STEP THREE: The Sea
The tile-laying process I described in step two easily works for all other aspects of the map. The sea could be created by simply creating a rectangular selection with the Marquee Tool, then running that same process (i.e., Action) with blue tiles. But my vision for the map is for the water tiles to be circular, which is basically the same thing, but with circles.
So first I create a new layer on top of all others, entitled "Sea". Then, I'll use the Elliptical Marquee tool to select a small circle (hold down Shift for a perfect circle) in the approximate center of the image. I then select a foreground and background blue/blue-green.
Now I must adjust two parts of my Action: 1) since I'm starting small and growing out--the opposite of how I tile filled my landforms--instead of contracting the selections I must Select>Modify>Expand them. 2) I plan to use a slightly larger tile for the sea than I used for the land (20 px. vs. 15 px), so that Expand command is at 15 px. rather than 11 px.
Now I'm ready. Then I run the Action over and over again, and ascending circles of blue tiles appear. I'll keep doing this until the entire screen is filled with blue tiles. [See image 1]
The only hitch I have found with the circles is this: as the circles keep expanding in size, they grow less and less circular, so if I continue using the Action over and over, by the end my circles are oblong or even squared. This imperfection really doesn't matter overly for an image that is intended to resemble tiles laid by the fallible human hand (in fact, I rather like it), but still I have stopped twice and re-Marqueed a perfect circle to "reset" the shape. (If anyone out there in cyberspace knows how to prevent this degeneration, please let me know!!)
Next I move the Sea layer below the land layer, click Layer>Layer Mask>Hide All so the entire sea tile layer is hidden.
Then, in the Paths window, I click on that original land path that I saved, click "Load Path as Selection", then Select>Modify>Expand it by 8 pixels (so the selection is actually surrounding the outermost land tiles).
Finally I Select>Inverse and filled in the sea with white. (I also save this land- surrounding path as a new work path, in case I ever need that again too!)[see Image 2].
(I should note that this "non-destructive" technique of masking tiles was chosen in order to allow me to easily adjust my land tiles later in the process if I so desire. Late in the building/planning stages, for before final rendering when all is set and I am satisfied with my layout, I will rasterize the mask so the tile layer effects work out correctly.)
NEXT UP: The Fancy Border
Reply With Quote