Thread: World Map WIP in GIMP

Well...

I just wasted a lot of time where I should have been studying for mid-terms.

But, I got color back in the map. It's not quite back up to the level I had before I went back to finagle the islands into something a little more natural looking. So there's still a long way to go! No land features as yet, just basic land color and some ocean shores.

Next, a bit more work on the land to give it depth and character. Then mountains.

To do the work on the mountains, I'll probably have to flatten several layers of the image in order to reduce working size.

Does anyone happen to know if I can transfer layers between images in GIMP?

So... Midterms this week. I must study. I probably won't have much in the line of updates for this again in a while.

Originally Posted by Karro

Does anyone happen to know if I can transfer layers between images in GIMP?

You can just drag a layer at a time. Or if you want all of them, use the "Open as Layers" command.

-Rob A>

Originally Posted by RobA

You can just drag a layer at a time. Or if you want all of them, use the "Open as Layers" command.

-Rob A>

I hoped it would work something like that.

Sometimes, due to file size and RAM constraints, I'm forced to merge layers, but I always save down a copy of the file before the merge so I can refer back to it if necessary.

Now I know for sure I can pull out individual layers as necessary!

Thanks!

Wow!
I have looked at all your pictures.
This is really great!

I just downloaded GIMP. Didn't know you could make something so amazing!

Originally Posted by Lizardknight

Wow!
I have looked at all your pictures.
This is really great!

I just downloaded GIMP. Didn't know you could make something so amazing!

Wow, thanks. I guess you mean me, and not something RobA did? (Because, of course, he is pretty amazing.)

This is still an ongoing project - it isn't abandonned, just slow going. I've made progress in the last few months, but nothing worth showing off, yet. Between work and grad school eating my life, especially this semester, I'm just completely sacked for time.

If you've downloaded GIMP, make sure and check out RobA's tutorial to learn a lot of great techniques (I think he links it in his sig above). The basic style I'm using is derived from that tutorial, though I'm making a few modifications to hopefully make it my own, as it were (though, since this is for my personal use, and I have no mapping industry aspirations, developing my own style is of a secondary concern).

Good luck on learning GIMP!

What I would like to see on this map, is an outer glow that isn't just pure white. Maybe starting from sand color and then transferring to light blue, and eventually darker blue. Try playing around with different kind of settings and maybe the results will give extra looks to your map. (There must be some tutorials that deal with gradient glows).

At the scale you are working in, some of my first few attempts at overhead mountain fields would probably look pretty good. Once you get into it, get up with me if you want to try those and run into trouble.

Originally Posted by Jykke

What I would like to see on this map, is an outer glow that isn't just pure white. Maybe starting from sand color and then transferring to light blue, and eventually darker blue. Try playing around with different kind of settings and maybe the results will give extra looks to your map. (There must be some tutorials that deal with gradient glows).

The easiest way for just a few colours is to start with the "outside" colour (dark blue in this case) and stroke the outline with a large soft brush. Then scale the brush down and stroke again with the next colour (light blue) then shrink the brush again and stoke one more time with the "inside" colour (tan).

All on a layer under the land, of course

-Rob A>

Originally Posted by Jykke

What I would like to see on this map, is an outer glow that isn't just pure white. Maybe starting from sand color and then transferring to light blue, and eventually darker blue. Try playing around with different kind of settings and maybe the results will give extra looks to your map. (There must be some tutorials that deal with gradient glows).

Yeah, I'm not entirely satisfied with the seas/oceans/shores. As I pointed out, it uses RobA's original regional map tutorial, and I've since learned there are some minor relating to the displace map technique he used there when we're working with a whole world map. Color-wise, I'll probably be making some changes at some point as well. But, for now, this is lower on my priority list; I'm more concerned right now with getting mountains done right, and from there I'll be experimenting with forests. Hopefully I'll have mountains up sometime within the next three or four weeks. (Yeah... it'll probably take me that long.)

Originally Posted by jfrazierjr

At the scale you are working in, some of my first few attempts at overhead mountain fields would probably look pretty good. Once you get into it, get up with me if you want to try those and run into trouble.

Yeah, I've been developing, or trying to develop, a style along the lines of the mountains we were throwing around... what... almost a year ago, now. Hopefully, the way I've adapted the style will work for a world-map at this scale.

I wrote myself a work-flow document with all the steps in a word file to kind of help me keep a consistent style. I'm probably a third of the way through the mountain design process right now; I've got mountains laid out as to where they'll be, but they don't look like mountains yet. I'll hopefully be taking advantage of the smudge script RobA wrote a couple weeks ago...

Originally Posted by RobA

The easiest way for just a few colours is to start with the "outside" colour (dark blue in this case) and stroke the outline with a large soft brush. Then scale the brush down and stroke again with the next colour (light blue) then shrink the brush again and stoke one more time with the "inside" colour (tan).

All on a layer under the land, of course

-Rob A>

Nice tip.