as a side note...I've got to improve my screenshot-fu
Thanks for the tip...I'll try it your way...you did write the tut afterall...so I GUESS you MIGHT know what your talking about...
OH...side side note...I gave you a nod on my OP site. Thanks!
Dlaporte
Hey thanks! BTW, if you want to get a sense of what the difference in methods would be, you can always create duplicates of your current map, keep one the same as it is now, and try my method on the other. Then, before doing any of the fine tuning, simply "Bump map" each copy (following the directions in the tut). This will give you a general idea of what the difference would look like.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Ok...before I go too far into this...take a look and let me know if this is closer to the effect I'm after:
Hm, for some reason those clouds look mighty blurry. I don't know if it's a result of a poor screen shot or if they just are blurry. If they are blurry, then they won't serve well as mountains. Also, my earlier recommendation about going with mt ranges rather than enlarged mt sections was meant to apply to those areas where you needed to cover a large swath of terrain with mountains. In other places you may only need a single rage. The main point was that (assuming you want there to be consistency in mt texture) you want all of the mt shapes to be of roughly the same scale. Hence, rather than enlarging one single mt section to achieve the size you want, for that region it might be best to go with a smaller series of mt ranges. I'm not sure if that was clear or not. Let me know if it didn't make sense.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Maybe the blurriness is a function of scaling the selection down so much. I suppose it's not entirely clear what the scale of the 'clouds' is as it relates to my map. Since this is a world map, my mountains are going to be pretty small on a 1600x800 map. If I'm grabbing large swaths of mountains I've got to scale them down to make sense on my map. Typically, I didn't have to enlarge sections that I grabbed for single ranges. In those cases I would try to make a selection to fit where I wanted it to go...with only minor adjustments to scale. Grabbing larger sections requires more scaling which would account for the discrepancy between the different mountain selections. I think I'm beginning to get a better idea...I think I can experiment with this a bit more and get a decent result.
One thing, I suppose, that adds to the difficulty here, is that I have to rely entirely on the eyball test to measure the relative scale of the selections. I didn't see any numeric representation of the scale of the image as it was being adjusted...am I missing something there? I can see that it gives me a measure of the height and width of the image I'm working with...but that has no relationship to the size of the clouds...especially since I'm not selecting the same size image every time. It might be useful if I had a %value rather than a dimensional value..at least for the purpose of keeping the scaling consistent. In any case...I think eyeballing it will work...other thoughts?
dave
Well, I think in GIMP 2.6 you are right that there is no scale preview window, and no scale % value option. Now I don't know if that's changed in 2.8 or not (I haven't yet made the switch), however I always just eyeball it myself. As to the Blurriness, I'm not certain what's causing it. When you created the cloud patterns, did you set the Detail to Max?
As far as I know I did set the detail all the way up. It's possible I missed that step...but...thinking back on it...I'm pretty sure I set it. Here's a comparison of the scaled down selections with an un-changed selection. Do the larger clouds look blurry to you?
HMMM...I'll fiddle with this a bit and see if I forgot a step somewhere else along the way. If you have any other thoughts I'd appreciate your input. Thanks again!
No, those larger clouds look right to me. Hm, I'm not sure why the smaller one's look blurry though. I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you here. Before you continue though, I would try doing a test run bump map on them just to make sure that they turn out to have the detail you want, before you do a bunch of the sculpting work. If so, good, you can continue unabated. If not, well, I'm out of ideas.
One other observation though, some of these smaller cropped sections look stretched. When you rescale them, do you have the Aspect Ratio locked (see image below)? You want to make sure that the aspect ratio is locked, so that when you type in the dimensions for width (or length) GIMP will automatically adjust the length (or width) to reserve the same ratio of the original scale. If the aspect raito is unlocked, then you will have to enter the new dimensions into both the height and the width fields, and, unless you are doing the math here, you could get the dimensions wrong, leading to stretched images.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
hmmm...I will check the aspect ratio...I think that it must default to 'unlocked.' Definitely have NOT been locking the ratio...maybe the stretching accounts for the blurred look???? I'll make that change and see what difference it makes. I HAD been adjusting the scale by selecting the scale layer tool and then grabbing the edges of the image and 'eyballing' it that way, rather than typing numbers into the appropriate fields. Perhaps this is the problem
Now...bump map? I haven't got that far in the tutorial yet...can I just look ahead to figure out how to do it? I'm sure it's something simple...but being such a rookie it's all greek (or New Zealandish) to me
Ah. Yes, the way that you were scaling the layers might just account for their blurriness. Try it the other way and see if it works out better.
As to the bump map, duplicate one of your mt layers and name it "Test Bumps" (so as to distinguish it from the real mts), then, on that layer, go to:
Filter > Map > Bump Map (Bump Map: Test Bumps (if you don't specify this it will default to bump mapping the top layer) elevation: 30; depth: 30)
cheers,
-Arsheesh
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