15 - [Inner] The Ward of Erahum [Mouse]

[Wingshaw]

Whoa, experiment 3 is awesome! And don't worry about the scale: I think it looks like a pretty plausible scale, overall.

THW

[Mouse]

Oh! Thank you!

Wow! I'm really kind of stuck for words here. I was actually disappointed that it didn't look like yours! LOL!

That means a lot coming from you! Thank you!

EDIT: I guess I might have to draw the entire landscape in GIMP then. Do you guys put those coloured splodges on the side of your map so you can pick the same colours each time you come back to a map? I can't get used to this infinitely variable palette system. Colours are fixed in set palettes in all my other graphic software, but I suppose it makes sense.

Best I go and pick myself some colours then, and carry on

[kacey]

It kills me that you use pre made symbols like in CC3 when you can do things like experiment 3 which looks amazing. You're right about the splodges, I use them so I can get the same colour again, sometimes I forget to do this, and it's almost impossible to pick the exact same colour again so things can start to look inconsistent. There's been many times where I had to do things over because I forgot to save the colour swatch. I really hope you do the whole section this way, it might take longer, but it will be well worth it... I can't wait to see the next update.

[Pixie]

It kills me that you use pre made symbols like in CC3 when you can do things like experiment 3 which looks amazing.

Couldn't have been better said. You draw with such artistry.
Your "experiment" 3 is now my model for the bits of exposed rock that I have planned.

[Mouse]

I've never tried going bigger then 19 by 13 inches because that's the size I print, it's about 5700 by 3900 pixels, and this size seems to do fine on my computer which has 16 gb of ram, but if I get too many layers it definitely starts to lag. I don't see why you couldn't bring you're textures into gimp, what type of files are they? You could probably bring you're symbols in too are they saved as png? You could even make brushes out of them, and stamp them in, I'm sure there's YouTube videos on how to make gimp brushes, and it's not hard to do... And just for fun you should search how to make animated brushes in gimp on YouTube you might be surprised how easy it is to make one. I would only worry because you say you have a low end computer so make sure you save often in case you get too many layers, and it decides to freeze up on you, that happened to me when I was using gimp on my old hp laptop, but it only had 2gb of ram so I'm surprised it worked at all. If you're going to be using gimp allot I would really recommend learning about layer masks YouTube has videos on that too, and it will make you're life so much easier, you could use masks to paint in you're textures, or hide parts of them.

Thanks Kacey

That's quite a lot of really useful information. I was kind of hoping that you wouldn't say it was down to masks, but I guess I will just have to bite the bullet and work out why I don't understand them, since I only have 4GB RAM! Making my own brushes might work. I've seen colour brushes, and I'm sure that I could work out tiny rotating patterns to do stuff like grass and so on

Couldn't have been better said. You draw with such artistry.
Your "experiment" 3 is now my model for the bits of exposed rock that I have planned.

Thanks Pixie

If you're looking for a bit more inspiration that isn't as muddy-coloured as mine, I got my inspiration from THW. The way he did his valley in District 32 (The Jangles) is awe inspiring, and the colours are just gorgeous

[Mouse]

Aw thanks Kacey

You and THW have managed to convince me to do it the experiment 3 way

I'm probably going to do a mix and match map, though, since I'm far more in tune with hills than houses, so I'll do the background in GIMP and export it to CC3 to do all the houses and trees, than take it back to GIMP (moving between them both at exactly the same resolution and size to prevent loss), and see what I can come up with. Having just spent 2 months perfecting my own 150 tree symbol set, I'm not keen on doing it all over again just for the sake of staying in GIMP

Just out of curiosity - what's the biggest GIMP file that you have ever run on a bottom of the range 4 core laptop? The experiment above is actually in Lurkin and not Erahum, which is smaller than Erahum but in its own right it is still 8890 x 9590 pi. Erahum isn't far off 10,000 pi square - if I do it to exactly the same scale as Lurkin.

If I stuck the two halves of District 15+ together to do it all as one map and at the resolution I was working at last night on experiment 3, it would probably be more like 15,000 pi square. I have a feeling that might be a bit too much, even though I only need the 7 layers if I'm just doing the land and not the houses and trees as well, but I don't think it would be worth it at a lower resolution than the one I'm using. I've sort of answered my own question just by chattering on here and thinking out loud about it all, but I'd be interested to know what was the biggest file you or anyone else has ever run on a laptop

[Mouse]

Is there a way of painting in textures in GIMP?

I have all these lovely stone and grass textures I've made for myself to use on this map, and no way of using them right at the moment.

[Rongar]

Is there a way of painting in textures in GIMP?

I have all these lovely stone and grass textures I've made for myself to use on this map, and no way of using them right at the moment.

Sure. I do a lot of texture work in GIMP. There are several ways, I usually open the texture as a new layer placed above the layer I want textured, add a black layer mask to the texture (which renders the layer invisible) and then paint in the mask with white to make the texture appear exactly where I want it. Since those textures are usually about 512x512 seamless, you may have to move the layer around a bit first.

You could also paint your texture into the original layer with the clone tool or bucket fill, but I never do that as that allows for no changes if I change my mind later on. My advice is to always use a separate layer.

If you need further instructions, let me know and I'll try to help. I'm no GIMP professional but I usually get it to work - one way or another.

And since we are complaining about our hardware; I use a dual core CPU from 2008, a graphics chip from 2004 and 3 GB RAM. Ancient hardware. But the GIMP manages. My current project is roughly 6000x5000 with over a 100 layers. Not all of them image size, of course, but still.

Lovely map, by the way. You're really good. I've checked your albums yesterday and was quite impressed with what I saw. I wanted to rep some of your work, but I don't think I was able to. Not in the albums anyway.


Regards,

~~Rongar

[kacey]

I've never tried going bigger then 19 by 13 inches because that's the size I print, it's about 5700 by 3900 pixels, and this size seems to do fine on my computer which has 16 gb of ram, but if I get too many layers it definitely starts to lag. I don't see why you couldn't bring you're textures into gimp, what type of files are they? You could probably bring you're symbols in too are they saved as png? You could even make brushes out of them, and stamp them in, I'm sure there's YouTube videos on how to make gimp brushes, and it's not hard to do... And just for fun you should search how to make animated brushes in gimp on YouTube you might be surprised how easy it is to make one. I would only worry because you say you have a low end computer so make sure you save often in case you get too many layers, and it decides to freeze up on you, that happened to me when I was using gimp on my old hp laptop, but it only had 2gb of ram so I'm surprised it worked at all. If you're going to be using gimp allot I would really recommend learning about layer masks YouTube has videos on that too, and it will make you're life so much easier, you could use masks to paint in you're textures, or hide parts of them.

[Mouse]

I much prefer the way that Krita allows me to use my tablet, but unfortunately Krita doesn't seem to be able to handle the same files I've been using in GIMP, so its going to have to be GIMP. This is just a note for others and for my own future reference:

Krita can't handle files as big as GIMP can, and will simply freeze up if asked to do so