Ascension's Atlas Style Tutorial - Revised Presentation + Actions

[Telutan]

Every time I try to open the file, it just opens Photoshop. What's wrong? I really want to learn to make a map that looks the way the one in the picture does.

[Daniel Morgan]

Hello. Cheers for all the amazing work, I have found that this is a wonderful way to get into cartography. The instructions were very clear and I found it an amazing learning process. I have made about 4 maps now, each time changing little bits and pieces but I have come up with a few features I would like to add in that I don't quite have the experience to know how to implement and at what times would be best to chuck them in.

I would like to add beaches where land mass touches the water. The best way I thought of doing this was to create a separate layer with a coloured cloud filter that was cut from the Base layer and then contracted 1 pixel but I'm not quite sure how to work with the mapping to make this apply properly.

I fiddled around with the size of the chisel for the mountains and found increasing the number to around 50 gave a really defined set of mountains. I have a few on my map that level off the at the top rather than form some really cool peaks which I assume is an interaction between the cloud render and the effects and because of them they somewhat make the other mountains seem smaller in scale. I have had a fiddle but cant seem to get some really huge peaks so any help with fitting in those would be cool.

I also found if you put a cloud layer between the hills and the mountains you can get some really cool storm effects but again I'm not quite sure the best way to localise these around specific mountains.

I will chuck in some images from my latest map so you can get a better idea, the third map in the section is the one I want to try adding these features to, I was trying some alternate ways to put in rivers here by cutting them in all the way back in the base map. From being a complete novice with Photoshop to having some ideas of the tools and effects in just a few maps is really neat testament to the work you put into your tutorial. Cheers for all your work.

Map Part 3 Done.jpg Atlas Two.jpg Good Mountains.jpg Storms.jpg

[Mirrodan]

Just wanted to give credit where credit was do and thank you for this!

[CJSchou]

Very well done... I am using the color solution for my new map

[Kindari]

Hi Telutan,

Which file are you opening when that happens?

[Kindari]

There are 4 files to choose from.

The "Attached Thumbnails" are the actual tutorial documents. One is the regular version, the other is the Action Companion, which I recommend only getting after you've done the regular version.

The "Attached Files" are the Action files for Photoshop. Is this what you downloaded? If you open one of those, and open the .atn file inside, it will open Photoshop and add some Actions to your Actions panel.

I hope this helps!

[Kindari]

Someone asked for a video tutorial version of this, and so I decided to make one (wow it took way longer than I thought!). It's sort of a new tutorial, but I didn't want to make a whole new thread for it.

Check it out here if you're interested! http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL44EEB5472CD8BE93

Thanks,

[rustorod]

Thanks Kindari!!! I followed the YouTube tutorial and had a lot of creating an Atlas. I learned alot about Photoshop with the video, I'm still a beginner. I hope you have more tutorials in sore, maybe a city or town map

Thanks for all your hard work.

Mike

[Yusaku Asano]

Both Ascension and Kindari made tremendous work in all levels.
So, first of all a great thanks to both of you to the energy, effort and time you put in making this excellent map tutorial available and accesible to everyone.

However, I have an issue that probably comes with my inexperience with these kind use of photoshop: the mountains.
The technique to create the mountains seems too erratic and unpredictable. As fiddling with the tutorial i understood that the filter generates randomly the mountains and you are playing with the "move" and "erase" in order to come to a result to your liking. While i was making my map, a heavy mountain region with great deal of details concerning the mountains, hills etc i found this method a bit ιnconsisted. For example i have in mind how my mountain ranges will look like and how they distirbuted in the map. Trying to get the result i would like i got a bit disappointed with the result.

Can someone more experienced offer me a tip regarding this issue? Also, is there any way with Ascension's style to be able to draw the mountains the way i like instead of randomly generate them?
Thank you!

[Kindari]

Hi Yusaku,

Sometimes I have a similar situation. One possible solution is to make extra mountain layers with random mountains and use them as a source palette...

Let me know if this doesn't make sense - maybe I can do a little video about it.

Setup your map until you get to the step where it tells you to erase, select and move mountains. You should have your land and a solid black background visible.

Create a new layer above layer "Mountains" called layer "Mountains Custom 1" (or whatever you like). Go through the steps in the tutorial we used to setup layer "Mountains" again but for this layer "Mountains Custom 1". I don't have it in front of me, but there would be something like - create new layer, set colors to default, render clouds, render a lighting effects filter with the Atlas Mountains preset, select color range, delete (to get rid of the black), deselect.

Hide layer "Mountains". On layer "Mountains Custom 1" look for mountain ranges or areas that fit the look you want. Single these out - erase the mountains around them or select and move them.

When you have a section you like, select it with the lasso tool (don't forget to have the feather set for the lasso). Use the new layer via copy shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + J (or just Ctrl + J if you don't want to rename the new layer). In the tutorial, we used this to duplicate layers. However, if you use this with just a portion of a layer selected, it copies just that portion to its own layer. Go back to your layer "Mountains Custom 1" and repeat this for each section of mountain that works for your desired setup.

Let's pretend you saw three areas you liked, so you would have each one of those on its own layer. Now, select each layer and position it over your land as you like.

If you don't find enough areas of mountain that look like what you want, keep the ones you like, delete our layer "Mountains Custom 1" and make a new version of it. Each time you do the render clouds filter, it is random, so each time you go through this, you might find a few sections that work. It can be very tedious, I know. You may only find one section you like with each time through this method, but it can work.

After you've copied out all the little sections and positioned them as you like, delete layers "Mountains Custom 1", select all those layers with the individual mountain areas as well as layer "Mountains" and merge them (Ctrl + E).



Alternatively, you may be able to customize the clouds pattern before you apply the Lighting Effects, or even draw your own "clouds" instead of using Filter -> Generate -> Clouds filter. I don't know how well this would work, however; I haven't tried it. I will play around with it when I have some time and see if I can come up with something for that.

I hope this helps, and again - I'll try to experiment with the alternative version there, and this might make a nice little "customize your mountains and learn more about the layer via cut / copy tool" video.

Thanks,

Kindari