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Using bevels to create contour lines
This in example of a battle map I created using the bevel tool to create contour lines for elevation. In the northeast corner is steep hill, and to the west is a sloping rise. The river has a bank as well.
Edited to be more descriptive of the steps used:
The base map is a 200ft X 200ft square. I used a water texture as a background and created two large fractal polygons for the land on each side of the river. I added and dragged several nodes on the second polygon to make it somewhat follow the same path as the other riverbank. Then I scaled each side up so they filled off the map to prevent any water showing through on the outside edges due to fractalization on the outsides. Once I was happy with the river's shape, I colored the land pieces with sand, and used the bevel tool at maximum width and small steps.
Next I cloned each river bank and colored the clones grassy. Then I dragged/placed them back from sand parents making a nice tidy sand bank.
For the steep hill in the upper right corner I created a fractal circle, and made it big enough to nudge it off the map. Next I cloned it and scaled it to 90% and stacked it on the first circle. I repeated that several times until I had the number of gradient lines I wanted.
The hardest part was the low rise. And I actually used two techniques for different sides. On the right side, I made a single fractal polygon and beveled it using the regular step with a very narrow width. As you can see it is quite defined but I kind of liked it to show some texture and elevation without making it look like a slope.
On the left side of the map I created another fractal polygon but this time I had to use a plugin to get the width of the bevel out farther than the slider allows.
Again, cloned and stacked as needed. I can't remember if I set the bevel width to 200, 300, or 400, but the plugin is easy to adjust as needed.
-Bill
Edited to be more descriptive of the steps used:
The base map is a 200ft X 200ft square. I used a water texture as a background and created two large fractal polygons for the land on each side of the river. I added and dragged several nodes on the second polygon to make it somewhat follow the same path as the other riverbank. Then I scaled each side up so they filled off the map to prevent any water showing through on the outside edges due to fractalization on the outsides. Once I was happy with the river's shape, I colored the land pieces with sand, and used the bevel tool at maximum width and small steps.
Next I cloned each river bank and colored the clones grassy. Then I dragged/placed them back from sand parents making a nice tidy sand bank.
For the steep hill in the upper right corner I created a fractal circle, and made it big enough to nudge it off the map. Next I cloned it and scaled it to 90% and stacked it on the first circle. I repeated that several times until I had the number of gradient lines I wanted.
The hardest part was the low rise. And I actually used two techniques for different sides. On the right side, I made a single fractal polygon and beveled it using the regular step with a very narrow width. As you can see it is quite defined but I kind of liked it to show some texture and elevation without making it look like a slope.
On the left side of the map I created another fractal polygon but this time I had to use a plugin to get the width of the bevel out farther than the slider allows.
#author Berentain of Devlon #desc Sets the bevel distance to 200 #plugin Bevel Distance 200 oMap = GetCurrentMap() oMap.SetBevelSelected 5,200,270,50
Again, cloned and stacked as needed. I can't remember if I set the bevel width to 200, 300, or 400, but the plugin is easy to adjust as needed.
-Bill
Comments
For users who haven't done much with the bevel effect yet, you might also want to give a bit more detail on just how you did it.
-Bill
The file size is dependent in part upon the display quality that's selected when you save. When you use special effects, you get the best results with these settings, under the menu option "Map:"
Map
|_____Display Quality
|_____ Highest
and
Map
|_____Display Quality
|_____ Special Effects (Medium Res) OR
|_____ Special Effects (High Res)
However, when you save the file, you'll get less size if you set the special effects back to Low Res before saving and then setting it higher again when you reopen the file.