[Award Winner] Eriond - A Tutorial for GIMP & Wilbur

[arsheesh]

Hi arsheesh
thanks for taking the time to reply and to explain

Yes, I did run the Incise Flow filter. I do not worry about those "rivers in the oceans" - ist rather the lack of rivers on the continents worrying me ..
As you might see from the attached image, I created riverbeds by coloring the landscapes accordingly dark .. do I need to correct this?



Thanks and Kind regards,
Kai

Ah, I see, I wasn't sure if you had run the incise filter yet. OK, well as Thorf has pointed out, you do need to run a fill basins operation just prior to running incise flow. Like Thorf I then add percentage noise (though I typically use 4-5%) and then fill basins again prior to the incise flow. Have you tried doing this?

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[schattentanz]

Yes, I've tried it .. The issue with flattend out basins appears to be: rivers run in straight lines through them ..
I helped myself now by drawing the rivers manually on a separate layer, selecting the negative of the land mass and adding the selection of the rivers to the negative selection. Then I inverted everything and saved it to a channel - tadaa: Rivers Mask

Yet, some questions remain:

Regarding the Mountain Bump Layer:
You say, without it, the mountains would look diminished. I've got an issue with the whole layer (and I guess I'm doing something wrong there, again):
When I use this layer, I get a white hue mountain top on each and every mountain. Since I've got mountains in a desert, snow would just not look credible there ..
So: What am I doing wrong there?

Regarding the Arctic:
You say, after duplicating Arctic 2, you need to apply the Mt Mask. When I apply the Mt Mask, though, upon further duplicating the layer, it won't brighten up the snowy parts anymore, leaving me with a very violet arctic .. I helped myself there by just not applying the Mt Mask - served my purpose .. Yet, I wonder, whether I misinterpreted anything there, too?

Btw.: I just want to stress out once more how incredibly awesome your tutorial is, since it tought me A LOT about the features of Gimp, showing me, what a damn powerful tool Gimp is
Thank you so much for putting it online



Kind regards,
Kai

[Thorf]

Yes, I've tried it .. The issue with flattend out basins appears to be: rivers run in straight lines through them ..

That's where the percentage noise comes in... Adding noise prevents the rivers from running in straight lines, instead making them move in nice random paths through any flat areas. The fill basins you apply after adding noise does not (usually) get rid of the noise fully, so the three action fill basins/percentage noise/fill basins thing should work to randomise your river paths with incise flow.

[arsheesh]

Yes, I've tried it .. The issue with flattend out basins appears to be: rivers run in straight lines through them ..
I helped myself now by drawing the rivers manually on a separate layer, selecting the negative of the land mass and adding the selection of the rivers to the negative selection. Then I inverted everything and saved it to a channel - tadaa: Rivers Mask

Yet, some questions remain:

Regarding the Mountain Bump Layer:
You say, without it, the mountains would look diminished. I've got an issue with the whole layer (and I guess I'm doing something wrong there, again):
When I use this layer, I get a white hue mountain top on each and every mountain. Since I've got mountains in a desert, snow would just not look credible there ..
So: What am I doing wrong there?

Regarding the Arctic:
You say, after duplicating Arctic 2, you need to apply the Mt Mask. When I apply the Mt Mask, though, upon further duplicating the layer, it won't brighten up the snowy parts anymore, leaving me with a very violet arctic .. I helped myself there by just not applying the Mt Mask - served my purpose .. Yet, I wonder, whether I misinterpreted anything there, too?

Btw.: I just want to stress out once more how incredibly awesome your tutorial is, since it tought me A LOT about the features of Gimp, showing me, what a damn powerful tool Gimp is
Thank you so much for putting it online



Kind regards,
Kai

Regarding the issue with having straight rivers, I concur with Thorf's assessment. But it sounds like you've found another workaround. Moving on to Mountain Bump Map layer, the issue you describe may not be due to any mistake on your part; it's just a function of the how the colors have been set on your gradients. One way to resolve this issue is to simply modify a few of the settings on your dessert gradients so that there is less snow (or no snow) on the desert mountains. To do this open up each of your desert gradient dialogues and adjust the control sliders at the bottom right to reduce the white segment (see image below). Next create a new gradient map of the deserts using these revised gradients and then just follow the steps in the "Defining the Climate Zones" section for blending these in with your other climate zones.

Regarding the question about the arctic layer, I think I might have made a mistake here (I will have to go back and check), but what you want to do on the Arctic 3 layer is mask only the mountains so that the Artic 3 layer only affects the rest of the land (otherwise the mountains would just become too washed out). In order to do this you do add the Mt Mask to this layer, but you have to tick the box that says "Invert", otherwise the mask will mask out the land rather than the mountains.

Oh, and thanks, I'm really glad to here the tutorial has been helpful.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[schattentanz]

Hmmm .. even though I completely removed the "snow" from the desert gradients, applying the mountain bump layer still created snow in the desert mountains ..
I helped myself out by blackening out the according parts in the layer mask and by adding/using another "color variant" layer, working the same as in your forest tutorial

Regarding the arctic, I think I basically did, what you described in your last posting, then I just removed a little bit from the layer mask to "bleach out" the grass land intended to become a tundra .. For the pole caps I used a blue/white layer

Since you've been incredibly helpful with replying as well as (and even more so) with your tutorial(s) showing the possibilities of Gimp, I've been able to create a wonderful looking map (see attached) of which I'm actually very proud (it's a fantasy map, so screw any geographical logic ).

Attachment 58550

Now going onwards to details, such as kingdoms' borders, capitals, decorations and stuff



Thanks again for your outstanding support and kind regards,
Kai

[arsheesh]

Glad to help schattentanz! Hmm, for some reason I'm getting an error message when I attempt to view the attachment. I'd love to see what you've come up with though.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[schattentanz]

Hu?

That's odd .. in the preview it still worked ..

Alright, let's have another go:



Hopefully it will work this time ..



Kind regards,
Kai

[arsheesh]

That turned out very well schattentanz. Great work!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Korash]

Well I finally got around to (sort of) follow this tut...and you can see the results below. I did make a few changes: Started with SRTM data and dove into the tut at the Wilbur part. I also found doing the Incise Flow that the Flow Exponent of 6.5 did nothing noticeable, but 0.65 did as shown in the tut. Not sure if it was a typo or due to the size of the work (5072x2720), but I did notice that the lower the exponent the more visible the effect. Anyhoot, The land mass is done, and now I have to populate it

Thanks Arsheesh for the tut and also for just maybe getting my but back behind the DM screen. Following this tut got this old noggin thinking about running stuff again.

BTW, Koodos to anyone who can figure out where this is located on good ol' Earth

[arsheesh]

Well I finally got around to (sort of) follow this tut...and you can see the results below. I did make a few changes: Started with SRTM data and dove into the tut at the Wilbur part. I also found doing the Incise Flow that the Flow Exponent of 6.5 did nothing noticeable, but 0.65 did as shown in the tut. Not sure if it was a typo or due to the size of the work (5072x2720), but I did notice that the lower the exponent the more visible the effect. Anyhoot, The land mass is done, and now I have to populate it

Thanks Arsheesh for the tut and also for just maybe getting my but back behind the DM screen. Following this tut got this old noggin thinking about running stuff again.

BTW, Koodos to anyone who can figure out where this is located on good ol' Earth

Hey sorry for the late reply, somehow I missed this. I've seen a few people who have begun with SRTM data and it's always turned out really well. I'm going to have to give this a try at some point.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh