Oostangelt en de Verboden Pas

[TheMarcus7]

I have to come down on the other side of the "gap" opinion. The first time I looked at your beautiful map, I thought those broke up the uniformity of the forest texture nicely, and those little gaps seemed perfectly normal for this type of map. Looks less computer drawn and more hand textured I guess. <clicks the rep button>. Nice work!

.TM7

[Meridius]

What I found works well for creating the forest texture in that respect is to not use the magic wand tool, but the "Colour Select" (in photoshop anyhow, not sure about gimp). That way instead of a hard selection edge, it goes into a smooth selection when removing the black. That's what happened here I think - there's a hard defined edge between the black (removed, now transparent) and the almost black.

Very small point, and doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the map!

it's a wondeful piece, tutorial basis or not (I've done my share of similar mapping style, nothing wrong with that!), and conveys a lot of information without being overcrowded.

Definitely worth posting, thanks! (and i love the parchment/legend/etc on the left, wonderful job, couldn't have done better myself!)

Hmm, I'm going to try that out now... *tries it now, but cannot find texture* Though I cannot find the original texture with the black still intact, I've tried another forest, it does work very nicely indeed! I'll remember this for my next map

Really great map, doubly so for your first time, so have some rep from me.

Agree about the forests...the gap in the texture isn't great but it's still a nice looking map so fix it if you can but don't sweat it if you can't. If you still have the thing in layers maybe you can just make a surgical fix? If not, you might be able go in by hand and do some paint/smudge/smear to see if you can smooth out the worst parts.

As for creating tileable textures I might have a solution for you. Visit this link and look at the lower-left of the list of tutorials. "Creating Tileable Textures" is (not surprisingly) the one you want. You'll have to register to download it but they don't spam you (that I've noticed). There's much great stuff on that site...many paychecks worth of tutorials are on my wish-list at present.
M

I actually already knew that method... And while I'm fine making seamless textures from photo's (I prefer looking up landscapes in Google Earth), I find that the real world is so varied that I always end up with one 'dark spot' or something which when tiled becomes noticable due to it repeating all over the place... What I actually was wondering, apart from looking for a very uniform texture, how do people do that? I do know how to make a texture seamless, It's just that it's always noticable that something is repeating itself 'down there' when I use home-grown textures.

This still blows me away! Gonna have to try that tut really soon, and can't wait to get to the next adventure in those woods.

And see, I told you they'd love it, hehe
Have some rep!

I still thank you for encouraging me

To everyone: Thank you for your advise, critique, compliments and rep. I REALLY appreciate it. I also think I definitely should make more maps, and if I do, include WIP's here on this guild.

[Coyotemax]

I've been using non-real world textures for the most part, but this will work just as well for realworld textures - when i remember to do it

What I'll do in that case is to use 2 textures that are very similar, and use the one to paint over on a layer above (usually with no blending - just leave on normal), using a low flow and opacity with more or less random placement - random enough it's difficult to see any repeats when you overlay the patters, and un-random enough to paint over bits that look obviously tiled. If you use the Pattern Stamp tool (it sounds like you're using photoshop) uncheck the "Aligned" option. Aligned means it will align the pattern to the edge of the image, and as you paint, it basically reveals the texture as it goes which will allow for tiling to show. Not Aligned means that when you start painting with the brush, the starting point for each stroke defines the edge, and gives you the opportunity for less of a tiled look.

[Meridius]

Ok, thanks, I'll try that, though I wonder if two strokes connect, won't you get 'overlapping trees'?

I have some time to spare, so I've translated the 'parchment' on the map. Excuse any translation errors, I sometimes end up using Dutch grammar in English when translating.
I think most of it was already pretty clear, but especially the 'flavour text' on the bottom may put some background story in the map.

Map of the County 'Oostangelt' and the 'Verboden Pas' (Forbidden Pass).

Legend
- Water
- City / Village
- Forest
- Mountains
- Grassland
- Plains
- Swamp
- Fields
- Road
- National Border
- County Border
- Barony Border

--------------------

The following labels are examples. The labels are not always on the same scale as on the map.

- Rivers and lakes
- Seas
- Islands
- Country names
- County names
- Barony names
- Placenames
- County capital (names)

---------------------

Scale of 20 miles.

------------------

Oostangelt

Oostangelt is a sparcely populated and troubled county. Oostangelt (Oost = East) has long been ruled together with Zuidangelt (Zuid = South) as a separate country. When this ended, Angelt was absorbed into the large kingdom/empire of Bern, and rapidly depopulated.

The old (original) count was killed a few decades ago by a robber baron (literally: robber knight). This tyrant ruled Angelt until 3 years ago, when the tyrant attacked two adventurers for fun. The adventurers emerged victorious and killed the count (tyrant). However, since the King (of Bern) had tolerated the tyrant, he was forced to punish the two adventurers for killing one of his counts.

The King separated Angelt into two counties, and made the adventurers counts of Oostangelt and Zuidangelt. Their mission (punishment) is to bring piece and prosperity in this part of Bern.

The 'Verboden Pas' (Forbidden Pass)

The Verboden Pas earned it's name due to it's inhospitabilty and impassability.

Moreover, the rumour goes that besides the many dangerous animals and dark creatures who roam here, there is a greater threat. It is said that at least two dragons would live in the pass.

Note that this text is intentionally not quite clear, but became even more unclear due to the translation. I can't explain the full story, since one of my D&D players is a member here, and I don't want to spoil anything for him.

[Coyotemax]

You can get a bit of overlap if you're not careful yes, but you can avoid that by using larger strokes, scribble around a bit and it reduces the chance for it happening. Plus if it does occur, you can always paint over the bits you don't like, or erase them.

Here's an example i put together to show you the results. Images 2 and 3 are the initial textures, and show the tiling. 1st one is texture2 as a base, and texture1 on a layer above, pattern stamped with a 200px soft brush at 50% opacity/flow and unchecked the Aligned.. I just painted around a bit to take out the tiled looking areas, and left it at that. It's not perfect, you can still see a bit in there if you look for it, but I just didn't feel like going back to adjust it after uploading (this is just for example, afterall) I also use a similar technique to do soft transitions from one kind of terrain to another.. overlapping lush prairie textures with less lush leading into arid scrub, then into sandy desert, for example. Not all textures work out well, but that's where the fun of experimenting comes in

It seems to work best when you have similar colour palettes in each texture you're overlapping, too.