I'm working on my first map, and I could use a little help.

[Plausiblejosh]

I'm making a world map for a future D&D campaign. No date set, I just discovered world building, and I love it. Anyway, I was looking at some of the tutorial pdfs here, and a lot use out of date versions of Gimp, have steps that are very vague. This is where I'm at so far

http://i.imgur.com/VzpXytA.png

I'm currently working on adding mountains, and I've been using a combo of Antique-Style Maps in Gimp by Candacis and Hand-Drawn Map Tutorial
(for the Artistically Challenged) by Gidde. I was going to make the mountains like they are in Candacis' tutorial, but I don't understand what to do. Step #6 says,

"Create a new transparent layer and name it "Mountains 1". I will use different
mountains than the one in the Photoshop tutorial, but they can be done quite
easily, too. First the Ascension Mountains:
- Choose black as foreground color and a big round brush. I used a Circle
(09). Draw some basic lines where the mountains are supposed to be. It don't
has to be pretty, just don't draw to close to the coastlines.
- Create a new transparent layer and name it "Mountains". Use a smaller
brush, check the fade out box and set it to 20px (or what length your lines
should have) zoom in and draw some hair lines around the mountains. It
should look like a paramecium. Now hide the Mountain 1 layer. Deselect."

He says to use a big round brush, and that he uses Circle (09), but I don't know what brush that is, nor how big I'm suppose to make it. The closest I have are 4 brushes entitled "Hardness (25, 50, 75, 100)". Next he says to draw some basic lines where the mountains are suppose to be. I have no idea what he means by this. Do I draw wave-y lines, or something, where I'm putting the moutains? After that he says to check a fade out box, which I don't have and draw "hair" around the mountains, and that they should look like paramecium? Paramecium? I don't know what the hell is going on any more.

In the midst of all that confusion I decided I would like my map to have mountains, similar to those found in these.

http://calthyechild.deviantart.com/a...shes-138796530

Not because of the tutorial or anything. I simply would find them more aesthetically pleasing for this particular map. Gidde's tutorial has a section for the "cheater way", but it uses a version of Gimp that is out of date, and the new version can't do any of the steps he describes. I hope I didn't come off like a jerk, I certainly didn't mean to. I'm just confused and seeking help. I hope this site isn't dead...

[Chick]

Hello PlausibleJosh, welcome to the Guild!

There are a lot of brushes and other tutorials for GIMP, some for older versions, but all should be close enough that you can work out the minor differences. For example, the brushes have a shape (circle, etc), a size (09, etc), and a hardness (25, etc). Just find the place in GIMP where you choose a brush, set it to a circle, size 9, hardness 100. Draw lines that look like mountains The fadeout is to fade the lines at the bottom where they join the flat land.

Using premade brushes in the shape of mountains is easier. Just get the brushes you want in an .abr file. That's photoshop, but I believe GIMP can use them as well. Then select one of the mountain brushes (the shape), size it to whatever size you want, hardness 100, and click it to place the mountain.

[johnvanvliet]

the gimp can use Adobe's Photoshop brushes .This has not been a issue for at least 10 years

[Plausiblejosh]

Hello PlausibleJosh, welcome to the Guild!

There are a lot of brushes and other tutorials for GIMP, some for older versions, but all should be close enough that you can work out the minor differences. For example, the brushes have a shape (circle, etc), a size (09, etc), and a hardness (25, etc). Just find the place in GIMP where you choose a brush, set it to a circle, size 9, hardness 100. Draw lines that look like mountains The fadeout is to fade the lines at the bottom where they join the flat land.

Using premade brushes in the shape of mountains is easier. Just get the brushes you want in an .abr file. That's photoshop, but I believe GIMP can use them as well. Then select one of the mountain brushes (the shape), size it to whatever size you want, hardness 100, and click it to place the mountain.

Thank you!!! I've very excited to be here. I love maps, and have been fascinated with them since I was a child. Anyway, I may be wrong, but it looks like the circle brush you select and the hardness are tied together. I don't see a way to change the hardness. Just so I can be sure, size 09 for a brush is really small, right? Eight away from, what, one pixel? Lines that look like mountains... so triangle-like shapes? Also, I'm not sure I follow what the fadeout is suppose to do. Do you have an example? It would have helped, in the Antique-style maps tutorial, if there were any example pics of the mountain process. You can't even zoom in other later steps to check them out since the resolution of the pics in pdf aren't that high. I have a bunch of brushes now! I was pointed to deviantart, and somehow found out (I forgot how) that the abr files for photoshop brushes are compatible with gimp. So I went kinda crazy downloading them. Lastly, I was thinking last night, that maybe it would look better if my mountains looked like they did in the Antique-style Tutorial .pdf, and I only used a mountain brush when I'm doing my "zoomed-in" map, but then I realized that you can't really see what they look like in any pictures in the .pdf. So I don't know what I want to do.

[Midgardsormr]

I'll tell you what a paramecium is! It's a one celled critter with no brain that can't fly, suffering from Peter Pan envy!

Sorry, couldn't resist that set-up. This is a paramecium:
paramecium_7056_md.gif

I infer from the reference to the critter that the mountains are of the "hairy caterpillar" type. So round central area of color surrounded by short hash-marks that look like hairs.


Attachment 66407
Credit to J. Edward for the image of those brushes. Original thread here: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ht=caterpillar

I can't offer any guidance on the Gimp; I'm a Photoshop guy. But I thought I could help out with at least that question.

[Plausiblejosh]

I'll tell you what a paramecium is! It's a one celled critter with no brain that can't fly, suffering from Peter Pan envy!

Sorry, couldn't resist that set-up. This is a paramecium:
paramecium_7056_md.gif

I infer from the reference to the critter that the mountains are of the "hairy caterpillar" type. So round central area of color surrounded by short hash-marks that look like hairs.


Attachment 66407
Credit to J. Edward for the image of those brushes. Original thread here: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ht=caterpillar

I can't offer any guidance on the Gimp; I'm a Photoshop guy. But I thought I could help out with at least that question.

Yeah, I knew what a paramecium was, I just couldn't picture how they would resemble mountains. Now that I see the pics from your post, I get it, but I still don't think they resemble mountains. Unless there's another step to it? Anyway, I thought I might try KJDavies mountain tutorial, which uses the cloud rendering thing, but I messed it up some how. The noise that goes in the white space where your mountains are suppose to be, is just a grey blob for me. I don't think the tutorial is for someone doing a 3000x2000 map.


EDIT:

I found Torstan's Assorted Tips Thread, and downloaded the occompanying pdf file. One of the tips was for hand drawn mountains that I quite like.

[TK.]

Hello there and welcome to the guild.

I currently draw in Photoshop, but I started with GIMP and run that particular tutorial as my first maps to dip my feet in here... (what I'm still doing)

What he means with paramecium forms with "hair" around is to produce a map like this:

Prim almost.jpg

That step is supposed to be like this:

Prim mountains1.jpg

see the big, dark "worm-like lines" I'm using where the mountains should be? That's just to use like a shape, to put the "hairs" around it.

P.S. I'm still rather noob at cartography, so my maps have many inconsistencies...but I guess it could help you visualize