[Award Winner] Drawing hand drawn maps in Gimp

[Badger]

Tired of me yet?

When you did the dreeston map, did you go through all the blacking out of areas you didn't want say the ocean or the fill on the land touching like you did when you blacked out the ship and rocks creating layer masks for your colored sections?

I was attmepting to recreate the style for one of my own battle maps ... a goblin ambush alont a road and near a small cliff ... its actually closer to your other map the pirate camp one than this one ... but since I had little line drawing as far as a large wooden boat .. most of the lines are sections of trees, the road the cliff edge ... small stream, some covered pit traps and a tent ... that kinda thing...

I kinda got lost because I think maybe photoshop and gimp are a little further apart in some functions than I originally thought ... OR ... i'm just completely retarded when it comes to following a set of instructions .. lol

[Badger]

Ya... I tried blacking in a layer and selecting the layer I want to mask and dropping it on there... I can't get it to work like that...

In PS... (this saves alot of the steps you do) is slect what I need to mask (since I put all my different sections on seperate layers) so, I ctrl click my forest layer, which selects all my forested areas, layer>mask>hide which hides it on the mask. then with black brush I swath in the forest right up to my original penned in line edge. I do that for each of the overlay, right up to the penned sections...

Is tihs essentially the same process were doing with gimp ?

*edit: sorry ... white brush not black brush, white fills, black takes away

[torstan]

Yep, you want to mask everything and then bring it back with a white brush. I do this once for one layer and then copy-paste it to the other layers. Glad you figured it out in photoshop.

Actually in the Dreeston map it was a lot easier than that. I made sure that all my boundaries between regions were solid lines. Then you can hide all layers (including background) apart from your boundary line - say the coastline layer. Then use the magic wand tool to select all of the transparent area that corresponds to your water. The selection will be a little shy of the line as the ink tool does not have a hard edge. To get around this use Select->Grow. 2 pixels usually does the trick here, but if you are using a larger ink brush you may need to grow it a bit further. Now your selection line runs right along the middle of your ink boundary line. Create a new transparent layer and call it Mask. Fill with white, then invert the selection and fill with black. You now have a ready made layer mask for your see layer. This is a LOT faster than going round the edges with a brush!

In the Dreeston map I used this method to get a mask for the land/sea boundary and also for the forest. The snow mask I painted with a fuzzy brush.

---- Combining layer masks ----
If you have two layer masks - say a forest one and a land/sea one and you want to combine them then you can do the following. First create a blank layer mask for the layer you want to mask (say Grass Colour layer). Now copy and paste the first mask onto the blank mask. Now if you copy and paste the second one, you would just replace it. To get them to combine, just do this:
1. Copy the layer you want to add to the mask
2. Click the layer mask you want to add it to and paste. Do NOT anchor it yet.
3. You should have a floating pasted layer at the top of your layers dialogue. Select that layer (it should already be selected, but just make sure) and change its mode to darken only if you want to add the blacked out area of the mask, or lighten only if you want to add to the whited out are of the mask.
4. Click the anchor to apply the pasted layer to your layer mask.

This allows for a quick and easy way of building up complex layer masks from your different pre-prepared masks.

[Badger]

just a thought for any future tutorials containg layer masks.... I found it a bit confusing when you refer to a layer mask ... and to the layer you named Mask... and also calling layer Mask...

[torstan]

Yes, I realised that when I was typing this out. My naming conventions help me when I am working on a map, but don't translate too well to telling others about it. I may one day put an updated version of this into a pdf, in which case I'll be more sensible when setting up conventions at the beginning.

Also, thanks to the mods for the tutorial scroll! Now all I need is one of those snazzy compasses for the full set

[Badger]

oh wow.. nice ... and they broadened that category up a bit... maybe when I get this handdrawn commision i'm doing ... I can put up a pen and ink tutorial from start to finish .. .the guy gave me permission once the project is finished to post up a tut here... it (the map) will be featured at dragoncon promoting his game... which is cool in and of itself...

another side note.. I did figure out how to get similiar steps in PS ... as I said, I can't actually drag a layer into a blank mask on another layer (this was how I read it to be done in gimp from your steps...) From the layer named MASK, you have to create layermask and then drag that layermask to the layer you want it on.

NOPE... nm... I just found it you can create the layermask, and to copy it to another layer you hold down alt when moving the layermask.... good good good....

[jfrazierjr]

Yes, I realised that when I was typing this out. My naming conventions help me when I am working on a map, but don't translate too well to telling others about it. I may one day put an updated version of this into a pdf, in which case I'll be more sensible when setting up conventions at the beginning.

Also, thanks to the mods for the tutorial scroll! Now all I need is one of those snazzy compasses for the full set

And well deserved!

I would love it it you were to make up a tutorial for the Dresston map or create another map of similar overland style for a tutorial. I been mulling stuff over in my head about my section of the world building project and using some hand drawn top down mountains was way I was looking to go. I thought of this approach several weeks ago, but have not been able to get past the (in GIMP) rough inking stage in B\W and that looks mostly like crap without some color. I originally was going to do it in style like RobA's tutorial with the modified mountain shape, but want to try something different. I can't really do ISO on that map since the whole(well almost) freaking thing is mountains and that would look a bit odd which is why I was going to do top down in the first plac...

Joe

[torstan]

Much of the Deeston map was just as in the ship tutorial, though with a few refinements. Sounds like you are interested in the mountains specifically. If I did a short mountain tute would that do the trick? I'm also happy to do a proper walkthrough of the whole map - you just might not get it for a while

[Badger]

I don't think it matters what program you use ... the sketching stage for hand drawing a map or inking part .. will always take a kinda of ... getting used to ... especially if (like probably most everyone who began mapping) you are used to grabbing the nearest piece of sketch paper or pad and drawing it out by hand.

The best advice I have for you and what helped me out? (tablet a must really, handdrawn maps with a mouse is just asking for frustration) ... start out with a white background... start a new (transparent) layer and set your ink to a comfortable width (i usually use around a 3-5 pixel width) and just draw out the baser of shapes on the map... forests areas, hills... mountains... rivers coastlines, etc... and don't be neat about it... don't use ctrl z, don't use your eraser.... if you aren't liking it ... start a new layer and either turn the eyeball off on that layer or delete it if you like... and just keep going ... (like ripping off a sheet of paper and going to the next sheet)

When you got a rough idea of what you want it to look like.... turn that opacity down and start a new layer.... refine it as much as you can... again ... you don't have to be neat and worry about messing up .... just tighten it up a bit.... and then start a new layer ... turn the opacity off the previous, turn the opacity down on the just finished, and once again .."tighten" up the sketch .... I might go anywhere from 3-5 or mayer layers before I get a really well defined inked map ready to be colored and rendered...

but that's just my two cents

[jfrazierjr]

Much of the Deeston map was just as in the ship tutorial, though with a few refinements. Sounds like you are interested in the mountains specifically. If I did a short mountain tute would that do the trick? I'm also happy to do a proper walkthrough of the whole map - you just might not get it for a while

Heh.. I will take what I can get, but yes, the mountains are a hugh part(85% or so of the map is mountains) of the map, so something specific to them would be great.

Thanks,
Joe