Were adding the buildings & other key objects. (Something the title hopefully made clear.)

You have your map open. Set it to view 1:3

Now find the 'demoobjects.psd' file you downloaded. Open it up.

From experience its easier to set it up like this, side by side.

Lets focus on the Layer Palet window. You'll see all the different objects in this new file you have opened.

Each of these lines is an object you can use in your map. You'll notice building shadows are set at 50% transparency. Similar to making hills, shadows are painted solid & you tweak the transparency!

Now make the Deomoobjects screen wide at 100%

Now focus back on palet layers.

If you click on the little pair of glasses to the right of the name of the layer, you will toggle the object from being viewed to hidden, its a good way to see what object on the screen goes with what name.

 

IMPORTANT - LAYERS!!

With layers in the layer palet, the order of the items listed is how they are 'stacked' on the actual picture. In layman's terms, the ground is on the bottom, because everything else goes on top of this. Shadows go beneath buildings, a river goes above the ground, but a bridge is ordered on top of the river in this window!

Now were going to look at our drawing of our map.

Looks like well be placing 4 buildings & 2 towers from our object template.

Lets look at the main buildings. were going to use the third from the left, the layer for it is called 'Box Grey'

In the layer palet, highlight the layer for 'box grey'

Now using top menu, select edit/copy.

Minimalize the demoobjects window & you'll have your map now staring at you in the face.

Now your in your map, using top menu again, select edit/paste/as new layer

You new have this

The building has been pasted onto your map. Its usually centered. You'll also notice that in the layer palet menu a new layer has been added for it, called 'Layer2'. Rename this layer 'Building 1'.

Now make sure were on Building 1s layer, so its highlighted in layer palet window. On the left hand side bar select the following tool that's represented with two intercrossing arrows.

As the caption shows, this is the 'mover' tool. It will allow us to move the building where we want it to go.

Now hover your mouse over the building, then click & drag the building to a position you noted on your map.

In the same left hand menu where you picked mover tool, select the third tool down, looks like a little square clock. this is the deformation tool.

This tool will allow us to angle the building to look like the angled ones in our map overview drawing. Once selected your building looks like this.

Now you have an outline on the exterior of the building & as well a line with a box on each end in the middle. Lets call the middle part 'the handle.'

First of all the building is too big for my map, so lets shrink it.

Hover your curser over the bottom right hand corner of the building, over the little box in that corner, you'll see the sites of your curser change to a smaller white icon. then you have this simply click & drag to the top left to make this building about 1/3 smaller then the current size.

Now, hover your curser to the RIGHT side of the lever, you'll have your sites turn into a little symbol showing rotation, that's what we want to turn this baby! Turn it CLOCKWISE to about a 45 degree angle.

Why did we turn this CLOCKWISE? Because of the shadow on the roof! The hills show the light coming from the top left of the map, that's reflected now ont he roof as well turned this way. Turned the other, it looks funny.

Now were going to go back to the Demoobject file & get the layer called 'box shadow'. Same method we used to get the main part of building. So practice up!

Now the only different thing here is that when you past it onto your map & rename it 'Building 1 Shadow' you must place this layer UNDER the building itself. Simply highlight the shadow layer, hold down your clicked mouse over that layer in pallet window, & drag it till it shows as being below the Building 1 main layer.

Also angle your shadow instead of shrinking it first this time around. When your done, you'll have something like this.

Now I have 3 more buildings like this to do. In the case of my map, they are all on the same angle & will be the same type building, so to save a little time, this is what Ill do.

Just like when you copied the building & shadow from the Demoobject file, do the same with the building & shadow layers you just did on this map. Copy & paste them but all on this map! Move them as you know know how & soon you will have this.

Now, well have to add the two towers.

The layers we need to copy from the Demoobjects file are:

• Tower Roof Grey
• Tower Base Grey
• Tower Shadow

I have decided not to rotate these & simply place them on the current angle. Now, unlike the other buildings, these have roofs. Make sure you layer them with roof on top of base, & base on top of shadow. Name layers Tower 1 Roof, Tower1 Base, & Tower 1 Shadow & the same for tower 2, but with 2 instead of 1.

With Towers, you'll now have this.

Now, there are a bunch of objects that can be downloaded from the CSO. These are placed onto your map in the same fashion. Well actually add more of these later. But for this section & this stage of the map, its over & onto the next part!

 

IMPORTANT! In the 'demoobjects.pad' file you will find other objects like a crate, a firepit & more. These can be added as objects in the same way you added the buildings.

NOW SAVE YOUR WORK!

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