AA_Jimbo's Desert Dirt Roads Tutorial
for Photoshop 7.0
Required skills: Open, save image, create and rename layers, change layer order, change layer opacity, select and resize brushes, load brush files, copying and pasting layer styles, Using the pattern stamp tool, loading patterns into the pattern palette.
Table of Contents
Dirt road details - Tank and Jeep tracks
The Steps:
Before beginning you must mentally prepare yourself by saying. "This is so amazingly simple! I can't believe I thought it was difficult!" When you've done that you're then ready to continue.
THE BASIC STRAIGHT DIRT ROAD Top
1) Open your map image (I'm using a small 512x512 image)
2) Select Edit > Fill and choose the pattern you want to be your base texture. (I'm using Sand 1 from the DWPatterns file) You can use the pattern stamp tool for this step if you're more comfortable with using that tool.
3) Create a new layer and name it Dirt Roads.
4) Open the Map Template.psd file (date modified 1/19/2005) and find the Dirt Roads layer within the Roads layer set. Right click the Dirt Roads layer and select Copy Layer Style. Go back to your map image and right click the Dirt Roads layer within THAT file and select Paste Layer Style. Your Dirt Roads layer should now look like this:
5) Next create a new later titled Dirt Roads 2. Repeat the copy/past layer style process so that the Dirt Roads 2 layer looks like so:
6) Load the DW swatches file (date modified 12/28/04) into your swatch palette. Set your foreground color to the Road Tracks color. It's a medium tan color. Note: Using the color picker tool (dropper icon) you can click anywhere in your drawing to pick an equally useful color. Next load the DW mod brushes file (date modified 01/10/2005) into your brushes palette and select the Brush tool. In the brush palette select the Vehicle - Vertical brush. Leave the brush size and all other features as is. With the Dirt Roads layer selected click on the bottom edge of your map image. Next depress the shift key and while holding it down click anywhere on the top edge of your map image. A car has now driven across your map!
7) Since in my humble opinion one track doesn't look very realistic the creative part of the task is making the road look more real. Since cars rarely travel in a perfectly straight line and rarely follow the same rut we'll add more tracks onto the Dirt Roads layer freehand. Research into the way things look always helps. Here's an example of a few photos out of hundreds that I've used to generate my ideas about how my dirt roads should look: Top
So now using all the same settings as those in step #6 continue to draw following your first track until you wind up with something close to those in the research pictures. However don't overdo it. Five to seven passes is all you need.
8) When you've done that switch to the Dirt Roads 2 layer and add 5 to 7 more passes. The use of multiple layers helps to give the effect of overlapping tracks. Sometimes altering the brush opacity to around 65 to 85 helps to emphasize this effect.
DIRT ROADS THAT HAVE CURVES Top
This type of dirt road is a touch more difficult. It requires a lot of back-and-forthing between the brush palette and drawing onto the map but once you get the hang of it, it gets easier. The theory is essentially this: alter the angle of the brush in the brush palette while gradually building the curve to the next 90degree segment.
9) Make sure your settings are still identical to Step #6. Then draw into the drawing on the Dirt Roads layer the path you want your turn to take. Ignore the fact that the tracks will appear to converge for now. The only thing you should concern yourself with is that where they converge should match up with ONE track in your new direction. Since the dirt roads are typically made of many tracks anyway this 'converging' effect will work for us rather than against us even if they don't match up perfectly. For my example I'm making a basic left hand turn or "T" intersection.
10) Now as you did with the straight dirt road begin building the new tracks. It works good to switch back and forth between the Vehicle - Vertical brush and the Vehicle - Horizontal brush since the horizontal brush is already set up to do tracks left to right on the map. If you make your very next step to draw a guide track with the Vehicle - Horizontal brush it'll help you make sure the spacing between tracks is accurate so that they're in scale with the CC vehicles.
11) Now combining the use of the Vehicle - Vertical and Vehicle - Horizontal brushes finish building up the tracks on the Dirt Roads layer and the Dirt Roads 2 layer. The finished product:
12) You may run into a situation where you need to create an angled road and it would be easier to have a brush with the proper spacing already available. You can do this by altering the brush angle in the brush palette. To do this open the brush palette and in the palette options drop down menu make sure you are viewing the Expanded View in your brush palette. When you get back to the basic palette view select the Brush Tip Shape option on the left hand side. You'll notice the palette has changed and is now showing you an option, located near the bottom center, to type in an Angle: for the brush. Type in the angle you want the brush to be. For this example I'll make mine 45degrees. Make sure all other settings are identical to Step #6. Next select the Dirt Roads layer once again. Click at one end of where you want your road to go. Depress the shift key and while holding it down click where you want the other end to be. You'll then have your guide track with the wheels the proper spacing for CC scale. Again continue to build up your road on bot the Dirt Roads layer and Dirt Roads 2 layer.
DETAILS - TANK & JEEP TRACKS Top
Since not all vehicles make the same kind of imprint in the earth when they drive over it I felt it was appropriate to have other types of tracks available when creating roads. However these only really work easily on straight tracks. I'll be showing you how to do that method. If you want to add curved tracks to a drawing Dodam created an excellent tutorial on how to do this called Tank Tracks. You can combine the use of my brushes with that tutorial to get tracks that will better fit in with the look of the Afrika 40-41 mods maps.
13) First make your brush settings identical to Step #6 if you've changed them. The only changes we'll make to the brush are the brush tip we use and the track color. Select the Tanks - Vertical brush. In the swatch palette select the bushes color. It's a very dark brown. With the Dirt Roads layer selected click once at the bottom end of your vertical dirt road on your drawing. Depress and hold the shift key and click at the other end of your vertical dirt road. A tank has now driven across your road. You can adjust the swatch color and brush opacity to achieve the desired effect you want. Repeat as necessary but don't over do it. You can repeat this with the Jeep - Vertical brush as well.
At this point you can be done or if you need roads that are more improved continue on and learn how to do elevated or semi-improved roads.
Any dirt road can be turned into an improved, elevated road by simply adding shading to indicate the side facing the light source (highlight side) and the side facing away from the light source (shadow). In CC the highlights are always on the top and left and the shadows on the bottom and right since the light source is in the upper left hand corner of every map. This is dictated by how soldier shadows, vehicle shadows and gun shadows fall and is a permanent part of the games design.
14) Create a new layer in your drawing called Shading. Move that layer to be ABOVE all other layers or at the top of the layer list. Set that layers opacity to 35%. Select your Brush tool. Pick a brush that is soft round 21 pixels from the brush palette. If you want a higher elevated roads choose a larger brush. For less elevated roads select a smaller brush. In the swatch palette select the Highlights color. Make sure the brush opacity is 100%. In your drawing paint in the area of earth directly next to your roads to give the illusion that there is an area of earth there that is closer to a vertical angle than the horizontal areas around it. Remember only the left and top sides of the roads.
15) Repeat the process for the shadows except this time you'll use the color swatch from the Swatch palette called Shadows. Also you'll only be painting on the right or bottom sides of the roads.
16) Again since we're going for realism it would be good to add a gravel type texture to the sides of the roads to give the illusion of gravel kicked off the road by the tires or rocks used to build the roads up. Select the Pattern Stamp Tool. At the top of your Photoshop window in the tool options bar click the icon next to the word Pattern:. When the drop down menu appears search for the Gravel 1 texture and select it. In the brush palette select a soft round brush of 35 pixels. Also in the tool options bar near the top of your Photoshop window set the brush opacity to 40. Make sure the base texture layer is selected. Now on both sides of the road paint in the gravel texture until it's looking the way you like it. If you're unhappy with the results open the History menu or hit ctrl+Z and undo what you did. Redo the painting process again until you get something you like. There's no need to paint every surface. As a matter of fact I think it looks better if not all areas have that gravel texture. It tends to make it look more real since it's not consistent and predictable. The results:
That's it you're done! :-D Use your imagination and come up with your own additions to make your dirt roads look as real as possible. Also if you want more instruction there are many good tutorials out there by Dodam and Njnjr23 available at CCS, CSO and Close-Combat-Now.
If you have any questions or comments please contact me at: AA_JimRM2, sagetrader@verizon.net