[Award Winner] Making Photo-realistic Trees in GIMP: A Mini-Tut

[Ascension]

Yep, the lil stragglers on the fringes of a forest help to blend it in better. Nice job.

[RobA]

To use these as patterns within GIMP (or PS) you need to turn the .png files into .pat files (or, if you are using PS, whatever file is used for patterns), and then save them within the "Patterns" folder of your Gimp. Here's an easy way to do this. Right click on a .png and select "Edit with GIMP" (this will bring the image up in GIMP). Next, click on "File" and then select "Save As". Change the file type from .png to .pat. Click on your own user folder and double click on the "GIMP" folder. Once this opens, scroll down to the "Patterns" folder, double click it and hit Save. Now, close GIMP, and restart it again, and you should find the image has been added to your GIMP patterns.

Thanks for the patterns. As a tip, you can use png, gif, jpg and bmp files in gimp as pattern fills without having to convert them to pat. Just put the files into your user pattern folder, or ad a new folder to your settings. No need to restart gimp, just click the pattern reload button.

-Rob A>

[arsheesh]

Thanks for the patterns. As a tip, you can use png, gif, jpg and bmp files in gimp as pattern fills without having to convert them to pat. Just put the files into your user pattern folder, or ad a new folder to your settings. No need to restart gimp, just click the pattern reload button.

-Rob A>

Thanks Rob, I didn't realize that. Guess you learn something new every day.

[Solomiranthius]

I'm incredibly new to this, but (as far as I know) I've followed these directions to the letter (twice) and have ended up not with the soft-edged fluffy looking trees in the tutorial, but hard-edged, almost crater like trees. Anyone know where I'm going wrong?

Using Gimp for Mac OSX.

Thanks!

~Solo

[arsheesh]

Hello there Solo, and welcome to the Guild! Hmm, let's see here. One thing I noticed right off the bat (though unrelated to your initial concern) was that it looks like the HSV Noise some how spread beyond the cloud shapes on the "Trees Copy" layer to the rest of the layer as well, hence the background is all grainy looking. Not sure why this is, unless GIMP interacts differently on Mac 0SX then it does on Windows XP. It's an easy fix though. If you add then apply the "Trees Outline" layer mask to this layer it should get rid of the Noise. OK, on to your question:

1. Hard Edges: actually, this has always been an issue with this tut. I have not yet been able to figure out a way to isolate, and then bump map portions of a clouds layer without it ending up with hard edges. Which is why I opted to try and "cover up" the edges of the forests with individual trees (see the update on making individual trees).
   
2. Fluffiness: I know that you said you followed the instructions exactly, but the clouds in the image you posted do look different, and I'm not altogether sure why this is. Did you by chance remember to select "Turbulent" (Step 1: 2.b.i.) when creating the Solid Noise layer? If you forget to select Turbulent the trees will look allot flatter. However if this is not the issue, let me know and I'll try to go through the tut step by step and see if I can figure out where things might have gone wrong.

[Solomiranthius]

Hi arsheesh, thanks for the quick reply! I had noticed the HSV noise as well and got it taken care of in some test forests I did this morning - the problem was that hitting "delete" on the Mac version of Gimp appears to do nothing. I saw the update after I posted for the harder edges and I'll give that a shot today. As to the fluffiness, whenever someone says they followed the directions to the letter you know they didn't. While the clouds were "turbulent", I noticed that in Step 1: 3.a I had moved the right arrow, not the left, to 85. This seems to have solved my problem! Thanks again for your help and for the tut, which when actually followed, works great.

[arsheesh]

Great, glad to here everything worked out OK. Let me know if you run into any other problems though.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Melkor]

I have been following some tutorials on here and including this mini-tut and some of Rob A's tutorials... All i want to say is thank you! I've recently been getting into map making to create game maps for a friends online rpg game. these tutorials have helped out immensely.

btw, first time poster =)

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Melkor! And thanks for the feedback; glad to here this little tut was of some help to you.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[ProfGremlin]

Arsheesh, thanks for this tutorial. I've run through it about - oh, three or four times to get a feel for it. I really like the results. Playing with the colors helps quite a bit. I was wondering if you have any suggestions for brush shape when adding the stragglers? I've been experimenting with the vine and galaxy brushes because the solid round and square brushes seemed to create a visible pattern as I added in the individual trees. Looking at your examples I like how well your individual trees follow the general shape your forests. Here's what I've been able to accomplish. This is just one section of my current WIP. Any suggestions?

Trees_v1.png