[Award Winner] Eriond - A Tutorial for GIMP & Wilbur

[ltan]

Without seeing the height map I can only guess...

One thing that I would note is that I reduce the contrast on my "Land Clouds" layer by -50 instead of -25, page 3. It is acting like there is not enough difference between your land clouds and your mountain clouds.

Well, the map looks ok other than those saturated mountains. Have you tried applying a bump map without doing an of the masking and then applying the gradient to see if it gives you the same issues? It might be that there is something getting messy with the layer masks.

I took the image above and used just the land mass shapes and started fresh. This is what I have on the temperate layer.



It is overly grainy, too much noise I think, but It is pointing that something between going into Wilbur, and applying the gradients is where you should focus at. For the bump mapping, play with the values until it looks the way you want it to. Before going on to doing all of the layers for deserts and the artics, I would do a quick temperate gradient to make sure it looks like it is going to work.

[Deadshade]

Without seeing the height map I can only guess...

One thing that I would note is that I reduce the contrast on my "Land Clouds" layer by -50 instead of -25, page 3. It is acting like there is not enough difference between your land clouds and your mountain clouds.

Well, the map looks ok other than those saturated mountains. Have you tried applying a bump map without doing an of the masking and then applying the gradient to see if it gives you the same issues? It might be that there is something getting messy with the layer masks.

.

Many thanks ltan

The height map looks extremely similar to the one I linked. The difference are the flat top mountains (that happened somwhere during the bump map process) and it is (perhaps) the slightest bit whiter than the map I linked.

It is here : Wilbur HR height map (for GIMP png texture).png


Yes observing that only a small part of the gradient was used, I also deduced that there was probably not "enough" difference between the greys (contrast ?). However as I don't know what is the measure of "contrast" and what is the Relationship between the selection of a given gradient's color and the "contrast" I am of course stuck.
One must not forget that I ignored everything about mapping software 3 weeks ago and tried GIMP for the first time some 10 days ago while trying to learn in parallel Wilbur and FT3. So I am still a certified newbie on all accounts


No I didn't try to change anything in the commands given by the tutorial, because I am still Learning what are channels, masks and layers and can't say that I could use them effciently if I improvised. I have a thread here where people teach me how to use these Gimp concepts.
So I scrupulously followed the commands especially in the bump map part which I found quite messy indeed and despite that I must have done something wrong somewhere anyway because the flat grey mountain tops are something not normal that appeared during this process.

[ltan]

Deadshade: Yup, I saw that you are getting the technical help in another thread so I am offering the more practical side ... Mind you, I am still new to mapping myself but not so much GiMP.

So, something caught my eye with the above map image. Your mountains seem really smoothed. Did you apply a blur to them? That is probably why they do not appear detailed. I think, just a hunch, that you might have been a bit too heavy with the sculpting process and smoothed too much of your mountains. Taking a sample of your recent image I did this:



Which looks pleasing to my eye, and perhaps not yours

Then applying the gradient, I have included where my sliders are so you can compare:




I think that if you go back and redo your mountain sculpting and not blur the whole mountain but the edges, one thing I have been doing lately is to change the layer mode to lighten only and then blurring the areas that still stick out after looking at the Wilbur import, I think that you will find your mountains looking better, and your gradient might start appearing the way it is expected as well.


Edit: Also, the most important thing about following a tutorial, more importantly one that is artistic, is this... Adjust things until *you* think they look right. Since you are following along with a different file than the tutorial, and often times a completely different subject matter, you will need to adjust settings so that your images have the same level of appearance as the tutorial. As I stated above in one of my posts, I had to adjust my contrast by -50 instead of the tutorials -25 to get a result that looked decent. It is going to be a trial and error process, and the tutorial is supplying settings that should be considered the starting point.

I apologize now if I state the already known... I used to teach and I had to cover already known content to some so that those who needed it could catch up. It is a habit that I seem to carry over into everything I do now :/

[Deadshade]

Thousand thanks ! This is great !
No I didn't use blur.
Actually I was going through the tutorial to mostly learn things. So even if I think that I can now use Wilbur reasonably well (in any case compared to Gimp) I didn't spend much time with working "realistically" the height map.
What I did was a succession of erosion, basin filling and incising to just get a general shape in order to try to get color on it what was the target. An annoying thing is that the eroding process erodes the mountain tops as well.

Now I see that you succeeded with a really heavy deformation of the gradient and what you get looks right to me. You just applied the gradient directly to the height map or you did some special Gimp magics first ?
The contrast was the first thing I thought about when I failed with the gradient but I couldn't find where the hell is this contrast among the billions of Gimp tabs.

Same can be said about the layer modes - I opened it once and saw that there was a hundred options so that to find out what they did by trial and error would take at least a month with 5 hours/week what I approximately dedicate to it so I gave up the modes for the time being.
What is up with this "lighten only" mode you mention ?

On a completely unrelated front. I have just created a nice fractal coast in another software but for resolution/size reasons can't export it directly in Wilbur. So I will need to cut it up in 4 or more probably 6 parts and then put them again together.
I think I read somewhere that Gimp can do that. Can you give me a general idea how to do it - import 6 pieces and merge them together ?

[ltan]

Deadshade: I will send instructions on stitching the images together in a PM so as not to hijack this thread from the main tutorial.

As far as getting the gradient to work, I made a copy of the height map, then using the copy I applied the bump map. The image I used for the bump map was the same layer that I was applying the bump map to. This may not be the correct method of ding things as I am having artifacts on the sides of my mountains that makes them look poo-ish. Once the bump map has been applied, the settings I used above in this case, I then made that resulting image the Temperate layer. Then applied the gradient there.

[ludgarthewarwolf]

ludgarthewarwolf: Mind attaching an image of what your resulting image is *after* incise flow? Also, what settings are you using?

oops, forgot to check back in. It was the settings, I messed around with it a bit and got it to where it looked nice, here's what it ended up looking like. wipworldmap1.png

[arsheesh]

Hi everyone. Apologies for not chiming in to lend a hand. I've been away from the Guild for the last 6 or so months.

I am just a newbie and started with Learning digital mapping techniques only 2 weeks ago.
I noticed that I when I was using the Terraformer in FT3 and added clouds, then when I loaded the file in Wilbur, the clouds were interpreted like altitude maps giving interesting and realistic shapes.
Unfortunately I was unable to edit these shapes to give a map I wanted and then I happened on this tutorial doing exactly what I wanted to do.
First results are good and that's why I would also like to say a loud Thank you.
Really an impressively efficient workflow!

Btw a small comment. As I am not a very proficient GIMP user, I followed the tutorial literally step by step and noticed a confusing explanation in the first part.
It should be :
New layer>White (Clouds 2)
Set mode to difference
Filter>Render>Clouds>Difference Clouds
Set mode to difference (because the previous operation resets the mode to normal)
New from Visible (Difference1)
Then same for Clouds4

So (unless I severely misunderstood something) the Set mode to difference has to be done twice what was not clear from the tutorial

Yup, you're quite right about that Deadshade. Must have missed this. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I've uploaded a corrected tutorial.

Thousand thanks ! This is great !
No I didn't use blur.
Actually I was going through the tutorial to mostly learn things. So even if I think that I can now use Wilbur reasonably well (in any case compared to Gimp) I didn't spend much time with working "realistically" the height map.
What I did was a succession of erosion, basin filling and incising to just get a general shape in order to try to get color on it what was the target. An annoying thing is that the eroding process erodes the mountain tops as well.

Now I see that you succeeded with a really heavy deformation of the gradient and what you get looks right to me. You just applied the gradient directly to the height map or you did some special Gimp magics first ?
The contrast was the first thing I thought about when I failed with the gradient but I couldn't find where the hell is this contrast among the billions of Gimp tabs.

Same can be said about the layer modes - I opened it once and saw that there was a hundred options so that to find out what they did by trial and error would take at least a month with 5 hours/week what I approximately dedicate to it so I gave up the modes for the time being.
What is up with this "lighten only" mode you mention ?

On a completely unrelated front. I have just created a nice fractal coast in another software but for resolution/size reasons can't export it directly in Wilbur. So I will need to cut it up in 4 or more probably 6 parts and then put them again together.
I think I read somewhere that Gimp can do that. Can you give me a general idea how to do it - import 6 pieces and merge them together ?

I'm afraid that without looking at your GIMP .xcf file directly I'm not sure why most of the mountains (save for the tips) got blacked out. As for the gradient map, I've noticed that even slight differences in the brightness and contrast of of a heightmap will require adjustments to the gradient map. I've had to edit the gradient map for nearly each now map I do in the Eriond style, and sometimes that has resulted in widely different gradient maps.

Deadshade: I will send instructions on stitching the images together in a PM so as not to hijack this thread from the main tutorial.

As far as getting the gradient to work, I made a copy of the height map, then using the copy I applied the bump map. The image I used for the bump map was the same layer that I was applying the bump map to. This may not be the correct method of ding things as I am having artifacts on the sides of my mountains that makes them look poo-ish. Once the bump map has been applied, the settings I used above in this case, I then made that resulting image the Temperate layer. Then applied the gradient there.

Itan, thanks for stepping in and offering to lend a hand in my absence.

oops, forgot to check back in. It was the settings, I messed around with it a bit and got it to where it looked nice, here's what it ended up looking like. wipworldmap1.png

Ludgarthewarwolf, glad to see that you figured out the problem without my help. Nice job on this map BTW, it turned out great.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Carl Taylor]

I LOVE your mapping skills, however I am struggling to get along with GIMP. Do you have a tutorial for photoshop at all? (I've been using that for the last 10 years and to go to gimp seems somewhat alien to me I want to make a map for my fantasy book I'm writing).

[arsheesh]

I LOVE your mapping skills, however I am struggling to get along with GIMP. Do you have a tutorial for photoshop at all? (I've been using that for the last 10 years and to go to gimp seems somewhat alien to me I want to make a map for my fantasy book I'm writing).

Hi Carl, thanks much for the compliment. Sadly I do not own Photoshop and am only somewhat familiar with the program. So to answer your question, no, I do not have any Photoshop tutorials. Perhaps someday though. Best wishes.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Carl Taylor]

No problem. I would be willing to allow you to use my Adobe CC account, but eh, security issues with that, think adobe would question signing on from England then in New Zealand. lol