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

[arsheesh]

Is there any place I can find this tutorial but using Photoshop instead of GiMP?

Unfortunately I only have PS Elements and am not familiar enough with the Creative Sweet program to be able to translate the tutorial. I'm sure many of the steps are similar though. You may want to check out a2area's Israh tutorial and Jezelf's making maps in PS tutorial both of which use some similar techniques in PS.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Logan Medved]

Unfortunately I only have PS Elements and am not familiar enough with the Creative Sweet program to be able to translate the tutorial. I'm sure many of the steps are similar though. You may want to check out a2area's Israh tutorial and Jezelf's making maps in PS tutorial both of which use some similar techniques in PS.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Thank you for the alternatives, I do appreciate it. For some reason, I'm just completely illiterate when it comes to GiMP.

[Kazzicus]

Arsheesh, now that I've made an account I wanted to let you know I really love your style of cartography! I have a custom map I'm working on and didn't know if you were still around (I've been forum skulking for about 12 months now) and wanted to see if it were possible to get some advice on my map. I know the tutorial mentioned smaller than 4000 x 2000 but I like the dimensions so I can zoom in to a good degree. When I start using Difference Clouds, i find it's not as detailed and I have the sliding scale maxed out on both. Any tips?

I've really started liking cartography as a small hobby as it allows to de-stress from the daily goings on. Thanks for being a wonderful inspiration!

[arsheesh]

Hi Kazzicus, thanks for the kind words. So the first thing I'd say is that if your map's height and width are not equal then you will want to adjust the X and Y size sliders accordingly (in this case, the X size should be twice that of the Y size). Otherwise the clouds will come out stretched and distorted. About detail, I've never had any problem with the detail of the clouds at larger sizes - and I've created maps larger than 6000x6000 px. Did you make sure to turn the "Detail" all the way to the max of 15?

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Durakken]

So... I'm about 1 step from being done and I has a problem...
The Arctic Layer you say to add the River Mask to... and then the very next part says to used a Mask to do all the climate stuff with. But I can't do this because you can only have 1 layer mask...so should I apply the river layer mask or what?

I DLed GIMP to do this tutorial... and I've never been good with figuring out masks and channels so I might be in error here, but to me it looks more like an oversite than my lack of knowledge.

edit: Also... perhaps you can shed some light on this. When I made the Land and Mountain bumps, the Mountain was fine, but the Land bump map was very grainy to the point it looked bad. I don't know why. They're duplicate layers so that doesn't make sense to me. I ended up just duplicating the mountain layer and changing the mask. Looks fine to me, but any clue as to why the difference might have happened?

[johnvanvliet]

I DLed GIMP to do this tutorial... and I've never been good with figuring out masks and channels so I might be in error here, but to me it looks more like an oversite than my lack of knowledge.

as a very long time user of Gimp ( yes since the gimp 0.8 days before it made the 1.0 mile stone )
so over 15 years

a bit of CAUTION needs to be taken with any guide older than about 1 year
back in gimp 2.4 the decision was made to SCRAP the code and rewrite the program from the ground up

this guide is for Gimp2.6 a partial EARLY rewrite

the current Gimp 2.8.14 dose somethings DIFFERENTLY than 2.4 and 2.6
not everything but a lot is different

the menu changed. somethings were moved to different menus , somethings removed , and somethings added



This guide is one i actually have NOT gone through ( reading it as i type )


the first step "Generating Clouds"
( recent CHANGE )
you need to open the layer dialog <control> + < l >
-- top menu --
windows / docable dialogs / layers

in the NEW window that pops up " the layer window"

you will also need the Channel window
windows / docable dialogs / channels

then
r-click on the image and the "Select" is on that menu
the menu on the top and the right click" are right now DIFFERENT




there have been a lot of changes in the last 3 years

[Neptondoodle]

Hey Arsheesh, I just wanted to say thanks for the tutorial, it's really useful, considering in the past I've worked with height/bump maps on PS, but PS died on me so I'm getting into GIMP (which is thankfully pretty similar) I just have one question as of right now.

When airbrushing, to make the mountains and land fit together, the tutorial says that we're sculpting the land clouds layer, but the mountains cloud layer is still separate from that, so It can't fully mesh unless I either airbrush on the mountain clouds layer as well, or merge them. Any advice?

Here's the issue as it stands, btw
YuOWXR8.jpg

[Durakken]

the tutorial says that we're sculpting the land clouds layer, but the mountains cloud layer is still separate from that,

I think you're misreading what it says.
You airbrush the mountain edges so that the opacity is adjusted slowly to the point where the edge of mountains are it doesn't have a huge step in contrast so that the edge disappears. It has the effect of molding the land in general, but you're not messing with the land layers.

[arsheesh]

Hey Arsheesh, I just wanted to say thanks for the tutorial, it's really useful, considering in the past I've worked with height/bump maps on PS, but PS died on me so I'm getting into GIMP (which is thankfully pretty similar) I just have one question as of right now.

When airbrushing, to make the mountains and land fit together, the tutorial says that we're sculpting the land clouds layer, but the mountains cloud layer is still separate from that, so It can't fully mesh unless I either airbrush on the mountain clouds layer as well, or merge them. Any advice?

Here's the issue as it stands, btw
YuOWXR8.jpg

Hi Neptondoodle, great question. So in practice what I typically do is slightly erase the edges of the mountains cloud layer (a good trick to save time here is to use the select by color tool to select the transparent area of the area surrounding the mountains, grow the selection slightly - 5-20 px depending on the size of your map - then feather the selection by about the same amount and click delete) so that we can get rid of the hard edges, then gradually add layers of paint to the land clouds layer until the values of the two layers blend seamlessly together.

I think you're misreading what it says.
You airbrush the mountain edges so that the opacity is adjusted slowly to the point where the edge of mountains are it doesn't have a huge step in contrast so that the edge disappears. It has the effect of molding the land in general, but you're not messing with the land layers.

Thanks for your reply Durakken. I have tried the method you describe with some success. However one downside is that when painting on the mountains cloud layer one may partially obscure the cloud texture of the land clouds layer below. On the other hand, by painting on the land clouds layer directly I've found that the values and textures of the clouds are better preserved (see my above comment for details of my method). However both methods work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Neptondoodle]

Hi Neptondoodle, great question. So in practice what I typically do is slightly erase the edges of the mountains cloud layer (a good trick to save time here is to use the select by color tool to select the transparent area of the area surrounding the mountains, grow the selection slightly - 5-20 px depending on the size of your map - then feather the selection by about the same amount and click delete) so that we can get rid of the hard edges, then gradually add layers of paint to the land clouds layer until the values of the two layers blend seamlessly together.

Ah, so you airbrush white then, not black? I think I see. I think the fault in my map lies with myself then, I don't think I erased the edges enough (And I began erasing with a hard brush before I realized my mistake)

Also, I just had a thought. Have you ever created a new layer, and selected more or less the same color as the color you'd like the edges to be, then painted around the edges and hit the layer with a Gaussian Blur?


EDIT
I just experimented airbrushing the mountain layer to the point where the edge was just visible, then going over it with a soft eraser at 20% opacity. That'll work out pretty well for fixing those areas I accidentally took a hard eraser to earlier I think.