Orpheus -- The Jewel Coast

[Peter Toth]

Hello Guild,

Always experimenting with new techniques in GIMP and Wilbur, I am constantly at work to refine my procedure to render beautiful, atlas-like terrain--one map after the other. And I can't get no satisfaction.

I realize the learning curve gets a little more difficult with each map, and for that reason I was originally going to discard this one, entitled Orpheus. However, I'll let the viewers decide whether I should abandon this project or develop it further.

By the way, does anyone know of a cheap (or free) software program that allows gradient masking, which basically allows a person to burn/dodge the underlying black and white DEM to adjust the colours of the overlying gradient map?

Anyways, I won't bore you with any more rambling. Here's the map; I hope you like it.

Peter

Orpheus.png

[Caenwyr]

Hey there Peter,

This isn't looking bad at all! And I mean that it's a great map! I wonder how your other maps look, if you almost discarded this one. Lovely varied terrain, and you made great use of the colour gradient.

I'm not sure I understand your question about the gradient masking. If I get your meaning, you want to make tweaks to the DEM that's at the basis of this map, and have the changes show up in the map itself? IIRC from my GIMP days, you have to redo the entire gradient map each time you tweak something in the DEM below. In Photoshop you simply throw an adjustment layer on top of your DEM stack and it changes the gradient map in real time. I don't work for Adobe so I won't get any money from them for saying this, but you could consider downloading a 7-day trial version (do it when you have a bit of time, to squeeze as much out of it as possible before you hit the paywall). It won't cost you anything and you get to try out that adjustment layer thingy (and a ton of other features GIMP lacks) and see if it works for you.

There might be other packages out there that do the same thing, possible for less of entirely for free! But I have no experience with any of them, so I can't say for sure. I'm sure you could AskJeeves it (since we're talking about alternate packages here, I thought I should stay away from the G-word).

[QED42]

Very cool map, still waiting for you to be happy with your refined process so you can make tutorial for us mere mortals to copy your style.

[MrBragg]

still waiting for you to be happy with your refined process so you can make tutorial for us mere mortals to copy your style.

Second this, I'd be very interested in seeing what your process in Wilbur and such is.

[Peter Toth]

Hello Caenwyr, QED42, and MrBragg:

Thank you all for your interest. With regards to my process, it's still a shot in the dark as I haven't yet reached a point where I can reliably duplicate a "lucky" topography rendering. Indeed, more than half the time all that results is garbage, although I recognize this as the unmistakable path towards success; accordingly I'm prepared to fail a thousand more times before I become a Guild Master.

Gradient masking is kind of like having a greyscale DEM on the bottom layer and a coloured altitude gradient map on top. As you burn/dodge the bottom DEM layer, the coloured layer above responds instantly. For instance, if you wanted to lower your mountains in a particular spot, you'd burn a selection of the greyscale DEM and instantly see your results on the layer above, which has the coloured gradient applied. I know Photoshop definitely provides this option (I was trained in Photoshop in 2003), although I cannot afford the exorbitant price. Wilbur allows some basic gradient masking, although it’s not as clean as Photoshop.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Peter