I've saved myself some screenies each time I closed down the toolset and wanted to share them with you guys to show you how I go about building an area.
They sort of show an area being built over time- (you'll see in the final screenshot, why this area isn't taking very long to do
)First thing I do though, is open up the picture that i'm using to sketch from in paint and resize it and split it into the same amount of squares that my exterior area has, like this:
On my blank canvass, I paint down the paths and water as well as place down the basic outline of the stronghold (using walls). I also flatten the terrain inside the walls of the Stronghold for each relevant level.
Next, using the Flatten/smooth/raise/lower tools (with Airbrush Plugin) I sculpt the terrain to how I want it to be...
I recolour the base texture for the area to one i'd prefer as well as go nuts placing down RWS Cliff Placeables surrounding the paths.. they are not re-aligned at this stage, I just threw them down roughly where I wanted them to be.
Thrown down more Cliffs and begun to line each one up correctly, both in height and size.
Selected a series of (tintable) rocks that i'd use around the area and placed them off the side for easy selection. Again, went nuts throwing them down willy nilly.. (willy nilly? Does anyone ever use that anymore!?
) I've then rotated/lined them up accordingly.
thrown down more cliffs and rocks and also added some standard RockFace placeables.
Selected my trees for the area (6 seeds) as well as begun to sculpt the pits out of the Stronghold's floor.
Just retextured the Stronghold itself and begun working on the inside of the stronghold.
Used multibrush plugin to quickly paint the exterior area, (which i'll then go over once more at the end to texture properly) as well as various other little things you can hardly notice in this pic. (fyi- that texturing took me 5 minutes to do with Multibrush plugin)
I've retextured the Gnoll Stronghold's 'floor' (no shading/colouring yet) as well as carve out the 'lower' sections, by the Pits.
Now here is a picture of the area, with enviornmental objects switched off! It also shows why this area really isn't taking me too long to do, since most of it is hidden underneath things. Love it.
Anyway, I thought someone might find this helpful
Important note if you decide to use the Airbrush plugin... while it is installed, you cannot double click placeables from the Area Contents menu to zoom to them. To get around this, you need to remove the plugin. (for example, when I had to go around the area placing rocks and cliffs, i needed to remove the airbrush plugin (after having used it to sculpt the terrain) so I could quickly move to the rocks and cliffs around the area)
I replaced the plugin again once this was done, so that I can now use it for texturing.
Peace.
