[Award Winner] Mosaic Tile Map in Photoshop (& GIMP)

[StillCypher]

Really fantastic tutorial, Pyrandon. I'm looking forward (probably in vain) to having some free time to try this out myself. I actually stole a few minutes to use your tile-making instructions to make a Photoshop brush for painting houses. Looks pretty cool, but I think it would be more effective if there was a way to include random, different-shaped houses all in the same brush...

[Hapimeses]

Well, here's my map. It's been done very quickly, so it ain't perfect, but I'm still pretty pleased. If I do another of these babies (which I may do for my roleplaying group -- a mirror of this one for Estalia would be nice), I'll be more careful with the fliters, as I've lost some of the detail and bleached-out the colours in some areas. I could sort that on this one if I wanted, but I don't really have the time. Perhaps I'll go back to it at a later date -- but, as this is just a test-run, I'll live with it as it is.

Anyway, as I said before, this one followed the tut for the first half, I made up the next 3/8s of it, then used some of the filters suggested at the end.

If anyone has photoshop out there and facies a map in this style, I recommend giving it a go. It's surprisingly simple. Admittantly, I'm the sort of chap that prefers to draw these things by hand, but what's the point of having the tech if I'm not going to use it every once in a while, huh?

Anyway, here's the (over-filtered) map:

[Midgardsormr]

Gorgeous! And very Hellenistic. I'm really going to have to give this technique a try eventually. After all, if a professional artist can do it, anyone can, right?

[pyrandon]

Very, very nice, Andy. I like it! You captured both the technique and the spirit of this sort of map wonderfully. Some of the filtering is a bit heavy (but only 10% or so), and the lighting is a bit too much for my eye, but those things are insignificant. Great going!

So, did you find improvements to my method? Also, the border curls are intriguing; how did you achieve them?

Hats off to you, sir. Well done!

[Hapimeses]

Very, very nice, Andy. I like it! You captured both the technique and the spirit of this sort of map wonderfully. Some of the filtering is a bit heavy (but only 10% or so), and the lighting is a bit too much for my eye, but those things are insignificant. Great going!

So, did you find improvements to my method? Also, the border curls are intriguing; how did you achieve them?

Hats off to you, sir. Well done!

Yeah, I agree. I'll be less gung-ho if I give it another attempt. I just slapped the filters on in a rush and saved the thing -- it was silly o'clock in the morning, and bed was a-calling.

As for refinements: well, not really. I just drew a bunch of areas freehand, such as the goddess, or sections of the border, and separated the individual tiles with the eraser (if that makes sense)? So, no refinements, I just ignored the technique in places and did what I would normally have done to achieve a similar effect. However, as this was an attempt to learn about automating the process, I tried to limit doing that on the map.

The curls were achieved in exactly the same way as the writing, sans the underlying image to copy. I took the mosaic brush and freehanded the curls wherever I wanted them. Afterwards, I attacked any overlapping tiles with the eraser to separate them again.

I did add one extra filter to the tiles -- an inner bevel -- but that was just part of the tinkering for the look on this map, and wasn't in any way essential. More a matter of taste.

Other than that, I pretty much followed the tutorial, and it worked out pretty well. I ended up with a finished image in comparitively little time, which, for me, is pretty rare. I can do some styles of maps quickly, as I've drawn so many of them, but maps such as this would normally have taken me about a day of work, and this only took a couple of hours or so -- a good speed, that.

As I said before: thanks for the tutorial. I've learned something, and put it to use; so, in my books, your tut is an absolute success.

[Hapimeses]

Well, I did say I was enamoured with the whole mosaic thing, and, as proof, I've done another one.

As I mentioned previously, I wanted to draw companion map to the Tilean one, but didn't think I'd have the time. Fortunately, I finished my planning for roleplay early today, so I had a little spare time to whip up the Estalian map I wanted to do. It's pretty simple when compared to the Tilea map, so it didn't take long at all -- indeed, the image of Myrmidia at the side took longer to complete than the rest of the map combined -- and if this wasn't just for fun, I'd spend more time with the lighting and distressing, but my players are arriving already, so time is not on my side.

Anyway, that's me done with mosaics for the moment. I think I'll try another something completely different next week.

[nijineko]

would there be any chance of getting this tutorial in a more download-friendly format? =D pretty please?

[pyrandon]

Sure, nijineko--remind me in June & I should be able to do that for you. Just curious, though: why would this be helpful?

[nijineko]

i am not always able to access online. but i frequently have my computer with me. that or i can print it out. ^^

[RobA]

I finally got around to writing a script for Gimp to help with this.

Attached is a mosaic tile helper script that can set up one of four paths:

• a path consisting of shaped lines following an initial selection
• a path consisting of concentric circles filling the image
• a path made of horizontal lines
• a path made of vertical lines

using a specified spacing for the path lines.

The scipt will (optionally) stroke the path with the current pen, but this has limited value, as the tiles will all be one colour. It is best used be having it leave the path then using the stroke path command after setting up the active paintbrush to use the rotating tile set I provided earlier in the post, along with the "use gradient" colour option in the paintbrush.

Here is an example made in < 3 minutes:
tiletest.png

1) I used clouds and threshold to get land and sea.
2) I selected the sea area, and called the script (it gets installed under Filters->Artistic->Mosaic Tile Helper using the circular option. Then I stroked the path, using a blue green gradient selection.
3) I inverted the selection to land and called the script again, using the shaped option. The path was stroked using a browns gradient.
4) I set the scaling smaller, the gradient to grey/dark grey and strokes the selection once to outline the coast.
5) I enlarged the canvas by 20 px, selected the 20 px "frame" and used the shaped option again, then stroked to get the frame.
6) I copied all visible, then pasted as a new layer, and bump mapped it on itself.
7) Duplicated that and played with blending modes to get nicer colour.

Have fun with it!

tt2.png

-Rob A>