Telperion & Taramir - First Attempt w/GIMP

[Steel General]

Hi all, this is my first completed map made with The GIMP (using RobA's fantastic tutorial ). While I didn't follow every single step in the tutorial I used the majority of it, and am quite pleased by the outcome.

Telperion and Taramir are the homeland of the Taydarin (Sea) Elves in my Campaign World.

There are a couple of things I'm not 100% happy with, and may go back and try to fix. The lake and rivers could be done better. I ended up having to add them after I had finished everything else. Also, the texture of the forest isn't quite as good as what was in the tutorial. Third, I think the color of the grass layer needs to be a little deeper green.

I was looking around the forums for a way to do swamps and couldn't find anything. So I ended up using the Small Galaxy brush, I think it worked OK.

Anyway, take a look, let me know what you like don't like. Leave suggestions, etc.

[jfrazierjr]

Hi all, this is my first completed map made with The GIMP (using RobA's fantastic tutorial ). While I didn't follow every single step in the tutorial I used the majority of it, and am quite pleased by the outcome.

Telperion and Taramir are the homeland of the Taydarin (Sea) Elves in my Campaign World.

There are a couple of things I'm not 100% happy with, and may go back and try to fix. The lake and rivers could be done better. I ended up having to add them after I had finished everything else. Also, the texture of the forest isn't quite as good as what was in the tutorial. Third, I think the color of the grass layer needs to be a little deeper green.

I was looking around the forums for a way to do swamps and couldn't find anything. So I ended up using the Small Galaxy brush, I think it worked OK.

Anyway, take a look, let me know what you like don't like. Leave suggestions, etc.

Pretty good for your first time SG!

Ok, here are some tips/comments I have found for this type of map:

Put a noise layer over your land and play with the mode. I ussually use multiply or perhaps hard light This will give you some more and takes basically little to no time color variation to your grass lands.

Good thought on the swamps. The background probably needs to be a bit darker... perhaps make a new transparent layer with a slightly darker green than the grass layer and then put the brush on top? Not sure as I have not tried to do any swamps yet.... With the grass coloration underneath, it looks to much like grassy brushland or heath or something like that instead of swamps. But, it was a very good thought and attempt!

You may want to try RobA's tutorial here: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=594 for a start on something that might be more mountainous looking. Also, there are a few variations of this technique in action here: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2270 to make it a bit more satellite like in apperance.

You may want to a 2-3 px G Blur to the mountains and forests. The spread just looks odd..

Nice font. Very "regal" looking.

Over all. Very good work.

Joe

[Steel General]

Thanks for the feedback Joe, I'll definitely take those into consideration when/if I decide to make any changes.

The font is Carribean, and it seemed to fit very well. I was goin to use a Tolkien font, but found it to difficult to read at small sizes.

Any ideas (or point me to a tutorial if possible) on what I can do to fix the rivers? I'd much prefer that they "cut through" the forest instead of "lay on top".

[jfrazierjr]

Any ideas (or point me to a tutorial if possible) on what I can do to fix the rivers? I'd much prefer that they "cut through" the forest instead of "lay on top".

That's a fairly easy fix as long as you have the rivers on their own layer. Just like with the mountain and forest masks you made earlier, you make a river mask, so whatever layers you add the mask to will "cut" out for the rivers. For maximum flexibility in the future create both a mask AND a direct layer (which you will hide). You can do this easily by selecting your rivers, create a new layer, fill "not" river with black, and river with white, then save as mask. You now have a B/W layer and a mask version of the same. The reason to make it a separate layer in addition to just a mask is so if you decide to add any effects such as a bevel or something like that, you can regenerate the mask from the layer and then apply the new mask where ever the old one was(assuming you had not merged down the layer mask previously.

Joe

[Karro]

That's a fairly easy fix as long as you have the rivers on their own layer. Just like with the mountain and forest masks you made earlier, you make a river mask, so whatever layers you add the mask to will "cut" out for the rivers. For maximum flexibility in the future create both a mask AND a direct layer (which you will hide). You can do this easily by selecting your rivers, create a new layer, fill "not" river with black, and river with white, then save as mask. You now have a B/W layer and a mask version of the same. The reason to make it a separate layer in addition to just a mask is so if you decide to add any effects such as a bevel or something like that, you can regenerate the mask from the layer and then apply the new mask where ever the old one was(assuming you had not merged down the layer mask previously.

Joe

Yeah, so basically, how I handled this was I applied a mask copy of the rivers to the forests, except I enlarged the mask by a few pixels (so the white part that represents the river on the mask is a few pixels wider than the actual blue of the river) and I blurred the edge by a few pixels. This allows the forest to thin out around the edges of the river.

For swamp, the idea I'm considering using (also haven't done one yet, but it's on my list) is an approach similar to the one used for forests, but using a different color scheme. Most swamps, I figure, are forested areas (at least they are in the bayou and Okeefenokee area). I figured I'd tone down the green used with a heavy dose of gray. Your idea to use the galaxy brush is also good, but I agree it needs something a little more to make it pop and appear distinct from the regular grasslands.

All in all, your first attempt looks a lot like my first attempt, especially around the mountains and forests. I played around with the mountains using some other techniques to get what I wanted, but I'm still trying to refine that technique. Dan posted a revised technique for forests that he used that produces results that I think are an incremental improvement on the original technique RobA details.

[Steel General]

Thank you both for the input, I think I'll probably need to do a major overhaul to get it to appear they way you are describing it. But I was "futzing" about with it and at least got the rivers to look a bit better.

I moved the River Color layer between the two Forest Color layers so it kinda appears like you can see the water thru the foliage, and i put a drop shadow on it to give it a little "depth". Not the best solution, but hey I'm learning.

So here's version 2

[Ascension]

What I might try on the rivers is to make a copy of that layer, put one below all the tree layers and one on top. Then, for the one on top, I'd lower the opacity or mess around with the blending modes and then erase where it does not go over trees.

My 2 sense/cents/scents

[töff]

I was goin to use a Tolkien font

So instead you used the Tolkien name "Telperion"?

Nice maps!

[ravells]

Toff - you have a pm!

[töff]

Uh oh I'm busted.

Sorry Steel General, I didn't mean to slam you on the Tolkien name. Sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine -- had a lot of trouble with people dumping Tolkien names into one of our online storyworlds.

Seriously, though, the maps are looking good. I have a swamp style somewhere if you're interested.