[Award Winner] Saderan – a tutorial

[LonewandererD]

Hey Tear, great tut.

Been trying to give it a go but i'm stuck on the forests. I've searched through my brushes and I can't seem to find one labelled "Spatter", where is it? Also, i've added the layer effects i'm supposed to add for the forests but my forests are turning out all faded and "smokey", what could i be doing wrong? Is it becuase I have a lighter land colour? I've included a pic to show what i'm talking about.

*EDIT: Please disregard this message, i solved my own problem.

-D-

[Coyotemax]

Depending on the memory in your system, you may want to be careful with the patterns loaded - each one gets loaded into memory as you go and can slow you down after awhile. You can clear ones out you don't need by using the Preset manager (it's become my friend lately). that having been said, the builtin patterns are usually ok, it's when you end up with a set of 50 or so patterns at 1024x1024 that you might notice

[terminal]

After working on a 25,000 by 12,500 world map I think I am now a master of waiting for Photoshop. It was making Scratch disks 10 gig big. Quite disturbing seeing all my hard disk spacing being warped away.

But thats a good advice especially if you're working with large maps and are already having to deal with huge load times and process times.

[JDCt]

The tutorial looks nicely laid out and well done. Looking forward to giving it a try!

[Steel General]

I think it looks pretty good, especially for a first run through.

[BernieB]

Did a quick glance over and can tell this will help me endlessly in my campaign to build my first map. Many thanks for taking the time to make it, share it, and helping us newbs out.

[redleg7]

Exceptional tutorial!

Thanks.

My first run through was painless, not to mention I learned techniques that I can apply elsewhere.

A GIMP version would be nice.

Quick question:
Can I use a premade shape as my continent instead of generating a random one?

1. Create the alpha channel using my original shape which looks like the "copy merged" pic in the tut (white land mass on black background).
2. Create the land mass layer by stripping away the black background leaving only the white land mass.
3. Create the layer background by rendering clouds.

The only issue I have is the paint layer, which I have no clue how to generate for a shape that is already made. It seems like that step if used to create a random map.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[BernieB]

I'm a bit stuck/confused. On the bottom of page 5, it calls to add a new layer and name it "ocean elevation". Am I still using the Alpha 1 selection with the expand and feathered? Or am I using the entire layer? From the pic on page 6 it looks like the entire layer, but the layer mask is colored black and nowhere does it say to fill the layer mask. I'm probably misreading, or missing something, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[BernieB]

Answered my own question. Fill the layer mask with black and all is well.

[Tear]

Tanks everyone.

@redleg7: If you use your own land shape I'd recommend selecting the cloud pattern on the background layer and using Image > Adjustments > Levels... and set the Output Levels to 0/128 to start out with. The "paint layer" itself is entirely hand painted in this tutorial. Just paint with a low-opacity soft black brush in the deeper ocean areas until the deepest parts are completely black. You can also use a low-opacity soft white brush to lighten up some coastal areas. As long as you try to keep a balance between not looking too random and not too uniform you should be good to go.