I've been working on some geomorph tiles recently, and as part of that process, I've been trying to develop a good technique for layout down stairs with appropriate shadows to indicate descent/ascent. This is a before/after (left and right respectively) shot of my first and second attempts at this process. I posted the first on the
G+ Map Making in Games community, and got some excellent feedback there.
The changes:
- A different method of laying down the base shadows. The overlay layer I used in the first version was producing an over-saturation effect.
- A second harder shadow near the back of each stair tread to sharpen the edges.
- A very faint highlight on the front edge of each tread to make them pop.
- A gradient shadow to indicate depth, using the revised method.
- A doubled shadow on the lower floor to better match the shadows on the lower stairs.
You might be wondering what this is going to be used for. Well I can offer a hint:
The new stairs look great. There's no question that they are stairs and that they are descending. Nice work. I'd also like to say, kudos for making each stair from a separate section of marble rather than just placing the shadows over a continuous marble texture.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Your comments on G+ have been very helpful in this (and other) endeavors. I've actually laid out a 50 foot long by 50 foot wide staircase using slabs so I can cut/paste a base image from that into the final maps.
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