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Thread: Making Fractal lines in GIMP

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  1. #1

    Post Making Fractal lines in GIMP, Photoshop, or PaintNET

    I'm looking for some sort of tool for GIMP, Photoshop, or PaintNET (that last one is unlikely) that will allow me to make a randomized line or perhaps even a randomized shape that looks like topography. I created a map in Fractal Mapper 8 (seen here) that utilizes these sorts of tools which was great for my concept, but actually making it look pretty is something the program is not very good at.

    Ideally I want to make the borders glow (like this) as well, but I'm also going to need to put rivers on the map as well as make other modifications. I took a look at the GIMP tutorials, but none of them mentioned a randomized line tool like what I need.
    Last edited by Cool as a Cucumber; 07-12-2009 at 04:26 PM.

  2. #2
    Community Leader Gandwarf's Avatar
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    So I can't actually help you... but welcome to the Guild. And your name rocks
    Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.

    Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gandwarf View Post
    So I can't actually help you... but welcome to the Guild. And your name rocks
    Well since you liked my name so much I went ahead and put on my avatar too.

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    Community Leader Gandwarf's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cool as a Cucumber View Post
    Well since you liked my name so much I went ahead and put on my avatar too.
    Oh man. Please stay on our forum
    Someone help him!
    Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.

    Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...

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    Administrator Redrobes's Avatar
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    Yeah that avatar is the best. Certainly now that Arcana changed from the Black Metal god... hah.

    Right, well I am no Gimp expert but I think it can render a filter of clouds and then you just do a contrast stretch to black and white and that gets you a random shape. There is also my free app instant Islands which does this sort of thing...

    http://www.viewing.ltd.uk/cgi-bin/vi...nstant_islands

    The brute force way is to create a small - say 32x32 bit of greyscale noise map and then upsample it to 64x64, smooth it slightly and then add a little bit more noise and then upsample to 128x128 and keep repeating that until its big enough. You can tweak it at any stage by hinting it lighter or darker as required.

    In Gimp there is also supposed to be some kind of render random map mode too where it paints the land in green and the sea in blue too. All with one click.

    To glow the border the usual method is to take the land and mega blur it. Then add back in the land again. So get the land in the glow color with sea being the same as the normal land map. Mega blur it and then select just the land from the original and paste over the blurred one at the same coords as it was in before.

  6. #6

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    I'm not sure I quite understand how to glow the borders like you described, but I'm guessing this mega blur thing yields bolder edges than other blurs and I need to use layers and opacity?

    Anyway, pertaining to the terrain stuff, the issue I'm having isn't generating terrain - I'm already able to do that easily with Fractal Mapper 8. It's generating topographic lines (not shapes) for rivers and borders in GIMP or Photoshop.

  7. #7

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    I find it easiest to do rivers in Inkscape, as it is vector based and does have functions like fractalizing lines/shapes.

    There is a tutorial on the site on using fractalize and inkscape to cerate rivers.

    -Rob A>

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  9. #9

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    RobA,

    New User here so forgive any nOOb ignorance.

    I'm really interested in your Fractalize Path Script. I got as far as installing the .scm file into the script directory. I restarted the script server, drew a quick line using the pencil, converted the line to a path. Now is where I'm stuck. I click on the Path tool and then right-click on the selected path - but I'm not getting the dialog box.

    What am I missing? I'm betting it's something really simple. I looked around online for a video but of course all of the videos are for drawing "fractals" not using your script to convert a path to a fractalized line! I mean it sounds really simple - I'm just not seeing it.

    Thanks for the script and thanks to anyone who can provide me with an answer.

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by JingJang View Post
    Now is where I'm stuck. I click on the Path tool and then right-click on the selected path - but I'm not getting the dialog box.
    You need to have the Path Dialog open:
    Name:  paths-dialog.png
Views: 651
Size:  5.5 KB

    and right click on the path in there to get the Path menu.

    This page 2.3.*Paths Dialog describes how to get that dialog open and docked somewhere.

    -Rob A>

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