A Step-by-step Tuturial on mapmaking for Photoshop.

Hello Weavers,

I have spent some time putting together this small tutorial for mapmaking with Adobe Photoshop. If you own the software and it is accessible on a computer, and can't wait for make a delicate map for your campaign, this tutorial is right for you.

My goal is to create a simple step-by-step instruction that an experienced user can whip out within 10 minutes; 30 minutes maximum for first-timers per part. (There are so many ways you can do!) You can always expand your map later, as detailed as you want.

Before We Start

This tutorial assumes you use Microsoft Windows as your operation system. If you are a Macintosh user, substitute Command in place of Ctrl, and Option in place of Alt, and so forth. If you use none of the operation system above, and have Photoshop available in your machine, you should be familiar with the user interface available.

Also, this tutorial assumes you have the basic knowledge in regard to operating your computer. You should know how to type, how to use your mouse, how to start up Photoshop and close it down, how to save a file, and so on. Actual experience with using Photoshop in the past is not a requirement, but you should know how to use the basic tools in Photoshop, such as the Move Tool, Selection Tool, or Gradient, et cetera. Most importantly, you should be eager to make a map by now!

I use Photoshop CS3 myself. If you have an older version of Photoshop, don't worry. It can still do wonders for you. However, some of the graphical user interface may not be in the same place, or look the same as mine. If you have a different image editing software, this tutorial may be a good reference for you. If you are confused in following any step, or find an error in the tutorial, feel free to PM me, or discuss in this thread with others!

Is This Tutorial For me?

If you have no experience with Photoshop, but own it, and want to attempt at making a map, this is for you!

If you are also a Photoshop user, and have inspirational experience to share with the Weavers community, post away! I will compile an index in this first post, providing hyperlinks to your posts.

What Do I Need?

• A computer with Photoshop installed and capable of running.
• A curious, never-afraid-to-try mindset.
• The desire of making a map for your own campaign!

ticattack has a post to share!

Fog o' War, from tickattack!

For GIMP Users, Tordsch Uaugho has written a tutorial for you!

Tutorial Index

• Part 1 - Making A Grid For Your Map
• Part 2 - Defining Your Own Dungeon
• Part 3 - Creating Your Own Tokens

(If you don't see any pictures, come back tomorrow! My host has some DNS problems today.)

Edit: This tutorial has been officially copyrighted under Creative Commons 3.0 License, BY-NC-SA. Some rights reserved.

What You Will Accomplish In This Tutorial:

• Be able to make a square grid of any resolution in the future.
• Finish your basic map template, which will be used throughout most other tutorials.
• Feel good about yourself for the first step you have taken!

First of all, get Photoshop started!


1. Create a new file.

Go to the menu, File > New.... Or you can simply use Ctrl+N.

You may enter any name you like for you map.

Important! - Make sure the file resolution is at least 150 px less than your screen resolution. If your screen is at 1024x768, the file resolution should be under 600x600. Similarly, if your screen is at 800x600, the file resolution should be under 450x450.

This is the setting I am going to use in this tutorial. My screen resolution is 1680x1050, and is big enough for 800x800.



Click OK. A new window should appear with a blank image.


2. Draw the grid.

Go to the menu, Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid, Slices & Counts. For Macintosh users, the Preference menu is under Photoshop on the menu.

There is a Grid fieldset. Adjust the values to your taste. Here's mine:



Then click OK. Now we need to make the Grid appear.

Go to View > Show > Grid. Or you can simply use Ctrl+'.

You should then have something similar to this:



For future editing purposes, we are going to pixelize the grid.


3. Pixelizing your grid.

Make sure the image is displayed at 100%. You can double check this by looking at the header of the window. If it is not at 100%, go to View > Actual Pixels, or simply double-click the Zoom Tool in your toolbar.

Take a screenshot. In Windows, the fastest way is to click the Print Screen key on your keyboard. For Macintosh, it comes with a tool that can take screenshots, found in the Application list.

For Windows users, create a new file in Photoshop, ignore all the settings and click OK. Then simply paste (Ctrl+V) and get the screenshot into your new file.

For Macintosh users, open the saved screenshot with Photoshop.

Note! - Once you have opened the screenshot image in a new file, you should disable the Grid. Go to View > Show > Grid, or simply click Ctrl+' again. You might need to do this for both files.


4. Crop and drag your grid.

Once you have your screenshot put into a new file, you can crop the pixelized grid with the Crop Tool. You should be careful and make sure the border for cropping is exactly aligned with the grid.

Crop the grid off the screenshot. Once your selection is perfect, press Enter and confirm the crop.



Using the Move Tool, drag the cropped grid onto the first file. Then make sure you save the first file into your hard disk as a PSD file.

Close the second, or the cropped file. You do not need to save this one.


5. Clean up your grid.

There are many ways to do this. Here's one way: the Magic Wand. (For advanced users, you might consider using layer blending.)



Make sure you check off

If you check Contiguous on, only the pixels of the similar colors that are connected will be selected. For instance, only one white square would be selected, or the entire black lines, depending on where you click, since they are all connected. If you are not sure, feel free to play around with this setting. Thanks to ticattack for the suggestion on this tips.

Contiguous. We want to select all white pixels at once on the grid. Simply click on one of the white areas and you should see every single white squares selected. Then press Backspace to delete them, making them transparent.

Deselect the selection. Go to the menu, Select > Deselect, or simply use Ctrl+D.

Note! - You might not notice any difference. That is normal. The background is white as well.

Find the layer panel. It should be on the right side of the screen, similar to the picture below. Select the Background layer. We are going to change the background color.



Important! - If you do not find the layer panel anywhere, go to the menu, Window > Layer, or simply press F7.


6. Customize your background color.

Now use the color picker on your toolbar to the left, and choose a color you like. I suggest you use a dark color, because this will be your "base color", which we will brighten later partially to portray the "walkable areas". For myself, I chose dark blue.



Simply fill the area with the chosen color. Go to Edit > Fill..., or simply use Alt+Backspace. If you picked the color into the background color block (the lower right one instead of the upper left), use Ctrl+Backspace to fill.

Like your color? Let us give it a finishing touch.


7. A small decoration.

Go back to your Layer panel. (If you cannot find it, see the bottom of Step 5.) Select the layer with the grid, and find the Layer Style button. Choose Drop Shadow....



A window pops up. Change the setting as the picture below, or to your taste.



Then hit OK. Now you have finished a gridded map for the future! Make sure you save the file.



You can download the Finished Example File by right-clicking here and download. (1,638 KB)

What You Will Accomplish In This Tutorial:

• Create an extremely flexible layer defining the dungeon.

Get Photoshop started if you haven't done so!


1. Open a map you will use.

For the duration of this tutorial, we will use the map we created in the last part. Open the file if you have not done so. If you do not have a map to use, in the bottom of Part 1, there is a link you can download the finished base grid from Part 1.

Set up your Grid in Photoshop for easy snapping and aligning. If you have already completed Part 1, you should be able to simply press Ctrl+' and have a grid that fit exactly to your own. If not, see Step 2 in Part One.

Note! - After turning on the Grid, you may not notice anything if your color in the preference is the same as the grid you have on the map. Don't worry.


2. Rough out your dungeon walls.

Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (the one for selecting pixels, looks like a dashed rectangle), drag out a random size of selection.

Create a new layer. You can double click on the name of the layer and rename it if you wish.



Fill the selected area with white using the color picker on this new layer. If you do not know how to do this, see Step 6 in Part 1.



Then on the menu, Select > Deselect, or Ctrl+D to deselect this area.

Change this dungeon layer blending to Soft Light. There is a dropdown box right on the top of all your layers. See picture below.



We will make the walls with a layer effect, Stroke. The picture below displays where you can find it. Make sure you still have the dungeon layer highlighted.



Adjust the value according to the following picture, or to your own taste. Hit OK.



We are going to add another layer style to strengthen the look. This time, we will use Inner Shadow.



Again, adjust the value as you prefer, or copy the setting from the following picture. Hit OK.



Looks pretty good, eh?


3. Outline your own dungeon.

With the setting we have set up now, you should be able to modify the dungeon with ease. Here's how.

Use the Lasso Tool. It is located next to the Rectangular Marquee Tool in the toolbar to the left. Drag out an area as the following picture to select the area.



Inverse the selection. Go to the menu, Select > Inverse, or simply press Ctrl+Shift+I.

Hit Backspace and delete the inversed selection.

Deselect. Use Ctrl+D.

Magic, eh?



Use the Lasso Tool again. This time, hold down Shift. You can select multiple areas separately this way. Have fun with your selecting.



After you're done doing so, fill the entire selection with white.

Deselect. Use Ctrl+D.



Voila! Part 2 ends here. You now have your own simple dungeon.

You can download the finished Example File by right-clicking here and download. (1,865 KB)

What You Will Accomplish In This Tutorial:

• Be able to create a simple token in any size.
• Group your tokens and maps so they are organized.
• Happy that you're finally done after all the work!

Get Photoshopt started if you haven't done so! Also, If you did not complete the previous two parts, go to the bottom of Part 2 and download the example file. We'll go from there.


1. Group up your maps.

Create a new folder and name it Map Layers by double clicking on the name. The button for creating a folder is as the picture in the following:



Now we need to "unlock the background layer."

Note! - If you do not unlock the background layer, it will not be available for grouping into folders.

Copy a new background layer. This is done by dragging the layer onto the button you use to create a new layer. Or you may also right-click on the background layer and choose Duplicate Layer....

A new layer appears, and it is not locked.

Delete the old, locked layer. Either drag it onto the trash can, or right-click and select Delete Layer.

Shift-click to select all the layers except the folder. Drag all three unlocked layers into the Map Layers folder.

Note! - the little triangle next to your folder can be clicked to expand or close the folder item. Try it out!

If you have the folder expanded, it should look like the picture below.



Close the folder by clicking on the triangle. This hides all the layers inside, giving us more space.


2. Create your first token.

Create a new layer. Rename it Medium Token. Make sure it is above the map folder.



Use the Elliptical Marquee Tool. You can find it by press and hold on the Rectangular Marquee Tool. It looks like a dashed ellipse, located hidden in the left hand side toolbar.

Hold down Shift. Drag a circle and release to select.

Tips - You'll find it much easier to make a perfect selection inside the square if you have Grid on. Press Ctrl+' to turn it on, and again to turn it off.

Fill the selected area with another color. I chose a moderate red color but not too bright. You should know how to do this by now. If not, see Step 6 in Part 1.



Deselect. Use Ctrl+D.

We will apply another layer style to the token. This time, we will use Inner Shadow. See Step 2 in Part 2 if you don't know where to find it.

Adjust the value as below, or to your own taste. Hit OK.



And here we have a generic token made.


3. Create multiply tokens with the template.

Since a general D&D party consists a number of four, we will duplicate the Medium Token layer four times. Drag it onto the icon for creating a new layer to do so, or right-click on the layer and select Duplicate Layer....

Rename them as you like. I chose four of my characters here on MW.

Drag the Medium Token layer below the folder. We don't need it anymore, but we'll keep it there if we need to make more tokens.



Select each layer, and use the Move Tool to drag them around, so they are not overlaying each other. Repeat until you can see all four tokens.




4. Distinguish your tokens.

There are many ways to do this. I usually use a different color for each, and add a letter on each token to specify who is who. Here's how:

Select one of the named token layers. I choose Regnar, just because.

Go to the menu, Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturations, or simply press Ctrl+U.



Slide the Hue value as you like. I prefer Regnar to be tan.



Sometimes changing the color isn't enough. You might have a player who is color-blinded. Let us add a letter onto the token.

Use the Text Tool (Horizontal Type Tool). It looks like a T, located on the toolbar to the left.

Click somewhere on the token and type in a letter you want. I chose R, because that's the first letter in Regnar.

Tips - Microsoft Sans Serif font works well. Or you can use another font you like. The default font for Apple works great.

When you have the Text Tool active, there is a color picker on the toolbar at the top. Highlight the letter and pick a color for it. I chose the dark brown that is around the token by clicking on it.

Tips - When you have a color picker window active, clicking anywhere on your image acts as a color picker too!



Go back to your Layer panel. Select the text layer and press down Ctrl, and select the token layer for the letter.



Press Ctrl+E to merge the layers. You may want to rename the merged layer, as I did to Regnar.



Repeat this step and apply them to all other three tokens. Use different colors.

Voila! Now you can easily move them around with the Move Tool.

You can apply what you have learned the Part 3 and create different-sized tokens. You can make a Large token for a minotaur, for instance. You just need a larger selection to begin with. You can make a Huge token for a dragon. You can copy even more Medium tokens and create a kobold army!

Also, it would be a good idea to have something like this, along with the map:

Map Note

R - Regnar
A - Rach
D - Dustin
K - Krss

Note! - You can output the map anytime in Photoshop by going to the menu, File > Save for Web.... I recommend JPG format at 60% quality.

You can download the finished Example File by right-clicking here and download. (1,888 KB)

I will leave the rest to you, Dungeon Masters slash Mapmakers!

I truly hope my tutorial helped, if any. Comments welcome!

Well... if you insist.

Tokens
The WotC site has a D&D mini's gallery - 800-something potential tokens.
1) Drag the image you want into photoshop.
2) Use the magic wand tool to select all the white (I find a tolerance of 32 works fairly well), then hit Ctrl-I to invert your selection.
3) Drag the image into your map.
4) Hit Ctrl+T to resize it. Between 20% and 67% seems to work for me, for different sized maps. Find one that makes it so that the base of a human model roughly fits in one grid.
5) Go into layer properties, and give it a black Stroke, about 2 pixels wide.
6) Position it as you will!

Griddery
I usually position layers as follows:
Terrain on the bottom,
Grid in the middle,
Critters and objects on top.

This stops people being cut in half by gridlines.

Also, try making the gridlines white (ffffff or 255, 255, 255), and making the grid layer "soft light", in blending options (it's the drop down box in the layer window).

Here's one I prepared earlier! See how the gridlines change colour depending on what's behind them? Meh. It's an effect I like. Fiddle with things, get them as you like them. Maybe hostiles are stroked in red, and PCs in green? Maybe the colour or size of the stroke is a measure of how much health they have left?

Got any guidance for adding a Fog-of-War effect?

Oooo

Will make that happen in 24 hours. Part 4!

Too easy.

1) Make your map, as normal. (Pic 1. Ok, so it's not a map. So I'm lazy. Sue me.)
2) Create a new layer, positioned above the map. Fill it with black (or the colour of your choice. The "wall" colour of your dungeon works well) (Pic 2).
(This next step's optional, but it's a little more eye candy)
3) Double-click on your Fog layer, or right-click to open blending options. Create an Outer Glow.
3.b) Change the colour to the same colour as your background.
3.b) Change Blend Mode to Normal.
3.c) Change Opacity to 100%.
3.d) Say ok.
(Thus ends the optional bit)
4.a) Grab the Erase tool and set the Fog layer's opacity (it's in the layer tool) to 60-80%.
4.b) Start erasing the parts that you want visible.
4.c) Pump the opacity back up to 100%.
5) Go back to blending options and fiddle with the spread and size, as well as the Range. Mine's on 5%/10 pixels/60%

Voila! (Pic 3) The colour blocks out the invisible parts, and you just erase them as you need. The little eye next to each layer can be used to toggle that layer on/off - turn the fog off when you edit it, then back on when you save.

Fog of War is, all things considered, pretty darned easy.

Attached Images

	FoW1.PNG (44.7 KB, 0 views)
	FoW2.PNG (16.8 KB, 0 views)
	FoW3.png (50.3 KB, 0 views)

*claps* Clever. Thanks for doing it for me.

(If you don't see any pictures, come back tomorrow! My host has some DNS problems today.)