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

[Skycast]

Bottom Layer: Black with white where the land should be, and then blurred
Layer 2 (Noise): color does not matter since this is the noise layer. Mode should be overlay
Layer 3 (Clip): White layer with mode set to lighten only.

After your third layer, you then use the levels dialog to remove the solid white and it turns "grey" to black as you slide the output from right to left (whiter to darker). As the white goes down, it will reveal the "clouds" underneath on the grey/black background.

Hope that helps. Goodness knows, I have gotten a lot of practice with this since I got GIMP and this Tut. last week.

Joe

I have still got to be missing something PAINFULLY obvious, I'm following these steps closely and still can't get it to work. I've attached the file, can one of you fellas look at it?

[Skycast]

After goofing around a bit more the only thing I see is that when setting the blend I only see a "LIGHTEN ONLY" option and not just a "LIGHTEN" option. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong there.

[RobA]

Sorry to disappoint you Skycast, but the big issue is that your coastline already has as much "randomness" as you could expect to add with noise. The technique is designed to work with very smooth, general shapes, applying a large blur, and the noise gets added into the area of the blur. In your case, the blur is tiny (5 px or so) and the noise is just not fine enough to show up.

Beyond that, you missed setting the noise layer to overlay blend mode (but it doesn't really help here...)

You might be better off just getting a better detailed map of the area, alternately, Jump ahead to the shoreline section, and use that technique (a small positive, then negative displacement map using the same noise) to add some distortion to the shoreline.

Attached is an updated zip with the layer set how they should be (no real effect, for the reason's stated) along with a new layer I created by taking the blurred coast, thresholding it, then displacement mapping it twice so show what I meant.

[Skycast]

Thanks Rob, I'm a long time CC2/3 user, but GIMP is brand new to me; I'll get there eventually! What post number in your PDF would you suggest I start at then?

[RobA]

I guess I'm not sure exactly what you want to do...

This whole tutorial is based on my efforts to make a nice looking map from a vague idea, without having to draw anything as opposed to mapping based on a well defined area....

What are you hoping to end up with, and what is it for?

-Rob A>

[Skycast]

I'm looking to produce a map similar to the one shown in the tutorial with the colors, textures, etc.

[Thanin]

First off, as everyone else has said, this guide is brilliant. I was a complete Gimp newb, and still probably am, when I started working on these. But now I at least feel comfortable with the software.

Now, Ive been living with this guide for awhile now, using it to work on my maps when Ive had the free time. And Im pretty happy with what Ive done so far. The more complete map isnt finished yet -- Im still goofing around with text, testing things out. But Id like to know what you all think, and if you have the time maybe throw out some suggestions.

The other map is me trying to use this method to produce a more tundra/snow region. So again Id like to hear any feedback, positive or negative. Two of my main concerns are to keep the snow from looking like water and if the tundra/more grassy border is too abrupt.