Page 1 of 4 1234 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 33

Thread: [Award Winner] Technique for adding coastal detail as you zoom in.

  1. #1

    Tutorial [Award Winner] Technique for adding coastal detail as you zoom in.

    I have been playing with a few techniques in GIMP (applicable to any raster program) to allow me to zoom in and "refractalize" a coastline without significantly changing the shape...

    This technique is designed to work with a coastal outline (white land on black water) and will not directly translate to working with heightfields....

    Steps:
    1) Make a rectangular selection of the desired area, and copy it to a new image.

    2) Enlarge the new image to the desired size

    3) Blur it enough to get rid of the jaggies, but still maintaining some detail. I sued ~20 px in the examples. The bigger the blur, the more randomization will occur, and the less "true" the new coastline will be.

    3) Create a new layer on top and set its mode to burn

    4) Render clouds using the max detail and check turbulent. (I don't know what the photoshop equivalent of this is).

    5) Invert (optional). Depends how it looks :)

    6) repeat 4 and optionally 5 with different seeds until you get one you like. some just seem to work better than others. I kept a copy of the starting image open for reference to try and ensure coarse features were maintained.

    7) Flatten the image (or just merge down the clouds layer).

    8) Threshold with black at 1 or very low, again, maximizing detail while keeping the shape close to the original.

    Here is a set of examples, with each showing the next one's selection. I started with a nice spherical mapped noise layer:
    world_d.png

    zoom1_d.png

    zoom2_d.png

    zoom3.png

    -Rob A>

  2. #2
    Guild Artisan su_liam's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Port Alberta, Regina(IRL: Eugene, OR)
    Posts
    798

    Default

    I would start by using Flexify to center the projection on the area of interest. For most useful projections(maybe all, I don't know), distortion is minimal near the center of the map. You could then build a collection of USGS-like 'topo' maps of your planet. Cool.

  3. #3
    Community Leader RPMiller's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Watching you from in here
    Posts
    3,226

    Default

    This is a great tip Rob! I'm going to need it as I move forward. Thank you, and I when I can, I'll rep you for this.
    Bill Stickers is innocent! It isn't Bill's fault that he was hanging out in the wrong place.

    Please make an effort to tag all threads. This will greatly enhance the usability of the forums.



  4. #4

  5. #5

    Post

    Now where was this when I was having to repeatedly zoom in on my map...? *sigh*

  6. #6
    NymTevlyn
    Guest

    Default

    Bumpity bump! How can I use this in Photoshop? I don't have a turbulent option nor can I find Threshold.

  7. #7
    Community Leader RPMiller's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Watching you from in here
    Posts
    3,226

    Default

    Threshold is under Image-->Adjustments-->Threshold...

    As for turbulent PS doesn't have an option. You'll just have to keep rendering clouds until you see something you like.
    Bill Stickers is innocent! It isn't Bill's fault that he was hanging out in the wrong place.

    Please make an effort to tag all threads. This will greatly enhance the usability of the forums.



  8. #8
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    St. Charles, Missouri, United States
    Posts
    8,392

    Post

    What I do if I want to zoom in on an area for a larger map is I make the main landmass white and put it onto a black layer. Then filter > pixelate somewhere between 3 and 12 (this puts a bunch of white, gray, and black jaggie shapes in where the white and black meet). Then Image > adjustments > brightness/contrast and turn the contrast up all the way to remove the gray. Now you have a black sea and white newly jagged landmass.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

  9. #9
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Badger's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Morton, TX
    Posts
    1,473

    Default

    Just played around in PS with this... Created an action for it too.... Its pretty much the same steps as Rob said...
    >copy, create new, paste, increase image size.
    >Gaussin Blur 2.0 pix
    >New layer set to color burn
    >Filter>Render>Clouds. Filter>Render>Difference Clouds.
    >Threshholds
    >Lather>Rinse>Repeat

    Have Pen. Will Map.
    Have Dice. Will Travel.
    GM for Hire | Artist and Cartographer | Free Quotes on

  10. #10

    Post

    When we try this we always seem to get stuff like this:
    http://www.novatainia.org/user_files...ractalnova.png

    burning the clouds layers down doesn't appear to be working...

Page 1 of 4 1234 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •