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

[Nomadic]

Use the magic wand again to select the non-mountain area (like with the land) and create
a new layer called “Mountains Mask” with a white on black. (Also the white colour
selection as a new selection mask using Select->Save to Channel).

What does that mean? I searched around and found jfrazierjr's post but I couldn't understand what they were saying.

[jfrazierjr]

What does that mean? I searched around and found jfrazierjr's post but I couldn't understand what they were saying.

Use the magic wand tool, which should be the 4th tool on the top row, with Circle, Square, and polygon selection tools in "front" of it left to right.

Since you already have your mountain rough shapes down in a previous layer, when you select outside those mountain shapes, everything else will be selected EXCEPT for those mountain shapes.

New Layer. Fill the inside with white and the outside (CNTL-I to Invert the selection) with black.

While you have the selection (remember to invert back!!) on the Select menu, there is a menu item called Save to Channel. When you do this, it should create a new channel on the Channels tab (switch to it to make sure!) When the the majority of the channel should be black and the stuff in side the selections should be white.

Note, I have no idea where you are at this point, but I am picking up from where you quoted, so this may be a bit off of the original directions, but should get you going.

[Nomadic]

Use the magic wand tool, which should be the 4th tool on the top row, with Circle, Square, and polygon selection tools in "front" of it left to right.

Since you already have your mountain rough shapes down in a previous layer, when you select outside those mountain shapes, everything else will be selected EXCEPT for those mountain shapes.

New Layer. Fill the inside with white and the outside (CNTL-I to Invert the selection) with black.

While you have the selection (remember to invert back!!) on the Select menu, there is a menu item called Save to Channel. When you do this, it should create a new channel on the Channels tab (switch to it to make sure!) When the the majority of the channel should be black and the stuff in side the selections should be white.

Note, I have no idea where you are at this point, but I am picking up from where you quoted, so this may be a bit off of the original directions, but should get you going.

Thank you. I am (as you might have noticed) a GIMP noob. This is my first time using a photomanipulation software outside photoshop.

[eoinmorgan]

Quick Question:

I have vista, and there is no c:\documents and setting folder.

I have:

acer
Elements
Nexon
Perflogs
Sierra
Users
Windows

How do i install the color pallete?

Thanks

[jfrazierjr]

Quick Question:

I have vista, and there is no c:\documents and setting folder.

I have:

acer
Elements
Nexon
Perflogs
Sierra
Users
Windows

How do i install the color pallete?

Thanks

Under Vista, MS moved that to Users\loginname\

[etriahn]

But another voice in a unanimous chorus, I nonetheless have to say that this tutorial has been a fantastic tool. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and gained a crazy amount of knowledge about GIMP, which I had never used before.

It was also a ton of fun.

Here's the result of a total newbie spending just a couple hours fiddling about:


Thanks for sharing your expertise.

[RobA]

Looks good etriahn!

And might I congratulate you on getting the mountains to look good! That seems to be most people's stumbling block, but you nailed it!

-Rob A>

[Black Tower of Time]

Yes He done an incredible useful tutorial.

Also I need to say that you got really very good results for your mountains. I didn't checked all of that tutorial yet, so I don't know how easy it will get for me come up with similar mountains.
I also hope we will get or I discover this great tutorial here in the future made as a PDF file or a video...

[Absinth]

Hey, I'm experiencing a strange problem when it comes to creating the first bump map. I'm creating the Grass Bumps layer and filling it with 50% grey and than I'm trying to create the bump map, but nothing happens. Whatever I'm doing and whatever parameters I'm changing, nothing happens! There's only grey in the preview windows and it stays flat... That's very, very strange and I can't figure out, what I did wrong. I tried doing a bump map on a plain red square in a new file, but without any results too! Is there something wrong with my version of GIMP then (2.6.3)?

[etriahn]

In the Bump Map dialog box, the first control is the Bump Map drop-down list. You have to choose an option in the list that has some noise as the second layer--IIRC the default applies the layer to itself, which generates no texture.

I may be a bit off, but I believe that drop-down holds the answer you're looking for.