Playing with mountains

[RobA]

So... we use, say, notepad, and throw that code into it and save it down as .scm instead of .txt and then put it in the scripts folder? Then it'll be listed in our scripts when we open GIMP again?

Yep. Or just Xtns->Script-fu->Refresh Scripts from the main Gimp window.

-Rob A>

[jfrazierjr]

A bit more....

Joe

[jfrazierjr]

Ok, played with swamps and then added rivers. Ran out of time after I had messed up my rivers, so will go back and redo that later tonight when I get home.

Joe

[Karro]

Okay.... Some changes and updates to the style. This here's going to be an image dump, and some of these are only subtly different than the others.

[Karro]

And a couple few more.







So... I think I'm getting close. I think the second, seventh, and to some degree the eighth are really getting close to what I want.

I need to test out if I can have a forest rolling over the hills and how that will look.

[jfrazierjr]

And a couple few more.







So... I think I'm getting close. I think the second, seventh, and to some degree the eighth are really getting close to what I want.

I need to test out if I can have a forest rolling over the hills and how that will look.

I actually like 5,6 and 8 the best. The others just don't have enough black to give an illusion of depth and look like my first tries in that they look like they just have texture over top.

8 without the underlying hills stuff is the best, you just have to get a good method of getting the hills represented to make it a bit more believable. I really think now that using RobA's method of making mountains with the angular gradient is the basis for the right way to do this for the actual ridgelines. It just needs some extra love and care to make it not quite so "plasticy" and then a good transition to the "hills". I think I ended up using 5 or 6 layers total to get something I liked for my previous posts. I really think that once you get the mountain ridges right and looking somewhat beleivable, then the blending is going to come with some playing.

Joe

[Karro]

I actually like 5,6 and 8 the best. The others just don't have enough black to give an illusion of depth and look like my first tries in that they look like they just have texture over top.

8 without the underlying hills stuff is the best, you just have to get a good method of getting the hills represented to make it a bit more believable. I really think now that using RobA's method of making mountains with the angular gradient is the basis for the right way to do this for the actual ridgelines. It just needs some extra love and care to make it not quite so "plasticy" and then a good transition to the "hills". I think I ended up using 5 or 6 layers total to get something I liked for my previous posts. I really think that once you get the mountain ridges right and looking somewhat beleivable, then the blending is going to come with some playing.

Joe

Yeah, I'm using between eight and ten layers on most of these. I've got a wide, noise bumpmap layer, then a middle-range ridge layer (or two in most cases) that I think is pulling from some of the techniques you described, then I used RobA's angular gradient for the highest peaks. In some cases, I used duplicate bumpmaps with the duplicate on a lower opacity. Then there were a three color layers--a base color layer that's a color gradient on the same noise layer used to make the noise bumpmap, then a color gradient on the base gradient that became the ridges, then a color layer with some faint white where the highest peaks go to represent the perpetual snowline.

I was thinking that 5 and 6 had a little too much black, but I think I can find one that's midway between less black and more black. How's this?

[Karro]

Well... I tried this map technique out with a forest rolling over part of the mountains.

It didn't turn out as well as I'd like. The mountains by themselves look okay, I think. the forest by itself also looks fine. The two together, though, don't seem to work.



then with the color layers in a different order:



Any thoughts on how this might be done better?

[Finis]

What has been working fairly well for me (at least, I like the result) is to use Ascension's technique for trees and kind of brush them on a layer over my base or mid range mountain layer.

However, I kind of reverse the order he shows in his tutorial. first I apply the layer styles to the trees and reduce the fill to zero, then I use the splatter brush to very carefully stroke them on. This gives kind of 'instant feedback' when applying them, rather than painting a bunch on, applying the styles and finding out you went way over board

thats what I did in these (crops from my larger map in my Intro thread)

[torstan]

Karro, you need to have the trees stop half way up the mountain side. There's a tree-line on mountains, above which they don't grow. So it's going to look strange if there's a forest right over the top of your mountain.