[Award Winner] Making mountains in Gimp using an overlay layer

[torstan]

Now this is a nice start on a mountain ridge - however beware! The shaped(angular) gradient in gimp gives vertical and horizontal striping and the bump mapping can often leave a lip around the edge of a selection - both features you can see in this example. If you just go ahead and use this layer as your overlay layer you'll get something that looks like this:


Now anyone who ends up with something looking like that should be shot. It only takes a couple of steps to get something looking a lot better. I'll show you two different ways to improve this. First, the easiest. Run a gaussian blur on the layer (Filters->Blur->Gaussian blur):


Fiddle with the settings until the preview has no signs of the defects left over from the bump mapping. With your new smooth overlay layer you will now have the much more attractive result:


Note that the gaussian blur has also smoothed out the transition from the shadow to the flt ground. This is great because mountains do generally smooth out before the ground levels off.

Another means of fixing the defects is to manually go in with the smudge tool. This gives you a little more direct control and also allows you to keep the sharp ridge lines. I use the following settings:


Now use the smudge tool by scribbling in lines going back and forth from the ridge to the edge of the mountain shape and back. This will smooth out the defects. I got this from my original bump mapped layer: