WIP - The World of Ascadia

[Ascension]

Not sure if this would be overkill but what about adding a lil wiggle into that "stitching"? Would probably make it look like waves on a beach but maybe it might work...just a thought. Looks amazing nonetheless.

[RobA]

I'd have to think about getting in a wiggle... possibly using a distort map...but for now I'll tell you the secret of getting a nice random non-uniform stroke like it has. It was a pretty clever idea I had, if I do say so myself!

1) Create a gradient composed of (somewhat) randomly spaced black and transparent areas. The plan it to check the "use gradient" check when stroking, so this will make up the dashes of the line. I filled a dummy image with black and transparent bands, then made a snaking path around this, then used my sample a gradient along a path script to build the gradient.

2) select the land mass (I grabbed it from a channel I had saved)

3) Toggle quickmask mode.

4) Gaussian blur the quickmask, using a horizontal value twice the size as the vertical value.

5) Threshold the quickmask, setting the black level to 1. This enlarges the selection to the outer edge of the blur.

6) Toggle quickmask off

7) Convert the selection to a path (this smooths it out a bit) and clear the selection.

8 ) Stroke the path using the paintbrush tool, hard edged brush, slight jitter, with "use gradient" checked. Changing the "length" in the use gradient will adjust the dash spacing.

9) repeat from 2 blurring different amounts and different brush scales and gradient length.

-Rob A>

[torstan]

So how did you get it to spread wider E-W than N-S? By using a left right motion blur on your quick mask before using threshold?

[RobA]

In gimp you can specify different horizontal and vertical blur amounts in the gausian blur dialog.

-Rob A>

[torstan]

Of course. I just never do. Thanks for pointing out the obvious! (and for the excellent tips on the coastline strokes)

[RobA]

One more change - how is the water with a mask applied... better?



-Rob A>

[Karro]

Oh yeah, the ocean is tons better this way!

[torstan]

I like it but I'd go finer grained with the mask - at the moment it looks a little like you have mountain range sized super waves!

[RobA]

Almost finished (I think)...

Here is a crop at full scale showing the ocean waves with a smaller mask and a ripple added.

Also - a while back I asked how to depict reefs. I found an old chart reference that shows them as + inside of a boundary, so tried this... thoughts?

I also wanted to depict desert in the SW and wend with a stipple... not 100% sold on it... maybe little dunes might better?

-Rob A>

[jfrazierjr]

Almost finished (I think)...

Here is a crop at full scale showing the ocean waves with a smaller mask and a ripple added.

Also - a while back I asked how to depict reefs. I found an old chart reference that shows them as + inside of a boundary, so tried this... thoughts?

I also wanted to depict desert in the SW and wend with a stipple... not 100% sold on it... maybe little dunes might better?

-Rob A>

I always love it when you post more of this piece... I am not a fan of the plus signs... since you already have the ripples around the reefs, either leave it empty or perhaps a line (squiggly??). The desert is fine, but if you want to go with a mix of dunes and stippling, I think that would be fairly nice, just mask away a section of the stipple and put in a few sandy dunes.