Heh... I am sure YodA will have a GIMP script to do it from a B/W just like the Dungeon generator by the end of the day.
Heh... I am sure YodA will have a GIMP script to do it from a B/W just like the Dungeon generator by the end of the day.
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
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Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
On the Fogdown map, I drew it out by hand in Flash CS/CS2, then imported the vectors into Photoshop CS2 at a pretty high resolution (600dpi). I would strong advise against doing it by hand, unless you have have a lot of time and lot of patience.
If you look around this forum, I've seen a few people have great success with Campaign Cartographer 3.
Another trick is, when working in high res files, cut it up, work on the PSD in pieces, then put it all together when they are lower file sized JPEGs.
Finally, try experimenting with "chunks" of city, and then cut and pasting them in different arrangements. Then go through and cut out the streets.
I'm not in front of my computer with examples, but I hope that helps.
I looked at Fogdown. Good Job.
How did you get the shaping and shadows on the buildings?
I liked the map but wanted to do one myself. Then my smarter\lazy self asked 'can I avoid some of this work?'
That brought me here.
I like the mask thing.
600 dpi or more seems necessary.
Sigurd
That's a nice little tutorial, Jezelf. You should cross post it to the tutorials section!
Bear in mind that in real life, when city space gets compressed, individual buildings tend to develop into blocks containing a number of habitations. The way I see it, making a fantasy city with lots of buildings which looks credible is always going to take a lot of time, particularly if you want to imbue your city with a particular character. I had a play with the Roleplaying city generator and found the results to be pretty blah on their own, and slightly better when played about with an image editor. Unfortunately the image editor won't turn a bad layout into a good one, and it's the layout, density, topography and demographics which are all important factors in making a good city.
No easy answers from me, I'm afraid.
cheers
Ravs
I like the roleplaying city generator. If you haven't check out pyrranadon's? tutorial for using its random results in Photoshop (or Gimp) do so. Its a lot of result for little effort, but it doesn't quite reach the end result I will be content with.
I guess there's a lot of hand work ahead ....
Sigurd
How about this? It's a bit of an attempt with the mosaic plug-in of Gimp with some gradients and bump mapping.
It's all automated so could be scripted. If it looks worth pursuing I'll see if I can refine the technique.
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