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

[apothecaryrose]

Running through the new tutorial. Great job adding the new stuff to it! Thank you so much for putting it together

A few things I noticed:

1. Under Redefining the Forest Outline where you bucket fill, you have "BG color fill." I tried that at first but I wasn't getting the noise layer to show up after doing multiply. I switched to FG Bucket Fill and it worked.

2. At the top of page 4, right column, should it be layer fill transparent instead of black?

My troubles

I'm don't know if I'm doing the color variations part right or not. But when I try what is in the tutorial, i'm not really seeing a change in the tree color but I see a change in the ground color under the trees. Any thoughts?

I feel like new tutorial definitely makes the forests blend in better with the use of the individual trees. I think my issue with my current map is that the ground color or the tree colors may not be right for my particular map to have them both mesh together. But I'm a bit lost on where to start to fix that at the moment. I'll have mess around with it.

[arsheesh]

Hi Apothecaryrose, thanks so much for pointing this out. As to your remarks:

1. Yes, this was a typo. It should read "FG Bucket Fill".
2. Yes again, this should read "Transparent".

I've gone ahead and corrected these typos and will upload the corrected Tutorial momentarily. As to the color variation, I think the problem might be either (a), that you don't have the "Trees Outline 2" layer mask turned on for that layer, or, (b) if you do, that you might have been painting on the mask rather than the layer, or (c) you do have the mask turned on, but for some reason it is reverted, masking out the forests rather than the land. Also, given how dark the colors are compared to your last map, I'm suspicious that somewhere in your document you have an "Overlay" or "Soft Light" layer that has been turned on but for which you don't have a layer mask. Hope that is helpful.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[apothecaryrose]

Awesome! Thanks for the tips. Turns out I was painting on the layer mask, and not the layer.

I went through and checked all my layers for ones that might have an "overlay" or a "soft light" with no layer mask. I found one and fixed that but don't think there was a much of a change. Part of the darkness compared to the last map was that I went in an adjusted the levels for my grass layer.

[pete_p]

Hi Arsheesh,
Great tut. Love the results.
I was wondering if there is a PS version of this? I tried to do it and just couldn't get it to work. I couldn't see mention of a PS version in this thread either.
Thanks,
Pete

[arsheesh]

Hiya Pete! I'm pretty sure you could use this method (or something quite similar) within Photoshop. Unfortunately I don't have the program myself and don't know how to make the conversion. If you read back a couple of pages, some folks have posted alternative ways to do things in photoshop though. You might have a look and see if you find anything of use. Also, in my opinion Photoshop actually can make tree shapes much better than the method I've posted here, and it is relatively easy to do just by using various layer styles for your brush presets. Now, unfortunately I don't know how exactly this is done, but you would do something like the following: take a small rotating grunge brush, set the size to random, turn on jitter (try 2-3), add some layer styles (e.g. bevel & emboss, and some kind of grainy texture/pattern overlay). You may even want to set color to random (between various hues of green, green-yellow and or green-brown). Now just paint in the trees. Get enough of them together and they should clump into forests. Again, you will need to play with this tentative set of instructions as I don't know exactly how it works.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Seraphine_Harmonium]

On the threshold layer, I prefer to set the number a bit higher. This makes the large clumps a bit less uniform. There are often gaps this way, which I can either fill in with the tree pattern, or leave open, if I want there to be a clearing there.

EDIT: Sorry, not layer. Just that step in the process.

[Jallorn]

So I'm on "Refining the Forest Outline," but when I blur the Forest Frame layer I don't get anything like what is shown, and it doesn't pan out into a realistic looking forest. Instead, I get the attached. The first is the blur, the second is merged down and thresholded. What am I doing wrong?

[arsheesh]

Hi Jallorn. By the looks of the image you posted, I'd guess that your problem is that when you applied the Gaussian blur to the Forest Frame layer, you applied it to the "Layer Mask" rather than the layer itself. It's an easy mistake to make. To make sure that you apply the Gaussian Blur to the layer, rather than its mask, in your layer dialogue make sure to click on the layer. You should see a white outline surrounding that layer (if the white outline is surrounding the mask, then any actions you take on that layer will apply to the mask rather than the layer). Hope that helps. If that wasn't the problem, let me know and I'll try re-diagnosing the problem.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Jallorn]

I was adding in another layer for some reason. This was just me not following directions correctly I think. Oy do I feel stupid. I'll let you know if this isn't the case, thanks.

Nope, never mind. So I've got the Black Forest Frame with the white filled in where the forest is. Then I set it to multiply and blur it (having deselected my selection), and I get what I showed you. I don't have a mask, so that's not it.

[arsheesh]

Huh, OK, give me a sec to re-read through the tut and I'll post a reply momentarily...

EDIT: OK, I'm looking at the tutorial, and I've got to say that I'm not quite sure what to make of the image you just sent. It looks rather like the underlying "Forest Copy" layer has the "Forest Outline 1" mask on it as well (though I don't know why it would). But that still doesn't explain the lighter gray "halo" affect surrounding it (unless there is a white or gray layer underneath the "Forest Copy" layer). I'm afraid without looking at your .xcf file I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm actually right about to head to bed, but if you feel free PMing me your email address I'll get in touch with you tomorrow and you can send me your file over email. That way I can see what's going on.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh