Fumbling through the non-destructive mapmaking tutorial

[ravells]

This frustrating...I was trying to find the original PS file for the tutorial, but all I can find are the screenshots. Never mind, perhaps if I explain the underlying idea behind the sea textures it will be become clearer. The idea is very simply that you want to have two or three textures which are broken up and which seague into each other so that any repeats are hidden and you end up with a more interesting overall texture. This technique is a very common one and easily achieved in a number of ways. The easiest way to get this form of blending is by using a layer mask with clouds. I've attached a zip of a PS file. Note the use of layerstyles in the top layer with a tiling pattern on it (I hope the tiling pattern exports with the PS file if not just use your own pattern fill in the layerstyles). You'll see that in the tutorial I've used the same method of blending for the land layers too.

With the coastlines - forget the jiggle filter and the ocean ripple filter (which is a poor substitute - and the jiggle filter was never brilliant anyway) - use instead Old Guy's tutorial on making crinkly coastlines - it gives you so much more control and a much more 'natural' look and it's fast.

[jelmore]

With the coastlines - forget the jiggle filter and the ocean ripple filter (which is a poor substitute - and the jiggle filter was never brilliant anyway) - use instead Old Guy's tutorial on making crinkly coastlines - it gives you so much more control and a much more 'natural' look and it's fast.

Boy howdy, that is a great tutorial! Thanks for pointing it out!

[jelmore]

And your example of blending patterns works great as well.

So there really is no need for the middle white layer in my walkthrough example, is there? I was curious why that sea had three layers while the other pieces only had two: