June 2017 Challenge: The Hanging Gardens of Magrael

[Mouse]

I struggled for ages to have an idea that wasn't too closely related to any of the existing entries, and this is it:

Magrael (pronounced: Ma-gray-el) is a desert world - not because there are no oceans and no rain (in fact there is plenty of rain), but because it is home to a wide range of herbivores that tend to graze an area bare of vegetation and move on to the next. The reason they have overrun the planet and threaten to destroy all life, including themselves, is because no predators ever evolved on Magrael.

The apes of Magrael never came down out of the trees (which were in any case becoming too rare to support them as they were grazed out of existence) but they moved to the rocks instead, where they evolved the necessary sentience to organise themselves into the kind of cooperative communal groups required to plan and grow the gardens they needed to survive - in places that none of the other herbivores could reach...

Here is the paper to start with.

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[HadrianVI]

This sounds very interesting.

I'm looking forward to see the progress

[Mouse]

Thanks Hadrian

This is going to be my very first entirely GIMP map, so things may go completely wrong because I know a little bit about a lot of things, but not much about everything. At least it should be entertaining!

I've had a bash at sorting out the colour scheme

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[Mouse]

Starting on the bones of the land.

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[AdventureDepot]

Thats a damn fine piece of paper

Oh look a ravaged hamburger in the lower right corner

That latest WIP texture is amazing! do you simply cut from other texture resources to get those cliffs and desert cracks or is there other sorcery?

[Mouse]

LOL! no sorcery, and I was a bit peckish...

The paper texture is one I made for the challenge, and is available in my parchments album (link below). There are 3 versions of the same texture. I think its version 'c' - they grey one anyway. The rock texture is one of the cliff textures from Textures.com, turned into a GIMP pattern fill and used as an overlay, the sandy texture in the valleys is one I made ages ago. That's in my textures album. I think its called red desert - probably the first I ever uploaded, so it will be right at the back of the album by now.

Its all done by carefully playing with the hue, saturation and lightness (and a bit of contrast) to make them meld together as one, and then painting them visible (or invisible) using layer masks.

The shading (pretty rough at the moment) is 2 layers of overlay with black painted on them, and the shadow is another layer with black painted on it, but with multiply mode instead, which gives it that colder 'I am a shadow' feel.

The grass textures are both mine, and I think they are also both available in my textures album. Again there is a layer of solid grass for each texture, and the visibility is painted in and out on a layer mask. Its only there so I could mess with the colours to make everything look right

So the only texture I can't give you is the rock texture, but you can register an account with Textures.com and get it quite easily for yourself if you like the look of it

[AdventureDepot]

you are very informative, thank you. Taking a look at the site!

[XCali]

Nice! I am excited to see the end result.

LOL! no sorcery, and I was a bit peckish...

The paper texture is one I made for the challenge, and is available in my parchments album (link below). There are 3 versions of the same texture. I think its version 'c' - they grey one anyway. The rock texture is one of the cliff textures from Textures.com, turned into a GIMP pattern fill and used as an overlay, the sandy texture in the valleys is one I made ages ago. That's in my textures album. I think its called red desert - probably the first I ever uploaded, so it will be right at the back of the album by now.

Its all done by carefully playing with the hue, saturation and lightness (and a bit of contrast) to make them meld together as one, and then painting them visible (or invisible) using layer masks.

The shading (pretty rough at the moment) is 2 layers of overlay with black painted on them, and the shadow is another layer with black painted on it, but with multiply mode instead, which gives it that colder 'I am a shadow' feel.

The grass textures are both mine, and I think they are also both available in my textures album. Again there is a layer of solid grass for each texture, and the visibility is painted in and out on a layer mask. Its only there so I could mess with the colours to make everything look right

So the only texture I can't give you is the rock texture, but you can register an account with Textures.com and get it quite easily for yourself if you like the look of it

So...um in simple terms, if I understand it right, you used clever shading to make that rock texture look like a mountain?
(Looks great btw!)

[Mouse]

you are very informative, thank you. Taking a look at the site!

Enjoy browsing, the texture in question (if you want the exact same one I used) is in the rough cliffs section... I think.

Nice! I am excited to see the end result.

So...um in simple terms, if I understand it right, you used clever shading to make that rock texture look like a mountain?
(Looks great btw!)

Yes, basically - shading is very powerful stuff. The human brain is easily tricked into seeing a 3D object, when in fact its just a darker patch on a relatively pale background.

The shading on this map is a bit primitive at the moment, but I hope to have time to fine tune it. I'll finish it after the Challenge is over if not

[Mouse]

You know how a map suddenly takes on a will of its own, and you unwittingly head of in an unexpected direction?

No?

Well mine do!

I wanted to do a top down map. I really did! LOL! I could have rescued it by taking it over to CC3 and adding a lot of the top down symbols I've made.

But its all gone rather ISO now

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