Where should I start? I'm new to mapping.

[Human Jackalope]

I don't have time to post but I finally got the image that you posted RobA. I figured out what I was doing wrong. I can't exactly say what that thing is because I don't know what is going on completely yet. I can't post now but will keep everyone updated on my progress.

Thanks again for all of the quick and eager help.

[jfrazierjr]

It's for this reason that I developed an alternate method to get jaggedy coasts when I have a reasonably firm idea of where I want those coasts to go.

Instead of blurring and using the cloud noise to give me fractalized looking coasts (which can require a lot of blurring to get a coast with enough fractalization, but which can really muck up the coast I was originally trying to follow), I used the 'jitter' feature on the brushes. If I select my area and stroke along the edges with brushes of different sizes on a high jitter, I can achieve an aesthetically-fractalized enough looking coast without losing too much definition on the original coastline. And I can manually correct any errors I see relatively easily.

I can get the heightfield effect back by copying and blurring the layer and overlaying clouds, and using my fractalized coast as a mask for this new version of the land.

Slightly off topic, and not sure if any really cares or not, but I was really excited when I went from the coastline in this post to "glow around the coast in this post. Of course, the water is different, but the variable "whitish" glow was accomplished by stroking the coast with the a large (perhaps 150 px????) brush, some jitter (to get the "random" width), and I "think" I played with either the opacity or the brush mode. Not 100% sure since it has been several months. I was rather proud of this when I tried it and after a few tries with various settings, came up with what I thought was a cool effect.....

[Karro]

"Jitter! Bah - when I was a boy, we didn't have no jitter!"

Great suggestion! Can you write up a little tut showing your process?

-Rob A>

I'll give it a crack, but it won't be tomorrow. I really need to be studying for my last midterm right now... (I just... don't really want to...)

I don't have time to post but I finally got the image that you posted RobA. I figured out what I was doing wrong. I can't exactly say what that thing is because I don't know what is going on completely yet. I can't post now but will keep everyone updated on my progress.

Thanks again for all of the quick and eager help.

I know we'll all say you're welcome... that's why this place is here!

[Human Jackalope]

This is the first final result. I can't get over the feeling that the mountains feel placed "on top" of the land. I tried to smudge the borders a little bit with the smudge finger and it looks a little better, but I am sure you all know a much better trick to keep the mountains from looking tossed on top of the pile.

[jfrazierjr]

This is the first final result. I can't get over the feeling that the mountains feel placed "on top" of the land. I tried to smudge the borders a little bit with the smudge finger and it looks a little better, but I am sure you all know a much better trick to keep the mountains from looking tossed on top of the pile.

Yep, the problem is that there is such a hard transition from the mountain colors to the grass land/hills texture. One way to help this a bit is to go to your mountain color layer. I don't know exactly how you have your layers set up, but, the best way (which I doubt you did since the video does not do this) is to keep effects on one layer and colors on another and shadows/highlights on yet another (or even one each). Anyway, select the an area around the mountain using the free select tool with a bit of feature set to it. DON"T draw it to the exact shape of the mountain, close in in a few places, long way out in a few others. Then create a new layer and fill the selection with one of your mountain colors (base of the mountain color) Finally, clear the selection and Gaussian Blur, perhaps 100 px. Make sure this layer is above the main ground and below the mountains. That should give you a slightly better blend. Play with the settings some until you get something you like a bit. There are some other techniques, but this is a quick one that stays close to the original techniques...

[Jkaen]

RobA: Your right, that is very similar to the technique in that other post of yours you linked to, seems everything I can think of you have done previously! And yes my method is destructive, hence requires alot of use of Ctrl-Z.

This is the first final result. I can't get over the feeling that the mountains feel placed "on top" of the land. I tried to smudge the borders a little bit with the smudge finger and it looks a little better, but I am sure you all know a much better trick to keep the mountains from looking tossed on top of the pile.

What I tend to do now which helps is make a hills layer under the mountain layer and have that transition colourwise from the grass colour to the bottom mountain colour. The technique for hills is pretty much just the same as the mountains but with the bump map scaled down a bit.

[Karro]

"Jitter! Bah - when I was a boy, we didn't have no jitter!"

Great suggestion! Can you write up a little tut showing your process?

-Rob A>

It's not a great tutorial, but here's a simple example of the method I use with jitter.

A lot of the time, though, I'm being more artsy, and not just us the stroke selection tool, but actuall tracing coastline with a high-jitter brush by hand. Actually, I think the results of doing it by hand are somewhat better, but it takes a lot longer, of course. But using the stroke-selection is a good way to get something to work with quickly.

[jfrazierjr]

It's not a great tutorial, but here's a simple example of the method I use with jitter.

A lot of the time, though, I'm being more artsy, and not just us the stroke selection tool, but actuall tracing coastline with a high-jitter brush by hand. Actually, I think the results of doing it by hand are somewhat better, but it takes a lot longer, of course. But using the stroke-selection is a good way to get something to work with quickly.

Seems like something YodA should script up.... I might just give it a crack once I get through the script section of the GIMP book I just get, but that will take a week or so.