[Award Winner] Eriond - A Tutorial for GIMP & Wilbur

[arsheesh]

Not perfect but not bad at all for a first attempt. Imagine what this might look like once you are more familiar with the techniques.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Candacis]

Tried doing this in Photoshop CS6... It ended up not going well

The Mountain Difference Cloud layer is near impossible to make
The Masking options are different and as a result the masking portions don't work... which is a lot of it. I got to trying to sculp mountains and I couldn't get it to look well.
I'm pretty sure the Land type layers would work, but from what I have seen GIMP's airbrush is better or something about Photoshop is making it hard to get it right.

I just started this tutorial with photoshop. Here is my progress for it:

New Layer, then Filter > Render > Clouds, then on the same layer Filter > Render > Difference Clouds
Repeat this with a second layer. Set the layer mode of the second layer to Linear Dodge. Select all and use Copy Merged, then paste, to get a new layer. Use Invert on it. Set Opacity to 90%, again select all, use copy merged, then paste and you should have a Mountain Clouds layer that is pretty close to the ones made in GIMP.

I used Land Clouds out of GIMP, because I liked them better, but I'm sure you can get a same result in photoshop. I also made 2 land cloud layers and I used a mask on the top land cloud layer. With a soft brush I went over that mask to blend those two land cloud layers together. I just did this for some options regarding my terrain. I liked some stuff in one layer and some in the other.

For the sculpting (after I had cut and placed all my mountains) I used a soft brush (0% hardness) as eraser, 35% opacity, 12px (my image is 4000x2000). I only used this brush for any mountain layers that overlapped each other and needed to be blended. Sometimes I drew a greyish color on the layer underneath, if I erased too much. Then I merged all mountain layers. I also ctrl + left clicked the thumbnail layer image of my map to get a selection of my landmasses, then inverted the selection and used this to delete any mountains on the mountain layer that were over the oceans.
Now I copyied this layer, just for safekeeping.

After that I ctrl + left clicked the thumbnail layer image of my mountain layer and used modify selection > feather (with 5 px), I inverted the selection and deleted that part. Again, I select all mountains, I use modify > contract (with 5 px) to make the selection smaller, I invert it and use modify > feather (5 px), and delete it. After that, you should have a pretty smooth mountain layer. The pixel amount can vary depending on what size your image is. The smaller the image, the smaller your feather amount should be. (I forgot, now would be time to use the gradiation curve, like in the tutorial.)
I use my eraser brush (same settings) to erase any left over weird spots, like all the black spots inside mountains etc.

Now I make a new layer on top of the mountain layer, I set opacity to 60% and layer mode to linear dodge. I use a brush with 33px, 20% hardness, 20% opacity, color: #878787 (or whatever fits your medium map color).
I use the toning brush (the 3rd one) from this set: https://www.deviantart.com/pearlpenc...2014-442921937
But I'm sure the standard photoshop brush is fine enough.
Now I gently paint around the edges of the mountain to make to blend them into their surroundings. At this stage you can sometimes spot some left over hard edges on the mountain layer, so I go over this one last time with the eraser here and there.

That's my progress so far. I'm not sure, if this will even get me a nice result in the later steps of the tutorial, but that's how far I got yet. Here is my result so far:



I'm not sure, if my mountain placement even makes sense and if it is too much or not.

[Azélor]

Are you aware that you've cut the poles?

[Candacis]

What do you mean by that?

[BetterThanNever]

I've been using this tutorial for a while, and I'm loving it. Right now I'm at the gradient-spraying stage.

But not that I've gotten this far, I've noticed a problem with my map. I have way too many basins for my liking. I'll likely make some of them into lakes, but I'd like to add some new elevation to some of them.

I don't really mind if the additions are applied to the Temperate Gradient, I just want to edit the bump map so it fits better, do you know of a way to do this without mucking up my process?

I appreciate any help that I receive!

[Candacis]

So, I figured out what you meant with the poles, I think and put them in:



I don't know how this will look in wilbur or if the placement of the mountains is okay, but that is probably a topic for another thread.

[Azélor]

It's better like that. There is still a black border but it's just a matter of taste.

[Candacis]

Oh, yeah, I left the black border for now, because I probably want to make something there, not sure yet. But, of course, it is not part of the map.
Thanks for the feedback with the poles

[Wertoiuy]

I am working through this tutorial. I have just finished with the Wilbur section, and am starting on the Bump Map section. I couldn't get Wilbur to make a lake in the bottom left valley, so I figured I would add that later.
However, I cannot get GIMP to select just the rivers like he does in the tutorial. If I click towards the bottom of the rivers, it only selects up to that point. If I click further and further up it starts to highlight the entire coast, which I don't want either.
I can clearly tell where there are rivers and where there are not, so how do I get the program to do so?

[arsheesh]

I am working through this tutorial. I have just finished with the Wilbur section, and am starting on the Bump Map section. I couldn't get Wilbur to make a lake in the bottom left valley, so I figured I would add that later.
However, I cannot get GIMP to select just the rivers like he does in the tutorial. If I click towards the bottom of the rivers, it only selects up to that point. If I click further and further up it starts to highlight the entire coast, which I don't want either.
I can clearly tell where there are rivers and where there are not, so how do I get the program to do so?

Yes, this is a problem with the selection method I outlined in the tutorial: it only works up to a certain point. Another method which offers more precision is to create a separate (non-visible) layer which contains only the rivers. When you wish to make a river selection you can make this layer visible and use the select by color tool on the rivers. So how do you get this rivers layer? Well for that you need to load your height map back into wilbur, run "Fill Basins" (Filter > Fill > Fill Basins), and then apply the "River Flow" texture (Texture > Other Maps > River Flow). A popup menu will appear which allows you to select the color of the start and end points of the river (you will want to select dark grey and light grey for these) and adjust, via slider, the river length to be shown. You will also need to select the "Use Solid Background" box (which should be set to black by default). Click "OK" and this will output a Height map of just the rivers. Export this (as a textur .png file) to whatever map folder you are using for this project and then import it as a layer to GIMP. Voila.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh