Making Mountains in GIMP

[RobA]

I saw this post by Jurgen (at EN World) on making mountains in GIMP and figured I share a technique I worked out.

Hope the images all end up in the right order...

1. Make a shaky selection around the whole mountain. Keep the outline really ragged, not smooth:
2. Set colours for the base and peak of the mountain. fill the selection with a shaped angular gradient:
3. Duplicate that layer as a new layer and greyscale it:
4. Now stretch the contrast from black to white:
5. Apply a gaussian blur:
6. then apply a Filters->Noise->Spread to break it up:
7. Hide the B&W layer, and apply it as a bump map to the original coloured one:
8. Using a grungy brush and the colour of the mountain base, paint around the mountain (using the "below" brush setting)

9. and 10. Using Jurgen's grass and desert textures as backgrounds.

That's it... Hope it was helpful!

-Rob A>

[Jürgen Hubert]

Very nice effect! I think I'll use this in the future...

[keithcurtis]

I'm sorry, I had to vote no. I've seen similar techniques used on many different maps and none of them look convincing. That is, they don't seem to match real-world mountain forms. I'd like to use this technique, and have experimented with a lot of variations on it, but never been satisfied.

[RobA]

I'm sorry, I had to vote no. I've seen similar techniques used on many different maps and none of them look convincing. That is, they don't seem to match real-world mountain forms. I'd like to use this technique, and have experimented with a lot of variations on it, but never been satisfied.

I agree it is not realistic. I present it as a cross between purely symbolic and aerial-photo realistic. Any primers or pointers to "the idiots guide to mountain shapes"? (hehe)

Though I must say, one could probably find a mountain anywhere in the world to match the most unlikely, unrealistic, un-mountainish shapes......

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...09978&t=h&om=1

-Rob A>

[heruca]

Cool link, RobA.

[RPMiller]

That's crazy! Is that a natural occurring formation?

[RobA]

Sorry for the crosspost.

I made a video tutorial (as they are all the rage) of this thread as it was recently resurrected. It creeped to almost 12 minutes (I tend to babble).

I recorded the screen in 1024x768 and scaled the video to 640x480 off line.

It is currently hosted at showmedo at 640x480 (though I think will host up to 800x600:
http://showmedo.com/videos/video?nam...omSeriesID=262

-Rob A>

[Robber Baron]

Excellent tutorial! Thanks!

[Normski]

Sorry, but I voted no - not because I couldn't find it of use, but becasue there were no explanations to the steps. It'd be good if you knew what was going on, but to a GIMP noob - sorry I couldn't follow it all,

Take Care,

Norm



Rob,

Three things Amigo,

Firstly - it's good to another Cardinal Fang Devotee

Secondly - Excellent tutorial, simple and easy to follow, I will be using this in future

Finally - This process, and all the others I have seem seem to produce a mountain range with the peaks in the middle, which is good enough. But what about escarpment ranges - where for example one tectonic plate, or similar, subducts another, raising the top plate gradually on one side with a steep fall-off on the other where the subdudtion occurs. The prime examples I can think of for this are the Rockies and Andes.

Basically - what I'm asking is how can we reproduce a non central range of peaks within a range? I'm not explaining this too well am I

Take Care

Norm

[RobA]

Normski-

That type of range is even simpler. Just add some noise to a simple linear gradient, then play with the levels and curves.

Here is a simple escarpment heightfield on an oval:
testing.png

And here is a quick render in POV:
hf1.png

From above (gimp alone):
testing_above.png

-Rob A>