[Award Winner] Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map

[Isadore]

Thank you. Yes, Im not totally satisfied with the mountains or a few other aspects of this version of the map, but, even though it was a test of my patience, I learned a heck of alot and - in the end - its rewarding and fun!
I deleted a few of the mountain bumpmap copies, they looked sharper before but the shadows were far too steep looking, so it at least looks better than it did. same thing with the forests, their outline was far too crisp and didnt blend well until I went back and removed a bumpmap or two. Ill keep posting any skill progression I make and hopefully I will someday soon be able to help newcomers around this fantastic site!

[Notsonoble]

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4335 this is RobA's mountain tutorial, it really improves the mountains quite a bit... give it a shot...

@RobA do you have the ability to edit posts as old as the first posts in this tut? If so it might be worth adding a link to your mountain tut to that section of this one... It's really good, goes well with the rest of it... and unlike this one, seems to get lost in the sea of posts sometimes...

[RobA]

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4335 this is RobA's mountain tutorial, it really improves the mountains quite a bit... give it a shot...

@RobA do you have the ability to edit posts as old as the first posts in this tut? If so it might be worth adding a link to your mountain tut to that section of this one... It's really good, goes well with the rest of it... and unlike this one, seems to get lost in the sea of posts sometimes...

THanks for the suggestion. I went back and added that link to Post 11: Let there be Mountains!

-Rob A>

[RobA]

The key to representing anything on this type of map is in getting a good height field. I'd suggest a gradient with a profile like:

  _
 / \      _
    \___/

And create a radial gradient with it use a layer of noise as a displacement map source and displace using the radial option. Then add a bit 'o noise on top.

Bump map that and colour it in. Not near a computer so I can't whip up a sample. May be someone can based on my sketchy instructions.

-Rob A>

[Korash]

The key to representing anything on this type of map is in getting a good height field. I'd suggest .......stuff WAYYYY over my head.

-Rob A>

Huh? I think I need to see a visual to understand the application of that morphed hex type thingy.

[RobA]

OK, I put my bad ascii art into a code block so it would not be messed up

-Rob A>

[Karro]

Basically... what I think he's demonstrating is that if you're going to create a bumpmap from a grayscale heightmap to represent a crater, with 50% gray representing ground level, black representing the lowest point and white representing the highest point, you'd basically take a radial gradient... starting from about gray in the middle point, radiate outward slowly to black then ramp back up to white, then ramp back down to gray.

Then he's suggesting throwing some noise into that to break it up a little and make it look natural.*

Finally... bumpmap that using the same mechanism that he uses for mountains, etc. in this tutorial.

*Note: using the displace feature to map the noise to the radial gradient is a little more sophisticated than "throwing some noise on it", and will probably produce better results, but not near GIMP at the moment to experiment with it...

[RobA]

Yeah-

What Karro said

Re: the noise, if you create a nice square layer exactly centered on the basic heightfield, fill it with tileable noise (maybe turbulent), then convert it using the rectangular to polar filter, it can be used as a nice radial displacement map. It will probably also require a bit of 50% grey in the center to hide the pinching.

Attached is a sample overlay, along with a zip of the gradient I used initially.

-Rob A>

[Lewas5372]

I have been working on this for about 12 hours and its my first time with Gimp (Downloaded it for this tutorial). Now its time for bed but I just wanted to show everyone where I'm at. I'm not too happy with the forest but I'm pretty sure I can do better my next go around. I did have to make some adjustments because my mountain was blocking the sun. I think I did a pretty good job making the shadow. Anyway, I hope to work on it more tomorrow. So once again, RobA thank you so much for this wonderful Tutorial.

[Ascension]

Looks good, oh and we all struggle with forests