Well, if you do make some of your own, make sure you post the results.
As for another tutorial -- any ideas what I could do next?
I suppose an extension of this one would be hills, mountains, and high mountains, and some easy steps to differentiating them for each other (and techniques for drawing them), but perhaps other people have better ideas.
Don
My gallery is here
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"Keep your mind in hell, but despair not." --Saint Silouan [1866-1938]
This is one awesome tutorial, you definitely did it right awesome accent too, i was quite off on my guess though.
although i'd rather you do trees, forests, jungle/swamp, etc. hills and different mountains is more logical to come next
whatever you do, keep it up, it's amazing.
/goes off to replicate it
And our time is flyin', see the candle burnin' low
Is the new world rising, from the shambles of the old
~The Rover - Led Zeppelin
Much to my dismay, the video froze Safari solid! It did work, however, in Camino. Didn't try it in Firefox...
Wonderful tutorial! You make it look so easy! The only thing I would like to see (really see, that is!), is a bigger/clearer shot of your desktop/tools. The presentation was so small that I couldn't see, for instance, the choices you made on the drop-down menus.
I think the hills and peaks tutorial would be a logical follow-up, too, though I'm definitely interested in the trees and forests. AND I'd really love your version of "How to Make a City"!!
Thanks for the effusive support. Please, if the tutorial is useful and you give it a go, post your progress here. I'm keen to see how others work with my suggestions.
As for tutorials on other mapping topics, I'll see about sorting that at a later date. I'm a tad busy at the mo' with real-life, deadlines, and the like, so my free time for such projects is very tight.
The problem with larger resolution videos is the space they take online. My website isn't that huge, and filling it with a short film or two of me blabbing for 6 minutes doesn't seem to be the best use of the space. Thus, for the moment, it's low res.
However, you do have a point, a larger resolution would be beneficial. I'll have a think about alternatives.
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the tutorial. I'm sure there are more where that came from.
I finally got around to updating my video drivers so Media Player will stop crashing my browser. So now I can say thank you! It will be a while before I can try it out myself; I am still waiting on the funds to buy a nice tablet. I already know, though, that I'm looking forward to the more complex techniques you teased near the end.
I'll agree that not quite being able to see the tools was a little frustrating, but bandwidth and storage space issues are certainly understandable. Even so, I learned quite a bit from just being able to watch your "hand" and listen to your thought process as you painted.
I also quite appreciate the continued reminders that "neatness is not important." I get a little hung up on precision sometimes, and I think that hampers me. I drop far too many projects because they're not "just so."
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
Without having to make a higher res video, you could always put up the exact tools you used (even a small jpg of the actual tool) underneath or to the side of the video... that would be one way to do it...
I think a follow up would be the next best thing to do for another tutorial tho...
I do recommend buying a tablet. Although it takes a while for some people to get used to, a tablet, I find, makes drafting maps significantly easier on a computer, and significantly faster.
That said, the first maps I produced professionally were entirely made using a mouse, so it is certainly possible to create a quality end-result with a mouse alone, and if you're keen to get mapping, it's perhaps worth a go. After all, as I note you noted (), neatness isn't essential, it's giving it a go that matters, and if you have no tablet, then the tools at hand may have to do.
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the tutorial, I'll see about making another sometime soon.