My first map

[waldronate]

I wouldn't recommend trying Wilbur right now unless you have steel nerves and plenty of time.

Not that you're incorrect, but you wound me, sir.

[johnvanvliet]

The Gimp( like wilbur) has a bit of a learning curve
they are NOT hard programs to use
just complex programs to use

[Deadshade]

Not that you're incorrect, but you wound me, sir.

I hope you were jesting Waldronate, sir .
You are an excellent and patient teacher and I got to a relative Wilbur mastery only thanks to you so that I wouldn't want to wound you even in a dream.
What stays is that the lack of an up to date manual and the sheer multiplicity and difficulty of options puts a large strain on the nerves and the Learning curve is almost vertical at start.
And the lack of hemispherical symmetry combined with latitude-altitude dependence for textures drove me almost crazy

@johnvanvliet

I agree with you that GIMP is complex but not hard.

However this is not the case with Wilbur - as it is basically a fractal field generator intersecting with planes and spheres, if you have not an advanced knowledge what the background mathematics do, you will be unable to predict even approximately what will happen when you change the type, lacunarity, octave etc fractal settings.
Trial and error simply doesn't work here and even if it was feasible, it would take more time than to learn the necessary mathematics anyway .
So while this is not excessively hard for somebody mathematically trained, it is very hard for somebody else who isn't.
Of course it is possible to always stay with default settings and/or use Wilbur only as erosion generator but this would miss imho the whole interest and power of this software.

[waldronate]

I hope you were jesting Waldronate, sir.

Mostly, yes ('tis the season to be grumpy... grumpy, grumpy, grumpy, yes that's me!)

Wilbur is definitely in need of some TLC, but works fairly well for basic operations when following the tutorials. When you wander off from those or want more than the basic tutorials, then you get into some weird areas, for sure. That's especially true if you want to get an in-depth knowledge of the underlying pieces.

Following the basic Wilbur tutorial on the first map takes about half an hour or so and can give results as shown below (coast, low mtns, and high mtns masks were used). Well, I did a little post-processing in Photoshop to the middle one to get the pseudo-3d effect (perspective 3D view from Wilbur, perspective distort in PS to take out the perspective, then shrink to correct the aspect) and a little variable brightness/contrast to get the left-hand one and shrink it a bit for sizing.

(edit) I realized that I forgot to add river and that's what the right-hand one is.

Reasonable results, pretty much following a tutorial.