Yeah I didn't bother fixing the dot from a misclick, won't hurt in the end. Thanks; looks like a simple Soft Light filter gets things more in line with what I'm seeing anyway.
So far I don't see anything off except that red dot in the south ocean. I'll have to double check my color hex codes to see if I messed that up (will do that when I get home tonight) but you can always just change them to suit ya cuz we all have different monitor settings. So far so good really.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Yeah I didn't bother fixing the dot from a misclick, won't hurt in the end. Thanks; looks like a simple Soft Light filter gets things more in line with what I'm seeing anyway.
Last edited by Kasonic; 04-15-2009 at 03:54 AM.
In following along in your tutorial, I'm stuck at step 8. You mention to copy this layer but do you mean to duplicate it and name it base? Then in step 9 are you supposed to apply the fill to the base layer and when you do, do you set the fill opacity to 100% and do you preserve transparency? I also need clarification on step 10. I select my brush and put it at 10% transparency. But when I click on the ocean layer to edit it I can only see my strokes in the thumbnails on the layers panel. This is because The solid black and white base layer is blocking everything out.
So what I have been doing is to set the base layer to an opacity level to where I can see what I am doing on the ocean layer. I use the 10% opacity brush on the ocean layer but how do you keep the brush marks from over lapping and building up their opacity?
Then I link the Base and Ocean layer then merge down the base layer. But then the base layer is gone and I'm left with and ocean layer that has all these see thru brush marks on them. Please help. I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I've attached a screen shot of what I'm left with after the merge down.
Also I have been using your file labeled Tutorial6 with Pics.doc
V/r
Eric
Last edited by tmvanatta; 05-02-2009 at 08:54 PM.
You start with one layer called "background" and then render some clouds on it. Duplicate this layer. This will then be called "background copy". Create a new layer, then hit the Edit button at the top of the screen. A menu will pop up so scroll down to where it says "fill". A window pops up and where it says "foreground color" change that to "50% gray". Change the blend mode of this layer to "hard mix" and then rename it to "base". Click back on the "background copy" layer and start painting with the brush. Our low opacity painting will show as black and white changes on the "base" layer. We then copy the "background copy" layer (called background copy 2) and merge the base layer to it.
It looks like you just forgot the 50% gray layer (with a hard mix blend mode) and that's messing things up for you. Hopefully, we've got it straightened out now.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Thank you so much for clearing that up. I thought you meant the Hard mix mode in the pop-up for the fill. I didn't know you still had to change the drop menu that is listed on the Layers menu as well.
Eric
Ascension, I wanted to give thanks for your amazing tutorial. It seems almost criminal to let even the layman like myself be capable of producing a map of this caliber. I can finally get started on my fiction, so I owe you immense thanks!
About the only problem I came into was with the whole erasing mountains part. I had it as specified (20% flow, 300 px brush), and when I tried to erase the mountains I ended up with rather obvious eraser circles. I think it's merely my own noviceness with Photoshop though, playing with the flow down to 10% and adjusting the opacity gave me what I feel like are better results. Do you know if there's any way we can better direct the 'spawning' of mountains in the preliminary stages, rather than rely on their random emergence? Might be more authentic to geographics that mountains go where they please, but I need to establish some mountain chains in my map, and I'm not sure that randomization will suffice. A more specific question is: At what stage could I begin to tweak how Mountains emerge, and what would I do to tweak them to be more/less plentiful, more in one area than another, ect.
I can clearly see why you won the award, and hope you're given all the more for your great efforts!
Last edited by Meloncat; 06-04-2009 at 04:57 AM.
The problem with your erasing is that you are using a hard round brush tip instead of the airbrush tip. I haven't yet begun to start the process of planning where the mtns will end up, so that's why I suggest you use the freeform lasso tool (at the top of the screen set the feather to around 50 px), lasso a nice looking chunk and drag it into a chain somewhere or fill a hole. Oh, and thanks
Last edited by Ascension; 06-04-2009 at 08:45 AM.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
I just wanted to thank you for this brilliant tutorial, Ascension.
Makes mapping for my campaigns a whole lot easier, not to mention that it taught me a couple things about photoshop that I won't very soon forget.
(Edit)
Sorry to bother you, but is there tool to locate a specific spot on the canvas? I'm on step 51, and very much being the photoshop novice, I can't seem to find a way to locate the magic "every 200px" spot short of counting them.
Last edited by EnigmaParadox; 06-12-2009 at 04:47 PM. Reason: Adding a question without making another post
Glad I could help
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps