quick and cheesy 3D rendering of the temple - so you can get a better idea what it really looks like. 

Note this was a 5 minute modeling job and 5 minute rendering - the textures on the pavement is really off...

I may do a higher quality modeling and rendering for a cover for the set.

GP

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## Steel General

Your "quick and cheesy" is far, far better than anything I could manage.

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## Gamerprinter

Still cheesy, but a better render - the water and ground plan isn't 3d... only the building...  :Confused: 

I gotta learn how to use Bryce - that would be the app to render the ground and water with...

GP

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## mathuwm

nice temple i love the mosaics and the sculptures

but i do not like the 1970s fake veneer furniture with precision rounded corners

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## Gamerprinter

I added a legend and some floorplan layout with room text, etc.

The main reason is PosterRazor, the app that RR pointed to had preset sizes and my map is actually 38+ inches wide. The presets are 36 and 48 inches and nothing in between so I added to accomodate the 48 inches (but it does work as a whole, so its all good.)

I'm also attaching the PDF version ready to print at letter size 24 pages (6 wide and 4 high, the legend fits into 4 pages.)

GP

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## Jorik

The mosaics - Wow!   Don't tell me it's simply the Stained Glass filter of photoshop - they look way more realistic.
May I ask how you did that?
Thanks
Roy

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## Jorik

> The mosaics - Wow!   Don't tell me it's simply the Stained Glass filter of photoshop - they look way more realistic.
> May I ask how you did that?
> Thanks
> Roy


Ok figured it out - It's a third party plugin.
Thanks a lot for the beautiful map.

Hope to continue visit this place for an abundance of inspiration
Roy

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## Redrobes

See:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=1478
and
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=1482

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## Turgenev

Man that's fantastic, Gameprinter! Well done!

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## Steel General

GP, out of curiosity how did you do the hex grid on your map? I've been looking for something to help me create one, but haven't had any luck so far.

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## Gamerprinter

Hexes? You won't believe it. Using Xara (use whatever works for you) with snap to grid turned on, I create one hex. I duplicate it and place it hex properly next to it, then copy both, line up the next pair, copy all four and so on. I do this till the double placement of hexes go all the way across the map.
Then copy, place until all the hexes are created.

I'm sure you could find pre-made hex files you could convert to a transparent PNG file and place on you map.

I do it the anal way, but only because I don't do hexes much, so I make it from scratch.

GP

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## RPMiller

I would just make a repeatable hex pattern define it as a fill and then fill a layer with the pattern. Like this:

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## Steel General

That's what I was looking for RP, but I could find any examples of how to create one.

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## RPMiller

Start a new documentSet your current brush to 2 px, 100% hardnessPick the Shape ToolChoose the Polygon Tool, 6 sides, pathDraw a polygon to the size you wantRight click the pathChoose Stroke..., pick brushDelete the pathCopy the layer 6 timesPosition the other layers aligned to the six sidesPlace gridlines at the centers of the outer hexes forming a squareDraw a rectangle selection from corner to corner of the gridlinescrop the imageSave as a patternDone.
Or you can just load the attached pattern (make sure to remove the '.txt' off the name to use it).  :Wink:

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## Steel General

Thanks, much appreciated.

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