[Award Winner] Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map

[Full_Moon_Draw]

Hi RobA

Having a moment off from writeing a newsletter & thought I'd go through the tutorial - finding it very useful - but early days for me!

I'm stuck at Post 6 - here's the problem:

<You Wrote> <SNIP>Duplicate this layer and rename it "Sea". Add a layer mask by right clicking on the "Sea" layer, and selecting "Add Layer Mask", When the dialog opens, select "Channel" (By default it should have the "Land Mask" channel shown and check "Invert". Click Add.</SNIP>

All very clear & know what you're getting add - however I cannot get GIMP to shown any channels let alone the right one! Does anyone know what's going on here & how I can get the "Land Mask" channel selected?

Any help/guidance much appreciated!

Cheers - FMD

[Korash]

I think the answer is ...

select the layer "Sea"

right click and halfway down the menu you will find "add layer Mask"

in this window you should be able to select "channel" and then use the drop menu to select the mask you want


At least I think that this is what you want to do

/me is new to this too

[Full_Moon_Draw]

Hi Korash,

Thanks for that - but I get that far & the drop down box is for some strange reason empty, which (being new to GIMP) is rather confusing to me!

Anyone got anymore clues for me?

Many Thanks in hope.

Cheers - FMD

[RobA]

@FMD-

Can you post up a zip of the xcf file (or pm a location I could check it out)?

-Rob A>

[Full_Moon_Draw]

Hi RobA,

Thanks for offering to have a look!

Here's the file in question - zipped it up in stage_1.zip

Cheers - FMD

[RobA]

OK-

Looks like you need to back up to post 4:

Now using the Magic Wand Tool, (making sure Sample Merged is Checked and the Threshold is 0) click anywhere in the dark area. This will define your coast. If you want to adjust it, just undo the selection (ctrl-Z) and change the levels of the “Land Clip” layer. I wand back and tightened the coast a bit.
Click image for larger version Name: Post4-2.png Views: 209 Size: 329.4 KB ID: 1430

Now Invert the selection (Select->Invert), create a new black layer called “Land Mask” and fill the selection with white. Now save the selection to a Channel (Select->Save to Channel) and rename the channel to “Land Mask”. This will be used a bit later.
Click image for larger version Name: Post4-3.png Views: 174 Size: 246.8 KB ID: 1431

Now clear the selection (Select->None).

That technique (the Three-Layer-Sandwich of noise, shape and threshold clip layer, or TLS for short ) will be a basic technique that will be used over and over again, using different blending modes between the noise layer (to give some variegation to the surface) and the shape definition layer. It will be used to define forests and mountains, even clouds in the sky.

-Rob A>

[Caelan]

Well this is my map of Shaulkar (Kingdom in a world I am working on) and I have gotten up to the mountain section. for some reason I am lost when I get to...


"Now the noise layer (I used detail 8 and size of and set the blend mode to multiply.
Then add a third layer (remember the TLS) as a clipping layer, and use the levels dialog
to bring it down to show the mountains you want Here is the screen showing the three
layers:"

I don't know why I don't understand I do tend to have brains at times but for some reason my brain is not wrapping around this. Anyway here is a ss of my map in progress (want to play with colors more since around the coast it is to white and I want it more green)

http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z...nt=diffmap.gif

[Full_Moon_Draw]

RobA,

Many thanks mate! I'm suffering from the perils of a badly printed PDF file - I'd assembled the pages incorrectly and managed to miss out all but the initial instructions of Stage 4! Do I feel dumb or what? Thanks for taking the time to point me at the problem!

Cheers - FMD

[kenbanistu]

I am itching to try this tut out. I've downloaded the pdf's and am ready to go. The only problem I may have is that I will be using Gimp 2.2. This old win98 'puter of mine won't run the newer versions. We'll see how it goes. I dl'ed the part 1 pdf earlier in the day and have gone through it with only a couple of small problems that I solved easily enough. And so it's on to part 2.

[Korash]

Well this is my map of Shaulkar (Kingdom in a world I am working on) and I have gotten up to the mountain section. for some reason I am lost when I get to...


"Now the noise layer (I used detail 8 and size of and set the blend mode to multiply.
Then add a third layer (remember the TLS) as a clipping layer, and use the levels dialog
to bring it down to show the mountains you want Here is the screen showing the three
layers:"

I don't know why I don't understand I do tend to have brains at times but for some reason my brain is not wrapping around this. Anyway here is a ss of my map in progress (want to play with colors more since around the coast it is to white and I want it more green)

http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z...nt=diffmap.gif

I am not too sure but I think I had a similar problem at that point too. Try turning off the other layers so that you see only the Mountain, Mountain Noise and Mountain clip layers. You should then be looking at something similar to what RobA shows on page 11 in the tut. I did make a black background layer at the bottom of the stack to see the "sandwich layers" better though.

Not sure that this will help but......