RobA's Artistic Regional Map in Gimp Tutorial - Revised Presentation

[wisemoon]

Hello,

I originally posted this over in RobA's original thread for his "Using Gimp to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map" tutorial.

I've taken RobA's PDFs, cleaned them up and rewritten them in a step-by-step format. I've also replaced RobA's original method for mountains with his later method, described in the "Simple Mountains in Gimp" tutorial. Also, since RobA recommended Arsheesh's method for creating forests, I included Arsheesh's "Photorealistic Trees in Gimp" steps as well. I have credited both authors within the tutorial itself. Additionally, I updated the instructions for version 2.6 of GIMP.

I wanted to post the whole thing in a separate thread, to give access to those who may not have known about RobA's original tutorial or its thread. I mostly rewrote and updated it so that I would be more easily able to recreate the process, but it also occurred to me that a lot of people were posting on the thread about things they didn't understand. So I am hopeful that this update/revision is even more helpful to members than the original.

In addition to the PDFs I have included a JPG of the example map I created while revising the tutorial. It's not the greatest, but serves the illustrative purpose.

Pt5_Figure08.jpgUsing GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map Pt 1.pdfUsing GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map Pt 2.pdfUsing GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map Pt 3.pdf]Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map Pt 4.pdfUsing GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map Pt 5.pdf

[arsheesh]

Hi Wisemoon, thanks so much for going to all the work of doing this. Regarding the photorealistic trees portion, I've made some heavy modifications to the tutorial. While it would probably require too much effort to incorporate these into this tutorial, one thing I can suggest that will help reduce the beveled look of the forests somewhat is to set one of the Tree color layers (preferably the middle green tone) to "Multiply", rather than soft-light or overlay. This will help the color to saturate a bit more. Otherwise looks great.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Holdenburg]

Untitled.jpg

Any ideas why my mountain has turned out so bad. Ive tried the mountain tutorial 3 orv 4 times now and I'm sure I've done it step by step, but keep getting the same results as above.

[Shade of Dawn]

I am having the same problem whit Holdenburg and would really appreciate if someone could help out.

[RobA]

I am having the same problem whit Holdenburg and would really appreciate if someone could help out.

Which version of the tutorial and which version of Gimp are you using?

-Rob A>

[sforster]

Untitled.jpg

Any ideas why my mountain has turned out so bad. Ive tried the mountain tutorial 3 orv 4 times now and I'm sure I've done it step by step, but keep getting the same results as above.

I'm sure had a similar problem which seemed to be caused by not removing the selection created in step 10. The only clue to it being removed is an identical selection being created agin in step 27. I went back and managed to correct it, removing the selection before step 16.

I assume the Colours->Levels... and Colours->Curves... changes are constrained to the selected areas. I can't recreate the effect exacly right now but my mountain are surrouned by a pronounced ditch and glacis effect. Maybe the 640 by 400 image I'm playing with is too small...

[DragonLord]

When you modify curves, etc... you need to unselect the selection, did you do it?

[kjdavies]

Untitled.jpg

Any ideas why my mountain has turned out so bad. Ive tried the mountain tutorial 3 orv 4 times now and I'm sure I've done it step by step, but keep getting the same results as above.

Hi Holdenburg,

If I had to guess, you're missing a mask on the mountain layer(s). The mountain techniques I use include a mask on the color and bump map layers associated with the mountains. Without them they don't blend well at all, and you could expect to see something like this.

[wisemoon]

Hey there folks, thanks a lot for the compliments and thanks for using my revision of RobA's tutorial. Unfortunately I am in school during the fall and spring and working fulltime all year, so the only time I really get a chance to work on my cartography is during winter break and the summer. I'll try to go through the posts here and see if I can clarify some of the steps where people were having problems. I'll post the revision when I get it done.

Thanks again! And happy mapping!

Megan/wisemoon

[GunbladeKnight]

Thank you to both RobA and Whitemoon for the original and revised tutorials. However, I am on step 40 of the second PDF (editing deserts) and am wanting some clarification. It states you can add in the deserts by coloring on the layer mask with a soft brush at 60%, but it does not specify which layer mask to edit. Is it the dirt layer mask, grass bumps layer mask, grass texture layer mask, or the grass layer mask? The most current layer would be the original sketch (if you had one) which had been moved to the top.

I have also attempted the mountains before and had a similar problem as the previous posters. I am using GIMP 2.8.2

EDIT: I think the mountain problem was because it was easy to miss where you are supposed to change the output levels as well as the input levels on step 19 of the third PDF (altering the color levels on the mountain noise layer).