World of Milosha

[A R Frost]

Ok, been playing around with GIMP for 3-5 days now trying to figure out how to redo my old map. And after several phone calls today stating that my new group was wanting to start our game this weekend I though I had better get some sort of starter map done.
The colors and details are really plain, but still trying to figure out several tuts on how to do this, and since I need some type of functional map for this weekend, I did it using the few thinks I have figured out so far. I am starting to become a slave to brushes since they do make some parts easier, but I need to break that addiction in it's early stages and learn to do it the right way. Most of the tuts I find for the style I like are in PS and I end up spending way to much time trying to duplicate a step in GIMP.

Hope, the River, Mountain, Hill police inspect it as well.
Right now I have one desert, and it was created from a huge magical battle 2500 years ago. Would like to add another one but not sure where to place it on the map so it's correct. All suggestions on the proper desert placement will be gladly accepted.

I'm included my first map that was done in CorelDraw so you can see the differences.

So take a look at it and let me know what's good and bad about it. I'll take one good point as an overall victory..lol

[arsheesh]

Hello A.R. Frost. I like the overall shape of your land mass, and the color palette you are working with (though a few more colors in just the right places might help to give your map more texture). I would recommend blending the the colors between your polar and temperate zones a bit more gradually, and perhaps adding a few waves or ripples within the ocean (particularly around the...continent/island?).

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[rdanhenry]

The new one is a lot more plausible with that crazy river system gone. As to the desert: do you really want a desert (low precipitation) or just a wasteland, blasted by the battle? Those aren't the same thing. You can have plenty of water, but if the ground is magical-radioactive or whatever, it could still be desolate.

[A R Frost]

Ok,
Tried to add some color to the map. Not very much but a little.

@Arsheesh-Smooth out the polar to temperate area some, needs more work but lack of skill will hold that back for now. I know the coastlines need to be redone and something with the oceans as well. But my dumb a$$ some how merged the three-four layers I used to make it together. I'll have to re build it hopefully in the next two days.

@rdanhenry- Real just want a natural desert, already have a desert wasteland created from the miss use of great magical powers.

As I went back to change a few things. I think I figured out way I was having such a hard time with RobA's tut.
1/3 of my trees are on the tree layer.
1/3 are on the snow/polar layer.
The last 1/3 is on the main land color layer.
Lesson learned: Finish what your doing!!! If you see something that needs changed, write it down and wait until your done with the layer your on. Then go fix it!!!
Why because you a dumb a$$ and forget to change back to the original layer.
I keep catching myself working on the wrong layer. No wonder I get so frustrated 6-7 layers in when something doesn't work.
But, I'm sure I'm not the only newbie GIMP or PS user that has had this issue.

Here is the next step: Hope you enjoy.

[Jaxilon]

I get to working on the wrong layers all the time. You are not alone.

[A R Frost]

Any GIMP Users that are good with Text, please take a look.

Ok,
Here is the next stage of my map of Milosha. I went through and placed all the city and country names. And I hate it.
The city text looked good when I was scrolled in typing them out, put once I scrolled out I noticed that you can't tread most of the letters.

Question's I have are:
Is there away to change all the fonts and or text colors at once? every one is still on it's own layer. when I try to grab one of the names I have already done I can't seem to select it? I click on the right layer and then the text tool, but can't seem to figure it out.
Does anyone know of some good tuts/web sites that can help me learn how to work with text in GIMP?

And while I'm on the subject of text, I was wondering if there is anyone out there that might be willing to design me a title.png to place in the upper left hand corner of my map? I have been searching the web look for ways to do text, but everything I find is way to complicated for my skill level, which when it comes to text is barely above zero. I have included a jpg of the basic text shape I would like the text to be in. As for font and the over all look, I'll leave that up to those of you who throw a bone my way with a map name logo.

@Jaxilon- Hope you noticed that your Assault Fortress's have a home in my world.


All comments welcome...

Thanks
Allan

[Jaxilon]

Dude, that's awesome, I'm rockin a series of islands. That's quite an honor, thanks. I do think it's a miracle those ships ever made it that far but now that they have, I'm sure they will become the terror of the High Sea! LOL

Using text in Gimp is a bit of a pain. You might do better doing your labels in Inkscape or another Vector program. That's what I had to do when I wanted to create text on a curve. RobA helped me out on that if I recall correctly. I think it was on the thread where I made my first map but I could be wrong. I'll see if I can find it later when i have some time to dig.

As far as selecting a text that has already been created make sure you are on the right layer, then make sure you are using the text tool, it's the big "A" in the toolbox (duh, but you know how us beginners are ). Then you should be able to click or double click on the map where your text is and it will pop up a box you can type in or delete it, etc. I'm not sure if there is a way to select all the text you have done and change the font though in one swoop, even if they were all on the same layer.

[Zar Peter]

Short reply with explanations (I hope): I really like the map, the trees and mountains and hills are great. Problem Text, it's not very good readable (as you have noticed yourself). Bigger problem: I fear you have to write it again.

Explanation: You can edit the text only if it's in a Text layer (in my example the red circle). If it's in a Text layer you can highlight it and change it (with the same button as you have written). If it's already in a normal layer (blue circle) you can't edit your text anymore, sorry. And you can't edit all at once because they are different layers.

[Jaxilon]

Listen to Zar P, he's got it.

[arsheesh]

Hello again A R. I do not know of any way of changing the color/font of all of the text layers all in one go. If you merged all of the layers together onto a single transparency level, then you could use the color select tool to select the text, and then change the color of the entire set of text at once. However you would no longer be able to use the text tool to manipulate the text at this point, so altering the size or font of the text is out. Although tedious, I think that your best option-if you want to preserve the ability to alter the text size or font-is simply to use the text tool to alter each text layer, one by one. You cannot do this simply by selecting the text tool and then clicking on any given area of your map that has text on it (this method only works if the text you have clicked on is in fact the active layer that you are working on). What you need to do is to find the text layer in your layers dialogue window, and then double click it. Once you've done this, the text window for that particular set of text will open, allowing you to work on it. Note that if you have already merged your text layers to any other layer, this option is no longer open to you. I hope that helps.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh