River experiment

[pasis]

I have been practicing ways to create rivers, but it turned out much harder than I expected. I’ve made so many trials I can’t count. Many of them had something good, but they suck overall. Here is the latest and the best try so far. I constantly run into problems with certain river directions causing it to look like its running uphill. I have tried to compensate with riverbanks but they are not doing the trick.
This is just a small sample from the bigger area I have there. The plan is to have a small village by the river where the mountains open up a bit more forming a decent valley. But it depends if I get the river right first.

[Meriba]

Awesome scene and specially the river. How did you do that precious stream? I love it

[pasis]

Awesome scene and specially the river. How did you do that precious stream? I love it

The river is a combination of several water element images put together. At the bottom of the river I have various rock textures and the water layer above is partially transparent.

[pasis]

Modified the previous version to get the river flowing more natural...

[Wired]

Modified the previous version to get the river flowing more natural...

The water looks great! Would you mind sharing how you managed to get the "foam" on it done? Because I'm trying to get a stormy sea done on this map and would like to know what's the best way to achieve it...

[Domino44]

That water looks awesome!

[pasis]

I have created the river by using several real life images of rivers and lakes. First I selected the base textures mixing them up to get reasonable effect. Then I copy/paste a lot of them in a row and use other textures to add details and to hide any repeating parts. Attached is some of the textures I had used.

I have tried to create natural looking sea texture as well for much smaller scale map than what yours is, but I have never really succeeded. With the scale of the map you are working on, there should not be too much actual sea texture visible anyways. So I would concentrate on changing the tone of the water in some places and creating darker/lighter areas. There are many excellent works in the finished maps section with really lively sea colorings.
I hope this helps at least a bit.

[pasis]

I almost forgot. I created a new house and a new field and planted them in. I haven't really decided yet if I'm going to do just few houses or a small village.

Edit: I just realized that I had made a mistake with the shadows. The shadows of the chimneys are going too much to the south. I try to remember to correct it...

[NedS298]

Great work, just take away some of the noise

[Jacktannery]

This is very good pasis.