Reply With QuoteNice map. Thanks for sharing your border technique!
I started writing a tutorial about that a while back for fun. Mostly to find out if I could emulate this style. It's pretty complicated but maybe it could be simpler with layer effect? I don't really know how to use them.
Maybe I could post it here if it's okay with you Freodin ?
Last edited by Azélor; 02-25-2014 at 10:19 PM.
Nice map. Thanks for sharing your border technique!
Certainly. There are various ways to achieve this effect. And, as I said, I fear that my version might be overly complicated... the new one, not the one I already presented here... which does not quite give the results I wanted.Originally Posted by Azelor
Last edited by Freodin; 02-27-2014 at 04:28 PM.
MiniTutorial - first part: the pretty colours, base version. (GIMP 2.8.6 is what I used)
The original maps are done as four colour prints: red, blue, yellow and black. If you limit the use of black for outlines only, that leaves you with a palette of seven colours: three base, three mix of two and one mix of all three.
So we do the same for our digital version.
The existing background layer will stay a pure white for now... this is the paper we are going to print on.
I also created a new layer that will act as a template of my map in solid colours (see the first attachment, you may use it as a base for this tutorial to work on)... this is going to help us draw the borders and such later on. The borders do not have to be precise... especially for coasts and islands they can go over your "exact" borders.
Call it "Colour Template", set it to 50% opacity so that we can see the rest of our work later... and hide it for now. I like to have it sitting just above the rest of my layers, so either create new layers below it, or move it around... or whatever suits you best.
1.
Create a layer filled with one solid base colour - this represents the printing surface covered with paint.
Choose some nice, not too saturated red, blue and yellow for the base... though we can tweak that later to our hearts delight.
Optional:
I like to add some little RGB noise to give some small scale variation to the colour: Filters - Noise - RBG Noise: Independent RGB, red, green and blue set to 0.06.
Also, for some large scale variation, I put a cloud layer over it. Filters - Render - Clouds - Solid Noise. The values will depend on the size and proportions of your map. See to it that the clouds are spread out to proportion and that it isn't to small in scale. For the map presented here, size about 1250x1550, I used x-size 3 and y-size 4. Set the layer mode to "soft light" and the opacity to 50%.
Merge the cloud layer down to the colour layer.
2.
Now we repeat this process for the two other colours. You can name the layers "red", "blue" and "yellow" for simplicity's sake.
Set the layer mode of all three colour layers to multiply and you should be faced with a more or less ugly, greenish-yellowish-brown mess.
Next step is the add a layer mask to put down where our "paint" is going to stick to our printing stone. These layermasks - one for each colour - are going to be, ehm, layered... and sadly we cannot use a stack of layers or layergroup as layermask in GIMP. So we have to build it up.
3.
Create a new layergroup and name it "Mask" or "RedMask" (for whatever colour you are working on). Inside this group, there will be three layers.
The bottommost layer will contain the hatching - call it "hatching". Fill it with one of the (very simple) hatching patterns I attached to this post for your convenience (yes, the tiny black and white dots after the big colourful map). Give it a little spread (Filters - Noise - Spread hor:3 vert:3) and add a gaussian blur of 2. (Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blue hor:2 vert:2).
Create the next layer as solid black. Give it a name like "HereBeHatching" or "HBH" or so. It is going to determine where our hatching will be shown. I keep these two layers separate so I can change them independently if the need arises.
Select any areas that will be completely filled with hatching - for example the ocean, if you are working on the blue mask - and fill it with pure white.
Now the boring and repetetive part is going to start. (Don't worry. With a little practice, it is not that bad.)
4.
Switch drawing colour to solid white, chose the "Paintbrush" tool, chose the "Hardness 50" round brush, set size to about 65 and set "jitter" to 0.3
Create a new layer above the "HBH". This is going to be our work layer to draw in all the hatched borders.
Make the colour template layer active, "Select by Colour" one of the areas that will have hatched borders on this colour plane. Switch the worklayer that we just have created, and "Stroke Selection". Choose "Stroke with a paint tool", "Paintbrush". Invert the selection, delete and merge down the layer.
Repeat this process for each colour that will be represented in this colour print - so if we are working on the "red" print, we need to do this for red, orange, grey-brown and yellow-brown. You can speed up the process a little by selecting all areas that do not share a border. (For example, yellow and green or red and orange in the attached map.)
Set the layermode for the "HBH" layer to "multiply". The image should now be mostly black, with all the hatching showing.
5.
Topmost layer in this layergroup will be the "solid colour borders". Create a new transparent layer, called "SCB".
Change the size of your "paintbrush" to about 20.
Create another transparent work layer above it.
Repeat the process from above: select your area, stroke the selection on the work layer, invert selection, delete, merge down... for each colour involved.
Leave the layer mode at "normal".
The image should now show the hatching and the solid borders in white, and all the rest in black. If there is any colour showing, you have some of your other layers shown, most likely the colour template.
6.
Turn off every layer except the three layers in the layergroup. The image should be pure black and white now, showing only the hatching and the solid borders.
Create a "New from visible" layer. This one is going to be our layermask. Make it active and chose "copy".
Select the relevant colour layer. Add a layer mask and select it. Chose "paste", rightclick on the new layer "Floating Selection (Pasted Layer) that has appered on top of your layer list and "anchor Layer". The layer should have been copied into the layermask.
7. Create a new layergroup, now called "BlueMask" (you get the idea?) and repeat the process from step 3 on. And then do it again for "YellowMask".
Congratulations... the colour layers for our map are done.
Last edited by Freodin; 03-02-2014 at 09:05 AM.
really nice! very similar, if a it earlier period, to what im trying to do with my current project, though with much more convincing hand drawn effects
Thank you!
I think I came very close to my original goal - emulating the style and appearance of the original maps I linked to in the first post. I don't think the effects are so much "hand drawn" as "not overly digital".
I will share some effects in follow up tutorials.
Last edited by Freodin; 02-27-2014 at 03:13 PM.
This is very similar to what I had in mind for my current personal project, including the striped texture, and the execution is quite similar - so either its the most efficient way or we're both time-waters
Also, where did you get that pattern from as I've been looking for something along those lines for ages
Last edited by vorropohaiah; 02-28-2014 at 01:26 AM.
The basic method is always the same... have the pattern, do some kind of mask to define where it shows, put some solid coloured lines above it. It is just a question of what tools to use.
I found my "new" method - described in the longer "mini tutorial" post - to be more efficient.
First, with the Layer Effects method, I have to make an alpha mask of all the areas involved instead of simply selecting them from an easy made template.
Second, it is quicker to just change the brush size for the second (solid border) pass than change all the necessary values in the "Inner Glow" dialogue.
Third, with stroking a path or selection, you can use irregularities - be it a simple jitter or a more complex brush dynamics. (It will get even better when I finally understand how brush dynamics work and what it may or may not do.
The pattern from the post you quoted is rendered in Blender - an open-source 3-D program. Might be a little overkill, but Blender allows you to create all kinds of procedural textures for your objects - and rendering these means I can get finer details than with any pixel program.
But again, I found it too complex. There is so much you can tweak and you have to switch between programs all the time to test your new versions.
The new, GIMP-only method, again presented in the tutorial post, gives almost as good results and is so much easier to do. And there are still ways you can improve on it in GIMP.
Last edited by Freodin; 02-28-2014 at 02:49 AM.
Originally my goal was to replicate this: http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...-workflow1.jpg
So here is what I did to achieve it in photoshop CS3
1- draw the country landmass : name it country or the name of the place. Duplicate it ( name it gradient) and add a mask layer to it.
2- duplicate the layer country (name it black) paint it in black with the pen using the color mode (in order to keep pixel transparency which can be an issue sometime)
3- apply a white inner glow setting to the first black layer : size and the choke about the same size each. The exact size depend on the shape size. Set the opacity to 75-100% and reach (first slidebar under quality) to 100%
4- duplicate the black layer (name it black copy) it serve as a back up
5- create a new layer under black, it's just a dummy layer to pixelize the glow effect (you can call it dummy)
6- merge the first black layer and the dummy. Keep the name dummy.
7- select all of dummy layer and copy it
8- in channel, select the gradient layer (from step 1) channel and paste the pixels of dummy (you can get rid of dummy now if you want). Then you will need to invert the colors of the mask to make it appear properly
9- Stripped pattern layer: Create a new layer on top and apply a striped pattern (preferably black and white) , set it to lighten. You can also use the option to add a pattern in the layer option. I used Schwarzkreuz pattern in my example.
10- Border layer: Create a new layer on top, select the country layer and add a border aligned on the center of the same color. Add the border in edition/border (Border could be named stroke in English, I'm not sure)
Lower the opacity of the layer if necessary. You can apply a small blur effect if you want it to be smoother.
11- and finally add a layer in the bottom that will serve as a background, a pale beige will do and another layer for the water
That's the result but I'm not satisfied with the pattern. It could be better by using a mask layer.
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