RPG Mapping in Sketchup Part 5 - Building your City from a 2D image

In my previous videos I shared all the sketchup techniques I use to create 3D buildings in my games.  Now it's time to start building a city from the ground up using a 2D image as a reference. 

This is the image I used in the video

I'm using one of my citymorph sketches but you can use any image which will import into sketchup, just make sure that you have some sort of scale in mind.  If you've not seen the amazing Dungeonmorphs 2 kickstarter which inspired this tutorial check out the link on the right side of the page.

In the next video I'll be finishing off the roofs and showing you how you can turn your models into "components" which allow you to duplicate your buildings or citymorph tiles and expand it even faster.


Related Posts:

• Part 1 - Unhiding the 3rd Dimension 
• Part 2 - Simple Buildings, Walls and Roofs 
• Part 3 - The Cross-Gable, Gambrel and Mansard Roof 
• Part 4 - Adding Features and Sketchy Styles

RPG Mapping in Sketchup Part 4 - Adding features and Sketchy Styles

In part 4 of my RPG Mapping in Sketchup series I show you how to add smaller features such as chimneys, towers and dormers to existing models. 

I also show you how to make your models look hand drawn using the styles pallette.  This is particularly useful if you are going to use the model in your own player handouts either as maps of the city or as first person point of view scenes.

Sketchup lets you to export your model as a 2D image so you can do further editing in a bitmap editor if you want to add in characters or other elements.




Related Posts:

• Part 1 - Unhiding the 3rd Dimension
• Part 2 - Simple Buildings, Walls and Roofs 
• Part 3 - The Cross-Gable, Gambrel and Mansard Roof 

RPG Mapping in Sketchup Part 3 - The Cross-Gable, Gambrel and Mansard Roof.

The next installment of my short video series on RPG Mapping in Sketchup covers the three other simple roof shapes found in most top down RPG maps.

The Cross-Gable roof is essentially just two gable roofs which intersect, commonly found in "T" "X" and "H" shaped buildings.  The Gambrel (or Dutch style) roof is a common double height roof shape popular for larger buildings like barns and is found all over Europe and the USA.  The Mansard roof is another common double height roof style, the second roof section can be gabled or hipped.




Related Posts:

• Part 1 - Unhiding the 3rd Dimension
• Part 2 - Simple Buildings, Walls and Roofs 

RPG Mapping in Sketchup Part 2 - Simple Buildings Walls and Roofs

In this second part of the series I show a quick and easy technique to draw simple buildings with the 3 most common type of roof shapes; the Gable, the Hip and the Double Hip Roof.  Using this technique you can use sketchup to quickly construct models of buildings for use in your own RPG campaigns maps or as scene setting handouts for your players.



In the next part I'll demonstrate techniques to create the Cross Gable, Gambrel and Mansard roof shapes. 

Related Posts:

Part 1 - Unhiding the 3rd Dimension

RPG Mapping in Sketchup Pt 1 - Unhiding the 3rd Dimension

As you know I got commissioned by Joe Wetzel for his Dungeonmorphs 2 Cities and Villages dice project on kickstarter, which requires me to make lots of geomorphs with buildings on them.

After a while you look at your collected sketches and think OMG all my buildings look the same.

Sketching out the idea process - not sure if any of these will be in the final product

This is caused mostly by the constraints of making sure the design is legible and that they fit on a 1inch d6.  In search of inspiration I decided to experiment with roof shapes and turning them into 3D buildings using sketchup.  Enjoy...

Papercraft: Ruined Columns

My regular Friday group began another chapter in their on-going campaign which called for them to explore an ancient ruined temple.  The scenario I'm DMing is lifted straight out of an issue of Dungeon Magazine and the map of the temple is dominated by a huge room with lots of toppled columns, some of which have crashed through walls exposing new routes and blocking off others.  I drew out the main room and was particularly unhappy with the result, it was hard to replicate the adhoc passageways and the columns just looked like giant frankfurters, so I decided to make some ruined columns of my own.

As I've found with my other papercraft projects like the Adventurer's Cart, a 3D element can be a real game changer when it comes to combat, so I quickly knocked up a design for a large 4" column and a short stubby 2" column using Google Sketchup and the Unfold Plug-in (See my Papercrafting article for more info) and then exported them as 2D artwork into Photoshop for resizing to the correct scale.

Once printed and cut out they're very easy to put together as they're simple tubes.  I inserted a large bolt into each column before sealing them up, it's not essential but it acts as a weight to keep them from toppling over when the player's get excited. 

• 2" x 1" Ruined Columns (PDF 1Mb) - makes 6 columns
• 4" x 1" Ruined Columns (PDF 934Kb) - makes 3 columns

Enjoy, and don't be afraid to drop me a comment with other papercraft suggestions.

Papercraft: Adventurer's Cart

Something I've been meaning to put together for a while and with the help of Sketchup and the Unfold plugin (see my previous post for details) here it is...

The Adventurers Cart!!

Every party needs a cart to get from Town A to Village B and when you've slain the Dragon you need something to haul away it's horde.  For DM's sometimes it's just nice to make the PCs have a good old punch-up around a few wagons.

• The Adventurer's Cart (PDF)
• Cart Accessories (PDF)

Build instructions:

Normal rules apply; cut along solid lines, score along dashed lines, put tab A into slot A etc. 
I used chopped down cocktail sticks to secure the optional roof.

Enjoy

Papercraft: Sketchup and Unfold

Installed the fantastic Unfold plugin for Google Sketchup the other day which makes the job of unfolding your sketchup designs into flat planes ready for papercrafting.  Here's a skyscraper I made to demonstrate the end result (it took no more than 30 minutes from start to finish).