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  1. #1
    Community Leader jfrazierjr's Avatar
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    Post Random mapping fun

    B/W fun... Nothing real, but playing with GIMP and various tools/settings.

    I am going to finish this probably early next week sometime...
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  2. #2
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    Interesting, so far. I look forward to seeing more. How did you do what you've got so far?

    I wish I could say I was going to "finish something next week".... but I have no more than 2 hours a week to work on mapping

    Anyway, good luck.
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  3. #3
    Community Leader jfrazierjr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Karro View Post
    Interesting, so far. I look forward to seeing more. How did you do what you've got so far?

    I wish I could say I was going to "finish something next week".... but I have no more than 2 hours a week to work on mapping

    Anyway, good luck.
    Pretty much followed the tutorial on Santhria.com. Steps so far :

    • New image
    • Image->Mode->Greyscale
    • Grey background(70% or so)
    • New layer
    • Trace outline in around 70% grey or whatever other way you want to generate a land mass
    • Big airbrush around 30% grey (mostly white) making sure to go OUTSIDE the landmass lines a bit
    • Select the Landmasses
    • Save channel
    • New Layer
    • the Tutorial said to Airbrush (60% grey) manually the outlines to get the "inner" areas dark around the outline of the shore, but being lazy, I stroked the Selection with the Airbrush several times with a bit of jitter and Brush dynamics turned on.
    • Smudge the lines toward the inside of the landmass somewhat randomly to get some color variation.
    • Apply a layer mask if the layer with the stroke went outside the lines (into the sea part)


    Next up is mountains... Perhaps Saturday night.
    My Finished Maps
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    My Tutorials:
    Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
    How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
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  4. #4
    Community Leader jfrazierjr's Avatar
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    OK.. here is an update.. Not really sure I dig the mountains... but wanna get some opinions before I do more mountains... Might try ISO style mountains in the next day or three on a copy of my xcf file.
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    My Finished Maps
    Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
    My Tutorials:
    Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
    How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

  5. #5
    Community Leader Facebook Connected torstan's Avatar
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    I'd be interested to see what that looks like with the black lines exchanged for white. At the moment the black lines are a little too dominant.

  6. #6
    Community Leader jfrazierjr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by torstan View Post
    I'd be interested to see what that looks like with the black lines exchanged for white. At the moment the black lines are a little too dominant.

    Hmmm .... not sure what you mean. Anyway... I played around and made some more painterly looking mountains. Big pain in ass and took way too long a time, but very nice looking I think.
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    My Finished Maps
    Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
    My Tutorials:
    Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
    How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

  7. #7
    Community Leader NeonKnight's Avatar
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    It is indeed interesting.
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  8. #8
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    I like the painterly mountains Joe - reminds me of something from a Ralph Bakshi film.

    Not sure whether they fit the map though, to me eyes the perspective appears 'off' somehow, but that's probably just me.
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  9. #9
    Community Leader jfrazierjr's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steel General View Post
    I like the painterly mountains Joe - reminds me of something from a Ralph Bakshi film.

    Not sure whether they fit the map though, to me eyes the perspective appears 'off' somehow, but that's probably just me.
    Yea... I know what you mean.. I LOVE the mountains by them selves(I need to make some brushes out of them), but I think I made them a bit largish for this map given the "continent" or island type scale. Of course, I really have no set scale as of yet, so perhaps that's just poopooing...

    The only problem with this technique is that it is WAY tiring to both arms and eyes. I zoom in to 400%, etch in my initial shape and some general color on each side and then many minutes of smudging for each mountain. What I really want to figure out is how to do mountains in the style of the Manthria map. I am soooo drooling over that map....oh well... I will keep trying....
    My Finished Maps
    Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
    My Tutorials:
    Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
    How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

  10. #10
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    Wow.. awesome mountains..

    though even if you did have scale, how would you make the perspective work? even if you distorted the landmasses shape, it would still look flat wouldn't it?

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