[Award Winner] Making Not so Random Coastlines in GIMP - alternative method

[Erdan]

Wow.
Thanks to RobA for all these great tutorials.

I've messed around with them a bit, this sand bank is what I got.

Perhaps anyone can comment on this?

[Meridok]

Wow! This just made me very happy. ^^ I've been wanting to do something about the coastline on my continental map for a while now, and using the steps right at the beginning of this thread, I made one (well, several) that I really like. ... Now I just need to figure out how to get the fjords into one certain part of the map, without making it look pathetic. xP I think I'll have to hand-draw those in though. Or snatch them from Norway somehow...

And thanks + rep to Faide, who summarized the steps for GIMP newbs on page 2. ^_^

[Legiazus]

This is purely genius. As a newbie, this is just great.

I however, have a small question. The effect seem to be less effective at higher pixel maps. I am currently working on a rather large on for my entire campaign world ( it is 3200x2600 ) and after the process, the coastlines just doesn't seem as "roughed up" as when I'm working on smaller maps. Is there any way to do something about the? Thanks in advance. And once again thanks for an awesome tutorial.

[RobA]

This is purely genius. As a newbie, this is just great.

I however, have a small question. The effect seem to be less effective at higher pixel maps. I am currently working on a rather large on for my entire campaign world ( it is 3200x2600 ) and after the process, the coastlines just doesn't seem as "roughed up" as when I'm working on smaller maps. Is there any way to do something about the? Thanks in advance. And once again thanks for an awesome tutorial.

It is the noise scale. The default noise filter in gimp is proportionate to the page size, so you are limited...

I have previously recommended the felimage noise plugin as it has better control and types of noise and will work just as well on a smaller mas as a larger map.

-Rob A>

Also, Old Guy's tutorial is another great method with different but also excellent results.

-Rob A>

[Legiazus]

Thanks, been looking at Old Guy's tutorial now. A quick newbie question though - how do I install plugins for Gimp?

[Kazou]

Whoa! This one actually worked! (Others are way too hard for me to follow as a beginner) I'm so glad now that I found this place!

[pavelvon]

Exactly this was the best starting point for me as a newbie to cartography . After few weeks of trying to find a good starting tutor ... I found this.
I have a concept and using this tutor I was able do this in 1,5 hour. Understandable, usefull and whole tutor is in a single image. Thanks!

Just consider yourself:
CoastLine Design 01.png
and the workouts:
CoastLine Test 02.png

[sim97fan3]

Can someone explain step 5? And step 7? I'm still a rookie with GIMP.

[TheLonelyWolfie]

This is just splendid, I love this method of terrain generation! It's a great help to make hand drawn maps into similar digital ones!

[mat01]

Wonderful thread... and thanks for the GIMP newbie instructions below!

For the total GIMP newbie (Like me) I've split this process up more clearly.

When I first looked at RobA's post I couldn't figure out most of the techniques, so I wrote this as I went along.
I can recomend the GIMP Help Index files as they helped me to do this from RobA's descriptions.

So here we go.

Open new file
Add a layer and colour it black (Ignore the background layer)
Use the lassoo (sp?) (and shift key for more than one) to define some blobs
Bucket fill white.
Unselect everything
Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur
Set radii to 100ish and apply

Open a new layer below this one (Helps to make the top layer invisable)
Filter>Render>Clouds>Solid Noise (Crank the X and Y values to max)

Tools>Colour Tools>Levels
Slide the grey arrow in the centre to the left a little (about 1.9) and let go. The dark areas will become greyer.

Make the white blobs layer visable again and make it the active layer.
In the layers dialog box is a mode option with a drop down menu, click on the multiply option.
This should put the noise where the white bits were.
Then merge the layers together. (Layer>Merge Down)

Tools>Colour Tools>Threshold
Fiddling with the black and white arrows adjusts the outlines of the shapes.
Then press OK

Filters>Edge Detect>Edge
Press OK in the pop up box
This gives you a white outline on black background.

Layers>Colours>Invert

This should give you a black outline on a white background.

I hope this helps, I learned loads doing it.

Karl