Random Map Technique

[RobA]

I'm trying to refine the technique used here. to make this style of map in GIMP.

Attached is what I have so far (without any colour adjustments). This allows pretty fine control over the location of the mountains, shorelines, and forest features.

I haven't applied any colour adjustment to the image at this point.

I particularly like the shore water effect I came up with using a displacement map twice in opposite directions.

-Rob A>

[RPMiller]

Looking very nice!

[ravells]

Beautiful!

[RobA]

On a whim, I massaged and exported a height-field from this image, and exported just the colour washes with no shading, and combined them in using the Persistence of Vision raytracer.

I then rendered the image out using the forced perspective of 3D planimetric relief (plan oblique relief) with a 26 degree elevation back into a 800x800 image...

This leaves the land shaped the same, but notice how the mountains now have a profile view to them? It's quite a bit of extra work, but it does make for a nice map

-Rob A>

[RPMiller]

Oooo... Purtey! Very stylized, but it has a lot of character. I likey!

[ravells]

Wow! how long did the process take, Rob? I really like that look and this might give me an answer for my Map on the WIP section. The style looks just right.

[Faide]

How did you do those lovely mountains in GIMP?

Is it a pattern fill?

[RobA]

Wow! how long did the process take, Rob? I really like that look and this might give me an answer for my Map on the WIP section. The style looks just right.

I'm assuming you are referring to the forced perspective mountains...
All you need are:
1) POVRay
2) A b/w heightfield
3) A colour texture overlay

And the following snip of POV code (rendered out as a 800x800 image):

global_settings { assumed_gamma 2.2 }    
#include "colors.inc"

camera{location <0,4,-8>*25000 direction z*41700 look_at 0 up y right 2.24*x}        

light_source{ <-1000,100,-1000>/2 White*1.5 }
light_source{<0000,1000,0> White*1.5}

height_field {
  "hf_map.png" smooth 
  pigment {image_map {"hf_image.png"} rotate x*90 }
  translate <-.5, 0, -.5>
  scale <12, 0.6, 12>         
  no_shadow 
}

Attached are the heightfield png (from my source GIMP image, the heightfield is almost a by-product of the technique I am working on) and the texture map - the map image with no shadings in the mountainous areas (again, this is one of the layers from the technique I am working on). I kept the water and grassland/forest shadings as I didn't include them in the heightfield.

-Rob A>

[RobA]

How did you do those lovely mountains in GIMP?

Is it a pattern fill?

If you are referring the top view mountains, it is a combination of perlin noise, palette mapping, and bump mapping.

If you are referring to the forced perspective mountains, it wasn't done in GIMP, I used a ray tracer (see my previous post in the thread for details).

If I'm still not clear let me know

-Rob A>

[ravells]

So just by sheer good luck, the perlin noise produced a result which translated perfectly into a height field that looked like mountains? (I'm assuming that the heightfield is just a greyscale image of the map?)

I'm thinking of using Bryce rather than POV ray to render the heightfield but the trick is getting the heightfield to start with. I'll try messing around with some of my noise filters and see what they come up with.