Tutorial: Stone & Snow-Matching
Posting this 9 years late (!!!!), omg… Not sure why I never posted it when I was playing New Leaf. Perfectionism??? Anyway, for anyone who still plays, here is a tutorial - better late than never I guess?! :’) I miss the old Internet
A while back I received a request for a tutorial of my path in Lilycove, so here it is :) It’s a little bit late for winter paths but I thought it might be helpful to share!
Disclaimer: These screenshots have been edited slightly in waifu & gimp, but I haven’t changed the lighting at all.
Here is my path. As you can see, the stones are intended to match (circle) snow. These shots were taken around 10:30AM on a relatively sunny winter day in early February (2/6/16 to be exact). Unfortunately, it won’t really match evening or nighttime snow as well, but I’ve found that it’s suitable for most times of day.
Here is a separated stone path:
First, create an outline of the stone shape that you want. I chose a basic square shape. Use the base color for this; i.e., the color that will comprise the majority of your stone (I chose a pale gray).
Next, we’ll get to preliminary shading. The key is to shade in certain places, usually around the edge, where the stone would “pop out” of the ground. For more information on shading, here is a nice little tutorial.
We’ll then emboss the stone, aka add some rough pixeling to it. This gives the stone a “gritty” texture. The amount of embossing depends on your preference. If you want a rougher-looking stone, emboss more. If you want a smoother stone, emboss less.
I’ve found that it’s best to use a couple of different shades for embossing to give it a more 3D and realistic look. I like to use slightly darker shades to emboss around the shaded areas, and lighter shades near the center of the stone, like so:
Finally, test your pattern! See what it looks like on the ground and change the shades that you use in the color picker, etc. or emboss a little more or a little less. It really depends on what you like. It takes me a LOT of trial and error before I finally get something that I like :)
2) Snow matching. The snow matching part is relatively simple. Here is the color palette that I use; it’s not a perfect match for all types of day or lighting but I think it works well for many. I use these two colors in a checkerboard pattern.
3) “Snow”-making. The pale blue spaces in between the checkerboard are designed to look like “pieces” of snow within the path. It’s easy to create these pieces within a path–you just have to be a little calculated!
The key is to count pixels. If I want to make a snow piece in a certain area, I’ll place the first “half” of the piece X number of pixels from the top (X in this case).
Then do the same with the other stone I use for my path and count X number of pixels from the top, on the opposite side, of the stone you are matching with. Make the other “half” of the snow piece. And voila!
Happy stone making and snow matching! :)
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