Advice/Help: Building Sharn

[Legacy_Von Stalhein]

               Salutations!

I am currently working on a singleplayer module set in Eberron, and was hoping for part of it to take place in that setting's signature city, Sharn - "the city of towers." However, this presents a challenge: Sharn is meant to be a city with magical skyscrapers up to a mile high with rabbit warren platforms and streets running round and through the towers.

Previously, in my DMed games, I used the Brownstone Dungeon tileset (a reskin of LOK's dungeon) to make the streets (with pit terrain for the gaps between towers) and then stuck CEP's ripped NWN2 building placeables on top in mangled fashion to simulate the towers continuing to rise up above. However, while fine for a DMed game, I am not convinced that this looks particularly good visually! Given that I hope for the module to be a bit of a showcase for all of the beautiful tilesets and content that have been made in recent years, I'd like to try and find a better solution for building Sharn.

So my question is as follows: does anyone have any idea as to how a tileset might be modified to help craft a city of this type? Or would it be simpler to try and create a set of Sharn tower placeables to fix onto an existing tileset, in a visually superior form of my existing method?

To give an idea, here are some interpretations of what Sharn looks like. For the record, I am trying for a relatively "gritty" feel in the module which I think sits well with much of the recent custom content work.

http://cdn.obsidianp...43918/82143.jpg
http://cdn.obsidianp...35101/Sharn.jpg
http://images.commun...cc.jpg?v=256800
http://eberronunlimi...arn2/medium.jpg
http://th02.devianta...by_chrislie.jpg

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or assistance!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Von Stalhein, 24 août 2013 - 02:29 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

                <pushing...>

Goudea (Video)did some really great concept work on perspective and movement in tilesets. He applied it horizontally through a window, but the same thing could be done vertically receding into the depths.

I do intend to (one day) create my flying castle, and I'll use some of these same techniques. But it shouldn't be too hard to take a moderately close tileset (perhaps the Sigil improvement Pstemarie is working on) and to make some bottomless, towers receding downward, extensions with tiny air-ships passing by underneath...

<...an idea he's pushed before>