Hey everyone.
Ever since it became possible to add your own campaign maps in the HD version I've been very exited about trying it out myself. My first attempt used the existing background image and I was pretty satisfied with the result. However it was not enough and I wanted something more unique so I decided to add 3D modelling to the mix. Some people have asked me how I create these maps and so here's an overview of the process. If possible I'll to turn it into a full tutorial for the University later on.
What programs and websites did you use?
I'm using Blender and Photoshop (I will call it PS). The first one is available for free athttps://www.blender.org/. For Photoshop it's more complicated. You could download Gimp which is similar but it might be hard to follow the rest of the tutorial in this case.
Other than that, all you need is a website for blank maps.http://www.d-maps.com/ will do. There are also artists who let you use their cartography PS brushes for free, as long as you don't use it in a commercial project. It's not needed but it can be useful as well.
How do I start?
First of all you have to make a scene in blender. It's too much to explain all the steps here so I suggest you look for blender tutorials. In short what I do is, model the objects, setup the lighting and camera and texture everything. I usually don't use too complicated techniques because I'm not that great at blender myself.
Your end result should look something like this:
Then with some texturing and a good camera angle you'll get the following:
And the render result:
I save this image together with two masks for the parchment and all the attributes that overlap with the parchment. Like this:
I don't understand any of this blender stuff, can you just take me to the Photoshop part?
Ok, next we import all our assets into PS. Don't forget to import your blank map as well. You will have several layers open in PS after you do this.
First we need to make the map fit the parchment. We do this by distorting it (Under edit, transform) until it covers the whole thing. It's okay if it goes over it, as long as the important places of your campaign fit on the canvas. Now cut out the water from the blank map with the magic tool and move it to a new layer. Change the water to any shade of gray and set the mode to "Multiply". Set the old map layer also to multiply. Since the land mass is white it will just become invisible. The important part however are the borders. You can alter its color, fade some parts and make others darker to get a more unique look.
Now use the masks to cut out the parts where your map goes outside the parchments or overlapses with your 3D modeled attributes. Your're almost done, hang in there.
You can add layer masks to your water and border layers to fade out the parts near the edges of the parchment. Select the outlines of the parchment mask and contract that selection by about 10 pixels. Then click on the square with the circle in it (a button underneath the layers). Apply a Gaussian Blur effect to it to fade.
Finally you can add texts, territories, borders and drawings to the map however you like.
When you're done with this, you will have layers similar to this.
And your end result will something like this.
All nice and well but what about the Image Buttons?
Well those are a whole other thing and can be 3D modeled too. However I'm not going to get into that because it took me months of learning to get to this point.
This is what I made for this example:
You'll need three versions of the image button although I don't believe "Down" is ever used. You can get away with one normal button and a highlighted one. Just duplicate the highlighted one for the "Down" button. To do the highlight, open the button image in PS and after opening Layer Style give it an Outer Glow effect. Increase this effect, make it white and that's it.
How do I get all this in my steam workshop mod?
This is something that would be explained in a university article. For now check out this page:
http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=4&tn=44364&st=10#post11
I know it's all very confusing if you're not familiar with these programs, but I hope this can already help some of you get on the right track.
Ever since it became possible to add your own campaign maps in the HD version I've been very exited about trying it out myself. My first attempt used the existing background image and I was pretty satisfied with the result. However it was not enough and I wanted something more unique so I decided to add 3D modelling to the mix. Some people have asked me how I create these maps and so here's an overview of the process. If possible I'll to turn it into a full tutorial for the University later on.
I'm using Blender and Photoshop (I will call it PS). The first one is available for free at
Other than that, all you need is a website for blank maps.
First of all you have to make a scene in blender. It's too much to explain all the steps here so I suggest you look for blender tutorials. In short what I do is, model the objects, setup the lighting and camera and texture everything. I usually don't use too complicated techniques because I'm not that great at blender myself.
Your end result should look something like this:
Then with some texturing and a good camera angle you'll get the following:
And the render result:
I save this image together with two masks for the parchment and all the attributes that overlap with the parchment. Like this:
Ok, next we import all our assets into PS. Don't forget to import your blank map as well. You will have several layers open in PS after you do this.
First we need to make the map fit the parchment. We do this by distorting it (Under edit, transform) until it covers the whole thing. It's okay if it goes over it, as long as the important places of your campaign fit on the canvas. Now cut out the water from the blank map with the magic tool and move it to a new layer. Change the water to any shade of gray and set the mode to "Multiply". Set the old map layer also to multiply. Since the land mass is white it will just become invisible. The important part however are the borders. You can alter its color, fade some parts and make others darker to get a more unique look.
Now use the masks to cut out the parts where your map goes outside the parchments or overlapses with your 3D modeled attributes. Your're almost done, hang in there.
You can add layer masks to your water and border layers to fade out the parts near the edges of the parchment. Select the outlines of the parchment mask and contract that selection by about 10 pixels. Then click on the square with the circle in it (a button underneath the layers). Apply a Gaussian Blur effect to it to fade.
Finally you can add texts, territories, borders and drawings to the map however you like.
When you're done with this, you will have layers similar to this.
And your end result will something like this.
Well those are a whole other thing and can be 3D modeled too. However I'm not going to get into that because it took me months of learning to get to this point.
This is what I made for this example:
You'll need three versions of the image button although I don't believe "Down" is ever used. You can get away with one normal button and a highlighted one. Just duplicate the highlighted one for the "Down" button. To do the highlight, open the button image in PS and after opening Layer Style give it an Outer Glow effect. Increase this effect, make it white and that's it.
This is something that would be explained in a university article. For now check out this page:
I know it's all very confusing if you're not familiar with these programs, but I hope this can already help some of you get on the right track.