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Thread: [Award Winner] Making Photo-realistic Trees in GIMP: A Mini-Tut

  1. #21

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    Hello there ProfGremlin, glad you found the tut to be of some use. Hm, you know I haven't actually tried using other brushes besides a hard round brush to stamp on the stragglers. However I set the size of the brush fairly small, .5px I believe, and the jitter fairly high. Then I used somewhat jittery, circular motions to stamp on the trees. While I could detect a slight repeating pattern, both the size and the jitter of the brush helped to minimize it. However if you find in experimenting that other brushes work better for you, fantastic.

    I'll mention a few suggestions. First, instead of using the stamp tool on the outside border of the forests, which, with the jitter turned up will cast trees everywhere, try painting inside the forests themselves. That way, while most of the trees end up underneath the forest (and hence out of view), the jitter effect will ensure that enough trees make it to the outside border. That way, you don't end up with such a clear cut off point between the dense forests, and their sparser edges. Second, I'm not sure but it looks like you've added a drop shadow to the main forest patterns, but haven't done so for the individual trees layer. Adding a drop shadow to the individual trees helps them to blend in more naturally with the forest patterns. Third, I noticed that your main forest patterns have a fairly stark white north-eastern edge. This looks somewhat unnatural and makes it difficult to smoothly integrate individual trees along those edges into the main forest patterns. Now I'm not sure what is causing those edges to be so light, but one way you might try to fix it is to set one of your mid-toned green "Tree Color" layers to Multiply, and then add additional lighter colored yellow and green layers to compensate for the darkness that results.

    I hope that helped, but if you try these tips out and still aren't satisfied, let me know and I'll run through the tun on my own again and see if I can offer you any other suggestions.

    Cheers,
    -Arsheesh

  2. #22
    Guild Member ProfGremlin's Avatar
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    Arsheesh, thanks for all the suggestions. I'm grateful for the help. You're right, I hadn't added the drop shadow for the individual trees. This was due to the fact that the area in the screen shot was only one small part of the map and I had wanted to get individual trees setup around all the forests before adding the drop shadow. As for that stark white line on the northeast edge you mentioned, I've found that it is generated during the trees bump map step. I had changed the azimuth angle to 35 so the shadows of the trees would match those of the mountains. Doing this caused this white line to appear. I was able to mitigate it some by boosting the elevation to 40. The line is still there but somewhat subdued. I also found that compensating for darkening helped.

    I still haven't managed to get my forests looking quite like yours. I think that part of this is due to the scale difference. Your examples in post #9 are 1,134px × 1,074px while my map is 2400 × 3200 pixels. I think this has an effect of how detailed the cloud render is. I'm not really sure, as all this is new to me, but it seems that the smaller the map the more granular the clouds are; while you may zoom out on the topography layer the cloud layer doesn't change hence the forests smooth out. I'm not sure I've explained that at all well.

    I did a fair amount of experimenting with different settings for generating the cloud noise layers. I even tried the Felimage Noise plugin. I think that Felimge Noise has some potential here, at least on larger maps. I need to experiment more with the settings though to generate a better understanding of how to create a more three-dimensional appearance to the forests contours as you've managed to do.

    In order to integrate the forests with my map a bit better I changed the colors around some. This had the effect of no longer matching the colors of the individual trees very well. So, while the shape effect that the individual trees has helped, the color difference takes away from that some. I think I need to figure out how to generate those individual tree patterns. Any suggestions?

    Here's may latest generation doing my best to incorporate your suggestions:

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by ProfGremlin; 09-05-2010 at 01:45 AM. Reason: spelling error

  3. #23

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    Hello again Profgremlin. I've been a bit preoccupied over the weekend but I plan on running through the tut again tomorrow and I'll try to get back to you then with some suggestions then.

  4. #24
    Guild Member ProfGremlin's Avatar
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    Thanks, Arsheesh, I'm grateful for your help. I've been a bit embedded in other directions myself. I have a completely different style of map I've been asked to make so I'll be putting this one on hold for a little bit.

  5. #25
    Guild Member ProfGremlin's Avatar
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    Arsheesh, I'm ready to tackle this project again. Hopefully I can pickup where I left off. In order to integrate my forests with the individual trees I need to create a new pattern for them with colors that match my forests. Do you mind giving me some direction on that? Did you use any particular technique or was it more randomly placing color on the canvas?

  6. #26

    Default Update: Varying the Color of Trees and Forests

    Hello ProfGremli! OK, so, with regard to blending the color of the individual trees with that of the main forests you have at least two options. First, you can alter the color of the trees pattern. Second, you can alter the color of the main forests. Since you asked about how to alter the color of the trees pattern, I'll address that question first. However, before I do, I would also like to mention that since writing this tutorial I have learned that it is a good idea to use a range of colors (e.g. dark Brown, dark green, light green, yellow) within your forests to make them more diverse and lifelike (see the attached image for an example). This means that you will both want to use a range of different colored tree patterns, and create a new "Tree Color" (or alternatively, use an existing tree color layer) in which you paint multiple colors on the same layer (see the second attached image for an example). I'll touch on this more in a minute, but first let's address your question.

    • Altering the Color of Tree Patterns: For the benefit of anyone else reading this, what we are discussing here is how to alter the color of the Tree Patterns which I uploaded in a zip file in an earlier post. Now, assuming that you have copied these files to the patterns folder of GIMP (see earlier posts for details), when you open GIMP the tree patterns should show up within your Patterns Tab (if I'm not mistaken I think I included 3 different colored tree patterns). Right Click on any one of these Tree Patterns and select "Open Pattern As Image". This will open the pattern file for that Tree Pattern. Next, zoom in to about 200% so that you can see the tree patterns in better detail. With the "Select By Color Tool" (Threshold set to 15) select any transparent point of the image (e.g. don't select any of the trees) and invert the selection (Select > Invert). Now all of the individual trees ought to be selected. Next create a new Transparent layer called "New Color". Choose a color from your Foreground/Background Colors that you want to replace the existing color with. Next, with the Bucket Fill Tool, fill the selection of the "New Color Layer" with the new color. Next change the Layer Mode of the "New Color" layer to Hard Light. Duplicate this layer. You should end up with trees that closely approximate the new color you have chosen, though you may need to add additional layers and or experiment with the Layer Modes to get the color just where you want it. Next right click on any of the layer and select "Merge Visible Layers". Finally, rename and save the pattern file. Now, close GIMP, and restart it again, and you should find the new Trees Pattern image has been added to your GIMP patterns.


    • Varying the Color of Your Forests: In the original Tutorial I suggested making three different "Tree Color" layers (Brown, Green and Yellow) all whose Layer Modes were set to "Soft Light". Well, as previously mentioned, I've experimented with forests a bit since writing this Tut and have found that (a) its better to have a variety of layers of different colors each of which is set to different Layer Modes (and at least one of which is a green layer whose Layer Mode is set to "Multiply"), and (b) it's also good to diversify the colors of the forest by adding a variety of different colored tree patterns and by adding a Tree Colors Layer that itself contained a combination of different colors. At this point I've done allot of experimenting but haven't yet developed anything like a standard method for creating forests of varied colors; each time I experiment with a new map I change some things around. Still, to give you an idea of what's involved, below you'll find an example of a forest I created for one of my most recent maps. To achieve the diverse colors within this forest I used at least 3 different Tree Patterns ranging in color from Brown, to Dark Green, to Yellow. I also used 7 different Tree Color Layers. The first Layer was Dark Green (1d2300) and was set to Overlay. The second and third layer were both Green (3b580e), but the Layer Mode of the second was set to "Overlay" while that of the third was set to "Multiply". The fourth layer was a yellow green color (869f30) set to "Soft Light". The fifth layer was a light olive green color (b5b57e) also set to "Soft Light". Finally, I added a multicolored layer. I began by duplicating the yellow-green layer and then painting a dark Rust-Orange over certain parts of the forest, and a light yellow over other parts. Then I added a slight Gaussian Blur to this layer (10px) and set the Layer Mode to "Soft Light". I then duplicated this layer and added a second Gaussian blur (20px) and kept the Layer Mode on "Soft Light" (see the second image below). At any rate, that's how I created "this" forest, but I encourage you to experiment with colors and layer modes to come up with a multicolored forest that suits your own tastes.


    Cheers,
    -Arsheesh
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by arsheesh; 02-24-2011 at 04:59 PM.

  7. #27
    Guild Journeyer Vandy's Avatar
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    Post arsheesh's Turorial available in the "Tutorials in PDF Format" thread

    Hello, All.

    Just wanted to let you know I've linked arsheesh's great tutorial. It is available in the GIMP-Related Tutorials section in Post #2 of the Tutorials in PDF Format thread in the Tutorials/How To forum.

    Enjoy.

    Regards,

    Vandy
    In the end you will see, you is you and me is me.
    © May 29, 1980

  8. #28

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    Thanks Vandy! I appreciate it.

    Cheers,
    -Arsheesh

  9. #29
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    Hello all,

    I am just working through this tutorial in lieu with RobA´s Regional Map Tutorial. What I did to have the Single trees match the main trees: I made the Tree Pattern Black and White and painted below the bump tree layer. When I was finished I first bumped the single tree layer again with itself. Afterwards I created a new mask containing the main forest parts and the single trees and applied that mask to the coloring layers. It is important that the bump tree layer only contains the mask excluding the single trees, otherwise they will simply show up grey. Then I had to tweak the brightness + contrast of the single tree layer just a tiny bit. And now I can apply all the color changes to the single trees and to the bulk trees without any issue and do not have to recreate a pattern whenever I change the color.


    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by ImaTarget; 03-13-2011 at 02:59 PM.

  10. #30

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    Hey thanks for the tip ImaTarget, I hadn't thought of doing it that way but the results look great.

    Cheers,
    -Arsheesh

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