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Those forests looks fantastic! How to you make a brush with colour?
You use photoshop right? I use an older one and you can't make brushes with colour. Is that possible in a newer version?
Your eyes didn't deceive you then, as I used the custom brush I made for coniferous forests in the example (just for the sake of providing and example). I'm reworking my decidous brush at the moment as the old one was too wide and massive for my taste.Originally Posted by Mouse
Oh yes, most definately.Are you going to blend the feet of those mountains and hills into the level a bit more?
Hey Josiah, the brushes themselves are black & white, but you can, of course, later pick a color when you actually use the brush (as with every brush). I'll detail the process of creating this type of forest once I'm home and have access to Photoshop again.
Oh yes of course. Silly me.Hey Josiah, the brushes themselves are black & white, but you can, of course, later pick a color when you actually use the brush (as with every brush). I'll detail the process of creating this type of forest once I'm home and have access to Photoshop again.
*sigh*
So, instead of updating this regularly with my progress, I jumped right in, worked, then came down with an agressive strain of the cold brought in by my dayjob "customers" which had me munching antibiotics and sleeping for the past two days.
So here's where I'm now, skipping about two updates I sent my client.
Jeffery Ross Commission (NA) Preview5.jpg
Okay, for the forests:
1.) create two custom brushes (coniferous & decidous);
2.) pick two colors for each (dark green and blue-ish green for coniferous, an a desaturated lighter green and yellow-ish green for decidous), set Color Dynamics to FG/BG Jitter 100%, Hue, Saturation & Brightness jitter to 4% each;
3.) lay in your forest; make sure you have some decent spacing, otherwise you won't get any useful contours;
4.) Duplicate your forest layer;
5.) Select your first forest layer; create a new, empty layer above it;
6.) CTRL + leftclick on your first forest layer in the layers tab;
7.) Add a dark stroke of 2px in the new, empty layer;
Your layers should now look like this:
forest 2
stroke
forest 1
Duplicate your upper forest layer, then hit CTRL + U; desaturate the layer, then switch the layer style to Overlay.
Create one last, empty layer and move it to the bottom. Take a sponge/grunge brush and fill out the background with the foreground color you used when you laid in the forest. Done.
If you want, ou can now add shadows to the forest edge, tree trunks etc.
This is looking great Wired!
The forests look fantastic, especially zoomed out.
When zoomed in some of the forests over hills don't look totally natural, but that's okay.
I can't decide whether I like the softness and bevel on the rivers...
I was also curious why it seems like there are only patches of snow on the left side of the hills.
Great work so far, your forests, along with everything else, are awesome.
This looks great Wired! And big. What size are you drawing at?
Cheers,
Tainotim
I think I know what you mean, but with the technique I'm using there's no way I could rectify that. To have a more natural feel I believe every single brush stroke would have to stand on its own and be shaded separately. I tried something comparable some time ago with presets, using the clone tool, but it was as imperfect as this approach, if for different reasons.
Me neither. Hand-drawn features will probably work better; that, or a combination of hand-drawn details and a light bevel.I can't decide whether I like the softness and bevel on the rivers...
The hills you mean are actually mountains, too. I decided to go with two categories of mountains for this map, round-top ones and sharp-edged (for the lack of a better designation), as the Appalachians are as high as the Alps in some regards, but the peaks are far less jagged. As the shadows on the map fall towards the west, snow on the round tops would then primarily lay on the "shadow side". Not extremely realistic, I know, but persistent with the snow coverage pattern I used for the rest of the map.I was also curious why it seems like there are only patches of snow on the left side of the hills.
Thanks!Great work so far, your forests, along with everything else, are awesome.
I'm actually hinking about using the same base map for a more truly post-apocalyptic map lateron. I think you'll like that one even better.
Thank you!
This one's A3 at 300dpi.
Okay, small update.
Added prairie grass, contour lines, small river details, reduced the bevel, added hill color and texture, used a soft brush to create a bit of a transition between the rocky mountains and the ground below.
Jeffery Ross Commission (NA) Preview6.jpg
Without further input from my client I'm running out of things to put on the map.
Wired, this is pretty great - some of the best forests I've ever seen, all the more so because you can still pick out the hills underneath, which is pretty amazing. I hope your client gets off his butt and sends you some more info so we can see the cultures and communities!
Nice work, man.
