Tutorial Progress

[Midgardsormr]

to indicate deltas (deltae? Is this Latin?).

Delta is Greek letter. A river delta is called such because it is triangular in shape, much like the letter.

I think the Greek plural should be deltata, but I know very little Greek, so I can't be sure. In any case, it's a fully Anglicized word, so deltas is correct.

[OneSeventeen]

In any case, it's a fully Anglicized word, so deltas is correct.

Yeah, but "walrus" certainly isn't Latin and "walri" is more fun to say.


117

[RobA]

Looking good 177!

Glad you were able to follow the tutorial with happy results!

If you have any comments, alternate steps, or suggestions, please let me know, as I am (in my spare cycles) cleaning up the tutorial to a more printer friendly version (as opposed to a series of posts).

-Rob A>

[OneSeventeen]

If you have any comments, alternate steps, or suggestions, please let me know, as I am (in my spare cycles) cleaning up the tutorial to a more printer friendly version (as opposed to a series of posts).

One question I do have is about forests. You seem to have achieved a general shadow on the edges of the forests in your example map. My edges are much less definite. While I don't mind so much the look I ended up with, I'm not sure what I did differently from what the tutorial was telling me to do.

You say in the tutorial that you used the same bumps as you'd used for the grass layers and just increased the depth (to get greater shadows). I assumed this meant that you literally used the same bumps layer, which renders the effect you see above. Did you actually just use the same type of bumps as for your grass (as seen through a blurred layer mask like for not-so-random landmasses) to get that shadow, or is what I'm seeing actually just coincidence on your example.

Thanks so much for the, obviously, ton of time you've already put into your tutorial, RobA. Once I feel confident, I may post some stuff about variations on your techniques. I have to nail them down, though. Specifically, I'm thinking of fiddling with your coastline effect.


117

[RobA]

One question I do have is about forests.

I'll take a look when I am hands on the machine with that source file, and my notes (tomorrow).

Specifically, I'm thinking of fiddling with your coastline effect.

Feel free. The coastline line slipped in at the last moment while I was playing with displacement maps, and I happened to like it as a unique alternative to the standard "outer glow" that I see on many maps...

-Rob A>

[OneSeventeen]

So, I just did an experiment and this shows the direction I'm going. I love the randomness of doing a +/-20 displacement. However, I also dislike it (go figure). Basically, I really like how it looks on, for example, the north edge of the larger island in the above pictures and my idea was to try to get that kind of look, but more consistently. Less big random white spots out into the ocean and less stretches of coastline with no waves at all.

So what I did below was take my land mask, grow it three pixels, feather it three pixels and then do a displacement +/- 10. Slightly more uniform. However, this technique is just my first stab at that effect. I'm thinking I might do something along the lines of creating the noise layer based on the land mask... somehow. I just thought I'd put my thinking out there for folks to see.


117

[RobA]

The forest feathering looks better there, too.

Oh -

And I looked up what I did to the forest edges. I applied a Filter->Noise->Spread to the Layer mask to blend in the edges rather than feathering with a blur. This gives a blended edge without the mushiness that feathering causes (imoo).

Here is an enlargement of the layer mask:


-Rob A>