Adding Cloud Shadows To Your Map
What you have to do is the following:
- Go to the Utilities tab;
- Select the Cloud Shadows page;
- Check the Active button;
- Click the open button and select a shadow image file (like the shadow.png below);
- Then you can customize the parameters:
- Speed: how fast the clouds will move;
- Angle: direction that the clouds will move (relative to the image file);
- Tilling: how large is the area that the shadow image will cover before repeating;
- Transparency: how transparent the cloud shadows will be
The shadow image file must have an associated gray scale image with same
dimension, that will give the shape to the shadows. This image must have
the same name as the color image plus the "_alpha"
The shadows.png is a simple 256x256 black/white image. So its possible to create own cloud shapes. Just look at both shadows.png and shadows_alpha.png how they are made and create new ones.
You can right click images below and choose "save picture as" if you want to save these to your PC to use to make your cloud shadows.
shadow
shadow_alpha