Which do you prefer?

[Gamerprinter]

Actually, none of these work for me. They all look like a shape with a tiled image of rough terrain on them - they don't look like mountain ranges.

What I mean is, they lack a ridgeline or some other feature to make them more believeable as mountains.

To help explain what I mean, I created this simple mountain range with a distinct ridgeline. I did not create this in GIMP, rather I used Xara Xtreme 4.0, but you should be able to create something like this in GIMP.

Sample mountain ridgeline...

You need something more than just a tiled texture fill.

[RobA]

GP raised a good point..no idea what the scale is.

Are these single ranges (like GP posits with the provided example) or are these mountain "fields" like this sat shot of the rockies (note the scale):



-Rob A>

[Gamerprinter]

Even as a mountain "field" such as the Rockies or Himalayas, there is still a natural geographic pattern, flow and direction - even with mountain ranges back to back.

I can agree that some of the Rockies terrain reflect the random undulations of mountains in Jfrazierjr's sample, still there are distinct ranges with ridgelines in RobA's sample map.

I'm not trying to criticize so much as to give example of what I feel your mountains need to be more convincing, that's all.

[jfrazierjr]

Actually, none of these work for me. They all look like a shape with a tiled image of rough terrain on them - they don't look like mountain ranges.

What I mean is, they lack a ridgeline or some other feature to make them more believeable as mountains.

Heh... thats why I am playing around. The first screen shot is a rather simplistic attempt at creating a somewhat a of ridge line on multiple mountain ranges from a fairly high altitude WHILE still conveying the intent that they are still mountains. The scale is somewhat less than earth satellite and higher than standard aerial photography. The intent is to somewhat stylistically depict a range of mountains of some amorphous general shape. Just as a reference, let's say this map is 600 miles wide, but my goal is to create mountains that look like they may be mountains from a continent scale without spending hours and hours doing so. At this point, I am limiting myself to learning GIMP, but would be willing to use any software as long as it's free for future endeavors.

This is one of the issues with large scale mapping in between artistic (hand draw, orthogonal type) and satellite styles. Looking at satellite images of several continents, you really, truly cannot know where mountains lay except for the snow covered peaks unless you actually know where they are, so I am trying to find something in between to signify to the viewer that "hey, these are where the mountains are and there are lots of mountains in this range". Based on the presumed scale of this particular map, there "should" be forest colors visible, but again I just wanted more of the general idea that there were mountains here as the main thought.

Your comments AND criticisms are both welcome. As I said, I am just playing around trying to come up with something quick and easy that fits this criteria and of course, would be more than willing to try something else if someone has suggestions while using GIMP.

For the record, I tend to prefer #1 as this to me gives the illusion of ridge lines AND semi random peak/valley formations.

Oh, and how do the rivers look? I just got a tablet and started playing with it yesterday and it's taking some getting used to.

Joe