October Entry: The Desert Reclaims her Own

[Torq]

"And we read from pleasant bibles, that are bound in blood and skin, that the wilderness is gathering all her children back again."

- Leonard Cohen-

This is the beginning of an attempt to do part of a desert town that is fighting a continual battle to prevent the incursion of the desert.

Torq

### Latest WIP ###

[Steel General]

Great start... I've been trying to find a good way to add encroaching sand dunes to my map as well. No satisfactory results as of yet.

[xv43]

I love it... how do you get the sand over the stone tile look?

[jfrazierjr]

I love it... how do you get the sand over the stone tile look?

I would "guess" he created a layer with the sand texture on it, set the opacity down to 70% or so and added a layer mask and then brushed out the layermask to "show" the sand through image. At least, thats how I would have done it in GIMP.

[jfrazierjr]

Oh yea... Great map. Yet again, Torq is in the lead for getting my vote. You make some great maps man!

[xv43]

I would "guess" he created a layer with the sand texture on it, set the opacity down to 70% or so and added a layer mask and then brushed out the layermask to "show" the sand through image. At least, thats how I would have done it in GIMP.

Thanks, I'm still feeling my way through how to do things with gimp, I'm only barely starting to get layer masks

[Torq]

Yes the sand is just layered over with about 70% opacity. Filled in the whole pic with sand then just brushed out the bits I didn't want using a more or less circular grunge brush.

Thanks for the compliments.

Here is the latest version with some sand added to the higher parts and a few other extras.

Torq

### Latest WIP ###

[jfrazierjr]

Thanks, I'm still feeling my way through how to do things with gimp, I'm only barely starting to get layer masks

Learn masks and learn them well... they will drastically improve your control and flexability. For a test, do this:

• new image
• Fill with a texture
• New layer filled with another texture
• Add a layer mask 100 black so your original texture shows through.
• With the layer mask selected (click the mask thumbnail), use a paint brush set to pure white and about 40% opacity, paint the mask white which will allow stuff to show through.

This is an excellent technique for blending two or more colors/textures together that is totally non destructive. If you show to much of the top texture or color, just change the FG color to white and erase part of the mask. For the above test, I would suggest using Rock_Blueish_Blu_kp.bmp as the base background texture and one of the grass textures as the top layer. This will allow you to produce an "overgrown" city with some base streets and your vegitation on top.

The other GREAT thing about doing it this way is that you can change the textures used in 2 seconds by draging a new texture onto the correct layer and still have the same basic shape preserved 100% because the mask it doing all the heavy lifting instead of your hand brush strokes.

Attached are some samples using the same background and different top layers. It took about 2 seconds to change each top layer texture and yet the location of the top layer stays constant in each since the mask is doing all the work. This is a great way to blend colors or textures and still be flexible to change out the color/texture and maintian the same shape without any tweaking to get the shape back. I originally figured this out from something in RobA's tutorial where he did it months ago, but forgot about it until I watched Butch's (zombienirvana) tutorials on utube last night.

[Steel General]

I'm going to have to give that method a try and see what happens.

[xv43]

I think I like it better with some sand on top of the buildings, it makes it look like a sandstorm has recently passed through.