Which do you prefer?

[ravells]

Looks much better to me. I think you could really work with this.

[jfrazierjr]

Thanks ravells. Which of the two last examples looks more mountain like? Or are they both fairly ok, just different type of mountains? Granted, the 2nd to last example has a lot more detail in terms of forests, color, etc, but the hills are more rounded like older mountains. The latter has no fine detail work, but the ridgelines are a lot sharper. If they are both passable, then so much the better as it gives me a bit more options in terms of why style go where just like in the real world.

Joe

[ravells]

I thought the last example was way better than the second to last example.

[jfrazierjr]

I thought the last example was way better than the second to last example.

Thanks. There may be an easier way than what I am doing to get to both (they both have almost the same technique. I like both as you can actually do mountains based on the type. Not all mountains have bold sharp pointy things any more due to their relative age.)

Ultimately, both take around 20-30 minutes to do the mountains part depending on how the much playing with the bump map settings you do (and undos), so not a hugh time investment. I am sure someone with more experience with GIMP and a more artistic eye could probably get similar results in 10 minutes or so.

Now, for some other opinions, hopefully from all of the previous posters and those that have not commented so far.

Joe

[Karro]

I like both for different reasons.

The second to last (post 18 ) looks a little more complete, and the mountians are part of the land around them. Everything seems to mesh well together.

I like the licheny stuff to the sides of the mountains, though I don't know what it represents. And how did you do the rivers? They cut through the mountains and the land very nicely, and the drop shadow looks kind of cool.

The last one has cooler looking ridge-lines, but they seem separate from the land surrounding them. Maybe that's not as much of a problem as I think, but my first impression of it is kind of jarring. A closer inspection, however, reveals some very cool details on the mountainsides.

Are you going to share the techniques you are using?

[jfrazierjr]

I like both for different reasons.

The second to last (post 18 ) looks a little more complete, and the mountians are part of the land around them. Everything seems to mesh well together.

I like the licheny stuff to the sides of the mountains, though I don't know what it represents. And how did you do the rivers? They cut through the mountains and the land very nicely, and the drop shadow looks kind of cool.

Forests. I just happen to do the two sets of forests in two different layers at two separate times and used different gradients to fill, hence the different colors. Besides, they are different types of trees...

As for the rivers, thats just a simple bevel ala RobA's suggestion. I put all the water on the same layer, filled with color, added a bit of noise for color variation, selected everything, made a layer mask and then applied a bevel of about 3 px. I will proably use 1 px next time as that looks a bit much looking back at it.

The last one has cooler looking ridge-lines, but they seem separate from the land surrounding them. Maybe that's not as much of a problem as I think, but my first impression of it is kind of jarring. A closer inspection, however, reveals some very cool details on the mountainsides.

Are you going to share the techniques you are using?

Yea, I am fairly happy with my final technique, so hopefully a few others will say it's all good. I want to run through it a few more times to make sure I have everything good in my head before I try to explain it to someone else. For me, it's still a WIP idea, though I think I am getting toward the end. Here is a quick overview.


Grey layer

Add white lines(fairly thick) for the ridges, making sure there is no more than 2 - 3x width of grey between white(assuming you don't want wide valleys)

Noise->Spread. still playing with this, but perhaps double what your brush size is?????

G. Blur. ditto.... you want no real pixellization, but you want some cloudiness where the spread was... perhaps 15 px???

Bump map onto itself. Max Depth, 3/4 Elevation, max ambient

Here is what I have found to be the [U]key[/dU] thing. with a fairly small brush, use the smudge tool to muddy up the ridge line with criss-cross strokes at various angles AND some drawing straight down from the ridge lines into the valleys. This transfers some grey up and some white down. This gets you the ragged peaks instead of solid ridgelines.

Finally, bump map back to itself again with little of no ambient, max depth, 1/2-3/4 elevation.

You may (most likely will) have some "rings" artifacts in the valleys from the bump map, so you will need to smudge or erase those manually, cover, or blend in some other way. This is one of the reasons the first bump map is done at high Ambient to minimize this to a large degree on the second bump map.

Joe

[jfrazierjr]

Ok, so here is a final with some bells and whistles. Nothing major here, just some of mountains done in this style, a few forests, and some water. Also, if you don't mind grey scale OR have a better way to blend in color other than using the gradient tools, the straight up greyscale version looks very nice. I attached the greyscale version of the same mountains sans other stuff for comparison.

[ravells]

I think these mountains would be great if the scale you're drawing them at is very small (by which I mean showing a very large area of land). So they seem to be out of sync with the scale of the rivers and forests to me, but they're glorious none the less.

[torstan]

I like the mountains a lot. Very good result and a ver interesting progression from the earlier versions.

I have a small problem with your forests though The forest sits over the mountains and doesn't conform to their shape. Could you use the moutain layer as a bump map for the forests? Then it would look like the forest was running over the mountain sides. At the moment it looks like the forests are so large they smother the moutains, which is a bit wierd for the scale.

Also, if these are large mountains (larger than a few thousand feet) there should be a tree-line above which there will be no trees. So you'd have the mountain peaks showing through the forest with the forests left in the valleys.

All in all though, a lovely map. Really like the colour scheme you've put together for this.

[jfrazierjr]

I think these mountains would be great if the scale you're drawing them at is very small (by which I mean showing a very large area of land). So they seem to be out of sync with the scale of the rivers and forests to me, but they're glorious none the less.

Well, that was a big part of the original thought process. I could not find any technique for a large scale map (1400 x1100 miles or so) that I liked and started playing with bits and pieces of several techniques combined into one.

I like the mountains a lot. Very good result and a ver interesting progression from the earlier versions.

I have a small problem with your forests though The forest sits over the mountains and doesn't conform to their shape. Could you use the moutain layer as a bump map for the forests? Then it would look like the forest was running over the mountain sides. At the moment it looks like the forests are so large they smother the moutains, which is a bit wierd for the scale.

Also, if these are large mountains (larger than a few thousand feet) there should be a tree-line above which there will be no trees. So you'd have the mountain peaks showing through the forest with the forests left in the valleys.

All in all though, a lovely map. Really like the colour scheme you've put together for this.

Good idea with the bump map. I did this, though it messed up texture some, so I am not happy with the final result, but I see what you mean. Since I was just putzing around last night, I did not do the things I might normally do (filter, copy, filter the new one, copy, etc) so I can't undo and do this first. Will probably play with it more and remove the forests and start from scratch. The original thought was to try to get more wispy like forests on bits of the mountains similar to the ones directly below the bigger of the two mountain lakes. But this shape was what I ended up with, and I was to lazy (sleepy based on the time) to mess with it much more. Also, not sure how I ended up drawing a river over a mountain ridge line... Granted, its fantasy, but hopefully, rivers still only run down hill.

Joe