[Award Winner] Hand-Drawn Mapping (for the Artistically Challenged)

[yosherl]

Hi Gidde,

thanks for your help. I tought the same but my background is empty, and I tried it now second times.
Attached a screen from my "background".

I'd tried your way. But if I do this is every layer will be merged.
In your tut there is merge except Rivers, base, and background.

May I have another hint?

#yosh

[Gidde]

Hmm ... maybe all your stuff is on your rivers layer. It's gotta be on one of the layers you're hiding. What I'd do is to still merge everything and do the transparency trick - that way you at least haven't lost all the work on your mountains and stuff. Then make a separate layer for rivers and trace over your old ones on the new layer. Then you can do the rivers step with the new layer, but delete it instead of merging it afterwards.

The key is to be really careful with which layer you're on at any given time; I constantly catch myself working on the wrong layer, it's really easy to do.

[yosherl]

I know what you mean, I catch myself doing the same... and not only once. But here... hm?
On all of the layer include exactly that what shoud be on..
Cities - only the few dots.
Roads - The realistic looking roads.
Foreast - The Forest and the shading
Mountains - The Mountains and the shading
Hills - The Hills and the shading
Rivers - my beautiful pink rivers..
Coastline - the first line a drew here..
And last is the background...

The 3 colored areas are already deleted.
Foreast, Hills and Mountains are switched to the multiple mode.

If I hide the Rivers, Coastline and the Background, I cannot see the hills, mountains and the forest. Thats wired.
Only if the background is shown I can see these as well.. But they are not at the background.
really strange -.-

My it be that I've done something wrong with the hills, mnts, forest and with they shaders? Maybe I merged in the wrong direction?
Right:
Forest Shaders -> Foreast
Wrong:
Foreast -> Forest Shaders

?!
Because in you tut you have the ... shaders at the end.
In my try I have the "real layers".

grr, this is pain in the ass!!

#yosh

[Gidde]

Aha! Yosh, you found a bug in the tut! It's because they're on multiply. It's something I changed to solve a problem someone was having and this step should be changed too. I'll fix it later tonight in the actual tut, but this step should have you keep Background visible before the merge, merge and then do the transparency routine i mentioned earlier.

Thanks for helping me figure it out so it could be fixed!

[yosherl]

You're welcome

I would never expect that I could help someone with your knowledge
Unfortunately I have to do the whole tut again because I've no saved map before I've done the merge.
Anyway it's a good exercise for me. Slowly but surely I'm going to be a Pro

#yosh

btw: I have the same issue with the orange roads as you ...

[BernieB]

Gidde,

First of all, many thanks for putting this together. This is helping me immensely in putting together a map for my yet-to-be-started book. lol.

I am having a problems with the rivers though. The script only seems to fill in the first 'river' i draw. Do I have to start a new layer for each river on the map? I tried adding multiple paths to the same layer and then running the script too. No joy. any advice?

Thanks a million

[hohum]

I believe that if you are using RobA's tapered stroke path script it will only do one path at a time. So each river, even each branch has to be done separately. One thing you might take a look at is which path is selected in the paths dialog. You should be able to do as many paths as you want in one layer and then run the script on each one. I just ended up using the ink tool with little to no flow settings and started at 1 and went to 3.5 px or so in 0.5 px gradations to the sea. My map is here for reference.

[Gothmog]

Hey! This tutorial is awesome! Great work! Ive only had one problem though... Ive been able to follow all the steps easily and successfully untill page 31 with the river color. I get confused at this part:

"Switch to the channels dialog and grab the Borders layer as a selection. Switch back to the layers dialog and select
the mask for the River Color layer. Fill the selection with black."

What do you mean with "grab the Borders layer as a selection"? And i get even more confused at

"Now switch back to the channels dialog and pick up the Rivers channel as a selection." Ive looked back a number of times now and i cant find a place where we made a Rivers channel. Im new to all of this so i havent had luck making my own. If you could help i would be forever grateful. Thanks.

[BernieB]

hohum,

Many thanks. will give it a spin. Awesome map, btw.

[hohum]

@ Gothmog: Go to the channels tab, select the Border Channel, Right click and select "Channel to Selection" from the drop down menu. This should give you a selection that covers the border area. You then need to go back to the "River Color Layer", not Channel, make sure you are selecting the "Mask" and fill the selection with Black. Then you should have a "River" Mask in your channels tab. Repeat the right click selection thing. Oh I see now, when you made your rivers layer, Black on white or whatever, all you need to do is select the rivers by color select or however you like and then go to the Select Menu and "Save to Channel" hope that helps.

@ BernieB: Thanks and good luck.