My last bit of tinkering with Stern's Bridge
...unless Feral Spirit asks me to add any other bits...
but this is the copy with the letters and text retyped to give them a bit of a glow to separate them from the background and make them stand out a bit.
i am happy to change the font or text or textures if you would like FeralSpirit... or if you want me to add any more labels to this version...
i am also hoping you have fun with the other version you are creating and look forward to seeing it develop...
be well,
Phil
Regarding CSUAC
Can anyone tell me where to find CSUAC? The last time I walked through jfrazierjr's tut on layer masks it was at his first reference to this material that I stopped to go hunting for it. I failed to find it. Now that I've been referred back to the tut I want to find it again.
Sorry, no update. I'll try to get one up tonight.
Doubt is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire
Originally Posted by Feralspirit
http://gmsapprentice.com/
You can of course use any textures you can find that match what your trying to accomplish, I just happened to use those to make the "creek" since a few days(weeks?) before hand I was doodling and made a creek while playing with layer masks. The first attempts were rather atrocious, but by the end, I got it looking fairly ok.
My Finished Maps
Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
My Tutorials:
Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
----------------------------------------------------------
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Update(?)
I'm not really sure this is much of an update. My work schedule picked up this last week, so I (again) have not gotten as far as I would have liked (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it). I have played with a couple of things, not for the better by and large I'm afraid.
First thing I am most generally pleased with is the progress on re-drawing the buildings (considering they are not yet done, don't bother looking at them). It's a pain to re-do them, but I like right angles, and it will give me the opportunity to correct the population dispersal problem. That neighborhood at the bottom of the map was far too large, put that way to make a desirable population count (2500-3000 at 3.5 average adults/household). By squeezing a few more people into the north, I can cut houses in the south,. You may notice that as many buildings as possible were given a perfect North/South orientation (definately more convenient to the mapper, @Sigurd *poke*). As per ravells' very first comments/suggestions about my town I have attempted to use fewer rectangles, but upon reviewing his latest Port City, I realize that I cannot compete with his idea of irregularly shaped buildings (@ravells *poke, poke*).
Second, to me, but probably the first thing anyone will notice is the forest.
The only good thing I can say about it is it's a vast improvement from how it was represented previously. Gandwarf made the comment in jfraziers tut, too "clip-art", and I think the term applies even more here than there. I also think it's too busy. It will probably be redone. Can anyone point me towards some botanical resource information? I have questions like; What kinds of trees could I likely find at 40-50 degrees north lat, about 1500-2000' elevation? How many different species is one likely to find in one forest? Diagrams of tree species dispersal in a forest, and diagrams of tree crowns for specific species.
Altered the hue of the grass, NOT happy with it's current state. trying to find something more lush (living green), not neon. If I fail in this I will go back to its initial color.
@jfrazierjr, I've toned down the grass texture a bit. I'm not sure what to use as an alternate grass texture. I do intend to add a lot of soil/dirt, to break up what currently appears to broad expanses of grass (around the buildings of town, animal enclosures, the graveyard, and a few barren patches out in the open will be mostly dirt). It took me forever to figure out which layer mask I had to alter to get the river to blend better with the swamp (my first guess was actually correct, but there was another mask interfering that I had to track down to erase a handful of pixels on the river's edge). And thank you for the forest suggestion, I like this "style" much better, even though I need to re-do the forest, again (for the fourth time).
@torstan, I still think the forest needs to be toned down, but I do think its current state is better than before. Sorry I haven't quite finished the buildings yet, but thanks for the tip. That's exactly what I want (I think).
@Everyone, Thank you all so much (esp jfrazierjr and torstan) for your patience with me and continued attention, even though I appear to crawling along to the lot of you.
Stern's Bridge GimpTut 2.95 @75%.PNG
Doubt is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire
Building shapes look great, darn near perfect, I'd say. Trees look good overall...you have green trees and light green trees. I'd suggest adding more color variation like yellow-green, orange, mustard, olive, ochre, mud, tan, etc. On a new layer use an airbrush and play with the various colors and make blobs of color then set the blend mode to overlay. So far so good.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Not much of an update my arse. This is coming along nicely. I agree with ascension about the building shapes. That's some patience you've got there. It will show in the final result.
I also agree with the forest. The pattern is great - but a little bright and sharp for my liking. On the other hand, I don't go for photo-real maps so maybe others can comment better than I. I'd suggest lowering the opacity of the forest layer a little, or lowering the saturation and contrast a touch. The same goes for the rock - you'd never see veins of minerals ina rock at this scale, though the texture is nice. Perhaps take the rock layer, duplicate it, and fill the rock with a mid to dark grey on the lower layer. Then lower the opacity of the textured layer and see how it looks.
As for speed of progress - you should see my threads - they are positively glacial. No worries about slow updates - it gives us lots of chances to carp and criticise - ahem - I mean constructively comment .
*cheers*
Hooray, an update I'm actually (relatively) happy with!
Not too much has changed in the last 24 hours, but I have found a grass hue that I like, that's pretty much enough to make me happy.
@Ascension, boy, I was nervous to pursue your advice (orange, mustard, and tan?) but I did. I can't really discern too great a difference. It still looks green to me. I think it brightened some of my darker spots. I am red-green deficient though, so maybe you can see a difference where I cannot. (I'd have guessed being color blind to reds-greens, that the other colors would have jumped at me. Go figure.)
@Torstan I toned down the volume on the trees a bit, before I followed Ascensions' instructions, and they jumped right back up. On the rocks, I just went ahead and used the small tile function on the original fill. Tell me what you think.
The swamp, the swamp! Look at the swamp! What's the consensus? Does this look more, or less like a swamp?
Stern's Bridge GimpTut 3@75%.PNG
Ok, I'm not sure about the road developments in the NE quadrant, anyone have an opinion? Also, you guys got the hexes visible this time. 1 hex = 100'
Last edited by Feralspirit; 03-01-2009 at 05:43 AM. Reason: Oops, forgot a couple of things.
Doubt is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
