Making Fractal lines in GIMP

[Cool as a Cucumber]

As I understand it, he is also trying to do a 3rd thing:

3. Create a single, non-looping randomized, fractal-style line to represent a river on the continent he's already created in FM.

I would think you could use the cloud filters for this purpose as well, though it might be more trouble than it's worth. You could probably adapt some of the techniques used in RobA's various GIMP tutorials to do this (there's one that he uses to create a very stark, randomized black line on a cloud filter that could probably be used, but I'm not sure how practical it would be). However, the learning curve to do so in GIMP might be sufficiently steep that it could be better to draw the rivers in by hand.

Yeah, what this guy said. I guess I'm just going to have to do the rivers in Fractal Mapper.

[Hai-Etlik]

Yeah, what this guy said. I guess I'm just going to have to do the rivers in Fractal Mapper.

Ah rivers: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...inkscape+river

It's Inkscape rather than The GIMP but that might help.

[jello195]

Yeah, what this guy said. I guess I'm just going to have to do the rivers in Fractal Mapper.

Well if you are open to using illustrator you can do this:

1. You draw a form vaguely ressembling the shape of whatever you want


2. You select the part want (in this case it's the whole shape) and you go to filter→Distort→Zig Zag, then you set the intensity of the effect (generally you only need a small percentage).

This should give you an altered shape that is more like what you initially wanted


3. You copy/past it in photoshop, there are many options you can choose depending on the result you want. I usually paste it as a path.


4. Then you fix the latest details and stroke the path. Here is an example of a map I made today for a game of D&D using this technique for the room 57-58-59.

[wisemoon]

Yeah, what this guy said. I guess I'm just going to have to do the rivers in Fractal Mapper.

I know I'm responding to an old thread, but in case anyone new checks this thread, I found a random fractal line generator online:
FractalMaker_exp

you can generate lines with varying numbers of segments, change the coordinates of the segment ends (for example, I made a zig-zag line to represent a winding river), etc. When you have a line you like, you can export it as a BMP or JPG file. You could then import that line into GIMP or Photoshop to use as a river.

I haven't yet tried the Inkscape fractalized line method, but I figure this is a quick fix for those who want a reasonably randomized, fractal river but aren't too terribly OCD about the details.
--wisemoon