*** December 2014 challenge: Sponsored by Filter Forge***

[ravells]

Greetings Mappers!

This month's challenge is sponsored by Filter Forge ('FF'). FF is a node based editor which allows you to build your own filters and textures. It can be used as a stand alone or as a plug-in with Photoshop. In addition to building your own textures from scratch you can choose from thousands of filters/textures made by other FF users either as they come or edited by you.

In this month's challenge you can make any map you like but it must prominently use one or more FF filters (either made from scratch by you, or downloaded from the site 'as is' or edited by you).

The winning map will be chosen by Filter Forge (not the usual community vote).
You can download a fully operational trial version of FF Professional (valid for 30 days) from their site here.

_________________________

As usual, please make sure to title your threads: December 2014 Challenge: <your title here>

Also, don't forget to precede each work in progress picture with the label: ### Latest WIP ### This way the thumbnail scraper can find your entry.


This challenge will end on or around 15th January 2015. In addition to the coveted Golden Compass, the winner will receive a free licence to FF Professional (which usually retails at $399 - but is currently being sold for a limited period for $99).

As always, Good luck and Happy Holidays!

[Wingshaw]

Quick correction, Ravells: paragraph starting "Also, don't forget to precede..." needs to be updated.

Also, feel free to delete this post if you want.

THW

[ravells]

Thanks HW!

[Bogie]

Great idea for the challenge, Thanks for setting this up Ravi !

[xpian]

Darn! This challenge sounds cool, and I'm excited to learn interesting new software, but FilterForge just crashes when I try to launch it. I'm on a Macbook Pro running Yosemite, and I tried both version 4 and the beta of version 5, but both versions of FilterForge crash upon launch.

I'll keep troubleshooting. I've already sent them a bug report. I'm not calling upon anyone here to help with tech support, just sharing my experience to see if anyone else is having trouble.

[Filter Forge]

FilterForge just crashes when I try to launch it.

When having any problems, note that just bug report can not give the full information to the support team. Please, describe the situation as precise as you can. You can also contact the support team via www.filterforge.com/contact

[jbgibson]

Can someone who maps with filters please list some mappish uses?

Textures I have at least an idea on... an ocean that doesn't look to be repeating, stone walls, road/ path/ hallway surfaces. But is the focus on wide-area tiling textures, or also on everything that needs a non-flat surface look? I s'pose applying wood grain to a deck and an oily sheen to a bilge are textures too....

Hey, I thought TreeThing was miraculous magic... I'm ready to see what this thing can do, I just need a clue and a dollop of inspiration.

[johnvanvliet]

well i will not be in it

i am not going to BUY MS windows and install ( legal install ) the OS just to buy and use Photoshop ( legal install ) and plugins i never cared for back in 2004

Can someone who maps with filters please list some mappish uses?

i really have NEVER come up with many filters that help in making the type of maps i make , most tend to be stand alone Terminal programs

a few
-- a G'mic plugin for the standalone program

IF i DO NOT have real 16 bit height data a "distance PDE " and a "skeleton PDE "
( partial differential equation -- pde )
can be used to synthetically create one
then a inverse heat flowPDE ( thermodynamics ) i can add erosion
-- i happen to like diffy-q's --

or
if i have a really " COOL "noise image and it dose NOT map around a 3D Sphere
the gimp plugin / filter resynthesizer used with " map to polar projection" a can edit a flat plain to map to a sphere ( fix the poles and seem )

colorizing
-- this is for "The Gimp" , but photoshop can use a gradient to colorise a image
has a handy "colorize image" . it uses a color image to make a gradient and use that to colorize a B&W image

[xpian]

Well, I found the problem. Actually, Google found it. This thread: https://www.filterforge.com/forum/re...ID=16&TID=8079 talks about the exact issue I was having. A little third-party app I had installed on both of my Macs, called SIMBL Agent...something that was helping Safari in some way. As soon as I quit the process in my Activity Manager, FilterForge was able to launch and run.

I use a wide variety of software, and this is the first problem I've encountered with SIMBL Agent conflicting with something else. And the help thread I link to above starts in 2011, so this problem has been around a while. Since FilterForge 2. Still happening with FilterForge 5.

Frankly, I'm much more used to application conflicts happening under Windows. Too many of the support calls I used to get in my old tech support job (our company made financial software that ran on Windows) related to "DLL Hell" situations and servers running strange processes.

Ah, well. Thanks to Google for another mystery solved.

[Hai-Etlik]

I can't say I like the idea of a challenge that requires the use of a very particular piece of proprietary software, which is in turn tied to other proprietary software (Windows, MacOS, Photoshop).

I was looking forward to actually having some time to compete with a good chunk of vacation time I need to use by the end of the year and instead I get what amounts to "F**K you Linux Users, no challenge for you this month!"