[Award Winner] Creating Realistic Coastlines

[kael.stormseeker]

It´s a really nice manouver you teach us! (or me only =p)

Thanks for the help!!!!

[kael.stormseeker]

I hope you guys don´t make fun of me, i know i am a newbie =)))

Is this the idea right?
(Completely Random!)

[Lamar]

wow. I love the look. Over my head at this stage, but got to try this concept in GIMP. Worth the effort.

[RobA]

Works well in Gimp, too! Very nice technique. Duly repped!

Translated to gimp steps I used were:
* Filter | Noise | HSV Noise (Holdness 1, Hue 0, Sat 0, Value 255).
+ Edit | Fade (Darken Only)
* Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (2 or adjust to taste). *(1 will create very fine distressing and the larger the blur, the larger the effect)
* Colours | Threshold (adjust to taste). *(I found 160 is a good start, up to 185 for a lacier coastline)
* Fuzzy Select Tool (Threshold 0), click in black surrounding area.
* Ctrl-I to invert the selection
* Fill with White.

-Rob A>

[asdel]

Works well in Gimp, too! Very nice technique. Duly repped!

Translated to gimp steps I used were:
* Filter | Noise | HSV Noise (Holdness 1, Hue 0, Sat 0, Value 255).
+ Edit | Fade (Darken Only)
* Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (2 or adjust to taste). *(1 will create very fine distressing and the larger the blur, the larger the effect)
* Colours | Threshold (adjust to taste). *(I found 160 is a good start, up to 185 for a lacier coastline)
* Fuzzy Select Tool (Threshold 0), click in black surrounding area.
* Ctrl-I to invert the selection
* Fill with White.

-Rob A>

Rob A -

This is a simpler version.

* Edit | Noise | Pick (50/50)
* Edit | Blur | Gaussian (2 or so)
* Threshhold (128, but play with this a lot.)

this will add and remove from the coast line, rather than simply add to it. It maybe works better on simple shapes.

[Sharpe]

Works well in Gimp, too! Very nice technique. Duly repped!

Translated to gimp steps I used were:
* Filter | Noise | HSV Noise (Holdness 1, Hue 0, Sat 0, Value 255).
+ Edit | Fade (Darken Only)
* Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (2 or adjust to taste). *(1 will create very fine distressing and the larger the blur, the larger the effect)
* Colours | Threshold (adjust to taste). *(I found 160 is a good start, up to 185 for a lacier coastline)
* Fuzzy Select Tool (Threshold 0), click in black surrounding area.
* Ctrl-I to invert the selection
* Fill with White.

-Rob A>

Great tut, OldGuy! Thanks for taking the time to write this! It works amazingly well. How do you guys figure this stuff out?! XD

And, thanks, RobA, for converting it to GIMP!

I might have went a little wild. XD

DW_coast.jpg

[Tricks]

Works well in Gimp, too! Very nice technique. Duly repped!

Translated to gimp steps I used were:
* Filter | Noise | HSV Noise (Holdness 1, Hue 0, Sat 0, Value 255).
+ Edit | Fade (Darken Only)
* Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (2 or adjust to taste). *(1 will create very fine distressing and the larger the blur, the larger the effect)
* Colours | Threshold (adjust to taste). *(I found 160 is a good start, up to 185 for a lacier coastline)
* Fuzzy Select Tool (Threshold 0), click in black surrounding area.
* Ctrl-I to invert the selection
* Fill with White.

-Rob A>

Worked like a charm. I love that there are resources for GiMP on this site. As I am VERY NEW to the site, is there an area that is ONLY GiMP tips and tricks?
I have looked a couple times so far and have not found it yet.

[ravells]

Hurray I got it to work....I was being dumb (not unusual for me) .... the extra explanation about the threshold slider made it all make sense. I took the liberty to amend your tut to just add that contigous should be checked on the selection and unchecked on the fill....hope you don't mind as that threw me for a bit.

What a super tutorial. It's the fastest, simplest coastline method I've seen yet and you don't get the 'lakes at the edge of the coastline' effect.

I've rated this tutorial a straight 5 and hope that others do the same so that it gets the award it so richly deserves.

I've added this tutorial to the quickstart mapping guide.

[OldGuy]

I've been away for awhile. Thanks for the kind words. I'm so glad someone found it useful.

[Meridok]

Wow. I really love this tut. Huge thanks to OldGuy for posting it, and kudos to RobA as well, for translating it into GIMP-speak for us GIMP-newbs (well, not really newb, but not pro either...). I love what this has done to the coastline of my continent-map project. I began with a rough hand-drawn sketch on paper, that grew itself, and then once it was put onto the computer, it was transformed into something I was pretty impressed with via a sort-of version of RobA's 'creating coastlines' tut. But then what this did... wow. It was really easy to follow, and easy to play around with. I ended up selecting various regions of the map to give slightly different coastlines (the north being much more glaciated at one point, and given to fjords, and then going more minimal down south), and then even did a smaller, finer noise/modification on top of the original northern fjord-work to give the "fjords" themselves a more realistic, detailed look.

Love, love, love. Have some rep! And a rating.