[Award Winner] Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map

[koschei]

This is a great guide, but I'm having a little bit of trouble with it. Can someone help with the mountain part of the tutorial? I'm stuck on the "mountain mask" step.

Specifically this part:

[B]
Use the magic wand again to select the non-mountain area (like with the land) and create a new layer called “Mountains Mask” with a white on black. (Also the white colour selection as a new selection mask using Select->Save to Channel).

Now we want to create a heightfield from this. The easiest way I have found to do this is to copy the current visible image (Edit->Copy Visible) then paste it (CTRL-V) to a floating selection. Click the New Layer button to get it on its own layer rather than a floating layer. Now stretch the colour range out (Color->Auto->Normalize):
Attachment 1487

Does it mean to create a black background and fill the selection with white, then create a channel with only the white part selected? Also, what is the "current visible image" that I need to select, is it the black/white mask layer or the detailed clip layer?

[xiaosan]

I use XP-Pen Star 06 wireless painting tablet from 2017 or so at work. Both work nicely with GIMP on both Linux and Windows. Gimp is free and I don't need anything better.

GIMP is customizable; recently I have been re-mapping shortcut keys to fit my work flow with animations. I use the L key to turn layers on or off, K to go up one layer and select it, and J to go down one layer and select it. In this way my right hand is free on the tablet to draw or stamp pictoral elements on selected layers, and I avoid "onion skinning".

I am going to re-map all shortcuts, but the important ones are set like layer and brush opacity, merge down, stroke selection etc.

[blackguard]

I know this is a perhaps just a little late, but that's a testament to the quality of this tutorial. One question: At step 8, when I make the bump map on the 50% grey layer, I use all the same settings as in the screen grabs but I don't seem to get any change whatsoever. Am I supposed to add the bump map to a different layer or is there something else I'm doing wrong?
Sorry if someone already asked this, I haven't read through all the replies to check.

[blackguard]

Actually scratch that, just realised that threads are searchable.
Props to great tutorial.

[eepjr24]

I am going through this right now in the latest version of GIMP (2.10.22) and finding a lot of changes have happened inside the tool and the menus. After I am done with the map I am on I am going to try to go through and document all of them and post them. If Rob would like to comment on them (or even wants to take a look at them before hand) that would be lovely, as I am fairly green and making the best guesses I can on some of these things based on what I can find on the web. Some of them don't come out exactly the way his pictures look, but I am hoping they are close enough to get the job done.

- E

[N0tDeadYet]

Incredible documentation, just hoping that someone is still aorund that could help out in updating the documentation?

I'm new to GIMP and can use any help offered!

[N0tDeadYet]

I am going through this right now in the latest version of GIMP (2.10.22) and finding a lot of changes have happened inside the tool and the menus. After I am done with the map I am on I am going to try to go through and document all of them and post them. If Rob would like to comment on them (or even wants to take a look at them before hand) that would be lovely, as I am fairly green and making the best guesses I can on some of these things based on what I can find on the web. Some of them don't come out exactly the way his pictures look, but I am hoping they are close enough to get the job done.

- E

Hoping that you are able to do this! I'm trying my best to figure things out with GIMP 2.10.32

[lisze]

Thank you so much for this fantastic tutorial! Thanks to you, I was able to create the attached for my NaNoWriMo this year. While some menu items did change, your descriptions of what was supposed to happen at each point and the pictures made it easy to figure everything out.
GlauciaRegionMap.png