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

[arsheesh]

He, he. My wife says these trees look like Broccoli florets. She thinks I ought to rename this tutorial "How to make Broccoli Forests". One other thing I forgot to mention earlier:

• Making room for Rivers: Since I was using a map that already had rivers running through it, I found that after making the shape of the Forests (Step 1.5.d.), I had to go back and paint black over the areas of the white tree shapes where the rivers ran. It's important to do this step before you create the Trees Outline Channel (Step 1.6.). This will save you from having to go back later and do allot of erasing to make room for the rivers. This same tip will of course apply to other geographical features as well. E.g. in the example I gave in my last post, I apparently didn't pay very close attention and allowed the forests to run into the sea. If I had been paying closer attention I could have simply painted black over that portion of the tree shapes to begin with.

[mramshaw]

He, he. My wife says these trees look like Broccoli florets.

She's not too far off ;.} (just kidding). They have a small scaling issue, being as large as your mountains.

But for our purposes (learning) they totally work.

[arsheesh]

They have a small scaling issue, being as large as your mountains.

But for our purposes (learning) they totally work.

Yes this tut was really aimed at beginner level. There is a way to scale the tree patterns down without losing resolution but it is somewhat involved for a "mini" tut. At any rate, let me know if you encounter any other issues.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[MSZ]

Hey Arsheesh,

thanks for your great tutorial. It worked at my first attempt. With this I got a new technique creating forests. From my point of view the most difficult part in a map.

MSZ