Thread: Help please - colour overlay

Thanks for the responses guys, but I'm very much a beginner with Gimp and most of this talk is going over my head.

I haven't even read RobA's famous tutorial yet, cos I didn't think I was ready for it. I wanted to get the hang of drawing up a planet before I focussed down to anything like realistic terrain.
Getting basic latitude colour ranges is my first baby step into terrain creation.

I don't have a map I'm working on, I'm just playing with some of the tools to see what they do, so I created a random coast outline. Basically, I'm just trying to add one small step to this:

Rookies Guide to Planets in Gimp

so that all my land isn't plain green from pole to pole.

I don't know anything about Gimp scripts either, but I can snag that one and see if I can figure out what to do with it, thanks.

Are you looking for something that looks like this:



Here's the zipped .xcf file if you want to see how that was built. I can walk through the steps too.

PlanetGradient.xcf.zip

Shouldn't there be two bands of yellow (desert) terrain? One on the northern tropic and one on the southern tropic, with a tropical green between the two?

Indeed there should, but this was the gradient I had lying around. The method would be the same with a better gradient though.

Yes, Torstan, thanks, that's exactly what I was trying to do. I'll have a look at that xcf.

I found the gradient editor today, but I couldn't figure out how to work it. I'll try reverse engineering your xcf to start with.

Originally Posted by icosahedron

Yes, Torstan, thanks, that's exactly what I was trying to do. I'll have a look at that xcf.

I found the gradient editor today, but I couldn't figure out how to work it. I'll try reverse engineering your xcf to start with.

Ah... the dreaded gradient editor... I've played with that monster alot. I feel a tutorial coming.

I find that it helps to get a gradient that has the right number of sections, duplicate it and then use the right click options on each section to edit the start and end point colours.

Remember that to edit a section on the gradient - click the section so that it is highlighted in blue across the bottom. Then right click and edit the colours of the left and right points. In the Load colour... section you'll find the option to match the colour to the nearest point. That should help you out.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=7875 <-- very basic example of how to manipulate the gradient editor in gimp.

Torstan, you've built this up in a different way than I do. I can see the layers, but I have no idea how they're composed.

After a lot of trial and error, I discovered how to place the land shape and the gradient side by side - it seems to be a gradient pattern as the main image with the land shape as a mask (first time I've used a mask).

However, I'm not sure how those embossed layers were made and why there are two of them. What's a pasted layer?

Told you I was basic.

Edit: thanks for the Gradient Editor tutorial Notsonoble. That's how I figured it should work. Not sure what I was (am) doing wrong, but when I tried to change the colours of the section endpoints it kept working on the absolute endpoints instead. I'll go back and have another look at it.
Copying an existing gradient and then changing the colours might help. Thanks for that idea.