[Award Winner] Eriond - A Tutorial for GIMP & Wilbur

[arsheesh]

Hey Arsheesh, I just wanted to say thanks for the tutorial, it's really useful, considering in the past I've worked with height/bump maps on PS, but PS died on me so I'm getting into GIMP (which is thankfully pretty similar) I just have one question as of right now.

When airbrushing, to make the mountains and land fit together, the tutorial says that we're sculpting the land clouds layer, but the mountains cloud layer is still separate from that, so It can't fully mesh unless I either airbrush on the mountain clouds layer as well, or merge them. Any advice?

Here's the issue as it stands, btw

Hi Neptondoodle, great question. So in practice what I typically do is slightly erase the edges of the mountains cloud layer (a good trick to save time here is to use the select by color tool to select the transparent area of the area surrounding the mountains, grow the selection slightly - 5-20 px depending on the size of your map - then feather the selection by about the same amount and click delete) so that we can get rid of the hard edges, then gradually add layers of paint to the land clouds layer until the values of the two layers blend seamlessly together.

I think you're misreading what it says.
You airbrush the mountain edges so that the opacity is adjusted slowly to the point where the edge of mountains are it doesn't have a huge step in contrast so that the edge disappears. It has the effect of molding the land in general, but you're not messing with the land layers.

Thanks for your reply Durakken. I have tried the method you describe with some success. However one downside is that when painting on the mountains cloud layer one may partially obscure the cloud texture of the land clouds layer below. On the other hand, by painting on the land clouds layer directly I've found that the values and textures of the clouds are better preserved (see my above comment for details of my method). However both methods work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Neptondoodle]

Hi Neptondoodle, great question. So in practice what I typically do is slightly erase the edges of the mountains cloud layer (a good trick to save time here is to use the select by color tool to select the transparent area of the area surrounding the mountains, grow the selection slightly - 5-20 px depending on the size of your map - then feather the selection by about the same amount and click delete) so that we can get rid of the hard edges, then gradually add layers of paint to the land clouds layer until the values of the two layers blend seamlessly together.

Ah, so you airbrush white then, not black? I think I see. I think the fault in my map lies with myself then, I don't think I erased the edges enough (And I began erasing with a hard brush before I realized my mistake)

Also, I just had a thought. Have you ever created a new layer, and selected more or less the same color as the color you'd like the edges to be, then painted around the edges and hit the layer with a Gaussian Blur?


EDIT
I just experimented airbrushing the mountain layer to the point where the edge was just visible, then going over it with a soft eraser at 20% opacity. That'll work out pretty well for fixing those areas I accidentally took a hard eraser to earlier I think.

[arsheesh]

Also, I just had a thought. Have you ever created a new layer, and selected more or less the same color as the color you'd like the edges to be, then painted around the edges and hit the layer with a Gaussian Blur?


EDIT
I just experimented airbrushing the mountain layer to the point where the edge was just visible, then going over it with a soft eraser at 20% opacity. That'll work out pretty well for fixing those areas I accidentally took a hard eraser to earlier I think.

Yup, that will work too. However like I mentioned in my above comment to Durakken one downside of painting on a layer above the land clouds is that this may somewhat obscure the texture of the bottom layer. I've found that airbrushing the land clouds layer directly tends to better preserve this texture (but this is just a personal taste).

[Coriolis]

Hi Neptondoodle, great question. So in practice what I typically do is slightly erase the edges of the mountains cloud layer (a good trick to save time here is to use the select by color tool to select the transparent area of the area surrounding the mountains, grow the selection slightly - 5-20 px depending on the size of your map - then feather the selection by about the same amount and click delete) so that we can get rid of the hard edges, then gradually add layers of paint to the land clouds layer until the values of the two layers blend seamlessly together.



Thanks for your reply Durakken. I have tried the method you describe with some success. However one downside is that when painting on the mountains cloud layer one may partially obscure the cloud texture of the land clouds layer below. On the other hand, by painting on the land clouds layer directly I've found that the values and textures of the clouds are better preserved (see my above comment for details of my method). However both methods work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

I do a variation on Arsheesh's technique here. I like to use the smudge tool to blend the mountains into the surrounding terrain. This allows the mountains to have descending ridges. It also gives me a method for sculpting the mountains themselves. I still airbrush the land beneath it as well.