http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/ A website and forum for enthusiasts of fantasy maps mapmaking and cartography of all types. We are a thriving community of fantasy map makers that provide tutorials, references, and resources for fellow mapmakers. en Sun, 26 May 2013 04:06:51 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.cartographersguild.com/images/cartographer/misc/rss.jpg http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/ http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/19-xamel-wip-towns-roads-finished.html Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:27:33 GMT I've made a few modifications to the town and fortification icons, and added roads. Not entirely happy with the roads; may try a different method or just change them up a bit later on. Probably I'll be using different types of lines for different types of roads, but for now I'm keeping it simple just to get this done.
]]> wisemoon http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/19-xamel-wip-towns-roads-finished.html http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/17-xamel-wip-mountains-forests-rivers-finished.html Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:45:34 GMT I wasn't quite satisfied with the mountains on the last pass--the tops were too flat and I couldn't figure out how to fix the wierd ridge around the mountains.

So I started over. I like the final result:


The next part of RobA's tutorial is putting towns and roads on the map. Here is what I have so far:


More updates as I continue working on this. ]]> wisemoon http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/17-xamel-wip-mountains-forests-rivers-finished.html http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/15-more-work-xamel-regional-map.html Sun, 06 Jun 2010 23:57:51 GMT I got to the end of Pt. 2 of RobA's tutorial, "Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map" but I wasn't happy with how the mountains looked. I found another tutorial by RobA, "Simple Mountains in GIMP" and decided to use that technique instead.

Here is my first pass at the alternate technique:


I thought the mountains turned out pretty good, though there was a strange inverted ridge around the mountains that I couldn't get rid of. Also, the forests looked strange--not as good as the previous attempt. So I decided to try one more time before moving on. Here is my second pass:


I think you can see a big difference. I'm very happy with how this one turned out. So I'll continue on with the tutorial using this to move forward. ]]> wisemoon http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/15-more-work-xamel-regional-map.html http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/14-xamel-region-demetia-wip-pt-2.html Fri, 04 Jun 2010 03:19:58 GMT Well, I finished Pt. 2 of RobA's tutorial. I didn't quite like the mountains I got the first time, so I re-did the mountains and then went through the rest of the tutorial. I'm still not quite satisfied with it somehow, but overall I think the result is quite impressive. Especially compared to the original hand-drawn map. :)

Here's the results so far:
]]> wisemoon http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/14-xamel-region-demetia-wip-pt-2.html http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/13-xamel-region-demetia-wip.html Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:19:11 GMT So I don't know why the mountain technique wasn't working last time, but I deleted the "mountain" layers from the image and decided to start over. This time, I did a "save as" and created a whole new file to do trial-and-error on. For some reason, this time it worked pretty well:


I don't really like the placement of the mountains, though. Now that I know how the technique is supposed to work (I think), I can go back and change it. According to my original hand-drawn map, the mountain range along the western border of this area is wider, and pretty high. I'll post again when I've redone the mountains. ]]> wisemoon http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/13-xamel-region-demetia-wip.html http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/12-gimp-works-progress.html Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:27:29 GMT In addition to learning Fractal Mapper, I'm also trying to learn techniques for map-making in GIMP. Right now, I'm working through two different tutorials: one by Butch Curry (which uses Photoshop, so I'm adapting it to Gimp as I go), and one by RobA here in Cartographers' Guild.

I haven't gotten very far with Curry's method, but here is a shot of what I have. I created a forest pattern, and put it on a mask layer, so that I can very quickly paint in areas of forest on my map.


I'm also working through RobA's tutorial, "Using GIMP to create an artistic regional map". I've been having a little trouble with some of his steps (posted about that on the forums), but here is a shot of where I'm at with it right now. The white areas are going to be mountains, if I can figure out the next few steps in the tutorial.


I'll post further updates as I make progress. ]]> wisemoon http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/12-gimp-works-progress.html http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/11-fractal-mapper-works-progress.html Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:18:43 GMT I am attempting to learn how to use Fractal Mapper. I like the Fractal World Explorer, and supposedly you can import and export images between FWE... I am attempting to learn how to use Fractal Mapper. I like the Fractal World Explorer, and supposedly you can import and export images between FWE and Fractal Mapper. In v7 however (the one I have), the interface is clunky and the results are often not the best.

Still, I've been making some amount of progress by using a hand-drawn map as a background image, and building on top of that. I'm starting with a continent map and a small regional map that I had drawn by hand. In this post I'll just focus on the regional map, since that is the one I'm currently working on.

Here is the first pass at building on top of the original:

Unfortunately, it seems the original FM file I made this from got corrupted, so I had to start over. Here's my second pass:


There are some really clunky aspects to FM7; I have the trial version of FM8, and it looks like they might have improved some of these. But there are still some things I can't figure out. One thing that bugs me is that the fractal lines (rivers in this case) don't scale--if you create them at a certain size zoomed in by 50, and then zoom back out to regular size, the lines stay the same size. So while they looked proportional at the higher zoom, when I returned to 100% view they looked too big. ]]> wisemoon http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/11-fractal-mapper-works-progress.html http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/10-introducing-my-mapping-blog.html Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:22:43 GMT I didn't realize I had a blog on this site. :) But I suppose it's a good way to showcase your work.

Right now, I'm working on adapting a video tutorial series on map-making, which was originally designed for Photoshop users. I'm adapting it to Gimp. That effort is taking up quite a bit of time, but it's also rewarding because I'm learning a LOT about Gimp by doing this.

My next efforts will involve learning more about how to use Fractal Mapper. Right now I only have version 7; I'm considering getting the demo of v8 so I can go through the tutorial on raster mapping in Fractal Mapper. I actually kind of like the old-fashioned vector style that Fractal Mapper uses in "normal" mode, but I figure it's good to learn how to map in different styles.

So, right now I'll post a couple of examples of what I'm working on. This first image is of a "aged parchment" background for a map. The method used is from the video tutorial I'm adapting.


This second image is another "aged parchment" I did in Gimp using a method from one of RobA's tutorials.


I like the second one somewhat better. However, I do like some of the style of the first one, so I'll probably end up combining some of each method as I move forward making my own maps. ]]> wisemoon http://www.cartographersguild.com/blogs/wisemoon/10-introducing-my-mapping-blog.html