# Cartography Workshop



## Jürgen Hubert

I thought it might be of general interest to start a Cartography Workshop thread - a thread where we can explain techniques we used to create our maps.

I will start with a few techniques of my own - specifically, the techniques I used to create this map. But I want to stress that I am not pretending to show the "one true way" of creating maps - in fact, I am a relative beginner, and I am sure that there are _many_ ways of doing things better! If you have suggestions for improvements, or different ways of doing things, jump right in and tell us about it! This is a _workshop_, not a tutorial, and I want this to be as much for the improvement of my cartography skills as for yours.


But first a few words on the tools I used.

For line drawings - for basic outlines of continents, rivers, mountains etc - I use Inkscape. Inscape is a vector-based graphics program, meaning that if you want to change the map scale later on or move minor details around, you can do so easily without lots of minor editing to prevent weird image artifacts. I also use Inkscape to place the location of cities and similar small details - this allows them to be moved around easily.

For filtering effects - to give the map color details and special effects - I use GIMP, which is a bitmap-based graphics program in the veins of Photoshop, which you might be more familiar with.

Both of these programs are Open Source and freely available for a number of platforms, so you can repeat all of those steps by yourself.

Another tool, while not strictly speaking neccessary, is still something I highly recommend: A graphics tablet. These handy little devices will make drawing lines a _lot_ faster. I recommend a Wacom tablet because they have pressure sensitivity (though you won't need it for what follows, that's still a nifty feature) and because they are simply the best on the market.


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## Jürgen Hubert

I will create a small, simple map as an example for how this can work.

Open up Inkscape. Create a new layer called "Coastlines", and start drawing the outlines of your islands and continents.

If you have trouble coming up with good coastlines - or other terrain features, for that matter - I recommend looking at images from Google Maps. There are plenty of interesting terrain features in this world which can inspire you.

Now draw the continental shelf around your continents and islands on a new layer called "Continental Shelves" - the line where the deep ocean becomes shallower.

Next, create a layer called "Mountains" and draw the _ridges_ of your mountain ranges - the lines where the highest points connect with each other.

Finally, create a layer called "Rivers" and draw some rivers which flow from the mountains to the coastlines. Select them all with Ctrl+A and give them a nice, blue color with Objects->Fill and Stroke: Stroke Paint.

We will add some further details to the map - different vegetation, cities, and so on - but that will do for now. Now export the layers as bitmaps:

Make the "Mountains" and "Rivers" layers invisible and export the rest as "OceansLayer.png".

Make only the "Mountains" layer visible and export it as "MountainsLayer.png".

Make only the "Rivers" layer visible and export it as "RiversLayer.png".


All work steps, as well as a zipped Inkscape file, are included as an attachment in this post.


Coming up next: GIMP-fu!


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## Jürgen Hubert

Now let's paint the ocean!

Load "OceansLayer.png" into GIMP. You'll notice that it looks strange - that's because the entire image with the exception of the lines you have drawn is transparent. To allow for better viewing, create an all-white new layer and place it below the existing layer.

Now create two additional new layers: "Deep Ocean" and "Shallow Ocean". Both must initially be white. Place them on top of the existing layers.

Go to the Background layer (that's what the original layer with the lines should be named like). Select the parts of the map beyond the continental shelves with the Magic Wand. Then go to the Deep Ocean Layer. Change the Foreground Color to a deep blue (I used 0032ff in HTML notation). Use the "Fill" tool with "FG color fill" and "fill whole selection" to paint the selection blue.

Now remove the selection with Select-None. Apply a Gaussian Blur with a radius of 10 px by going to "Filters->Blur->Gaussian Blur" and setting "Horizontal" and "Vertical" to 10 px.

Now add transparency to this layer. Do this via Layer->Transparency->Color to Alpha and choosing white as the color.

Duplicate this layer. Now merge the copied layer with the original one by right-clicking on it in the layer dialog and choosing "Merge Down".

This ensures that you have a gradual blending between the deep ocean and the shallower areas. We will use this technique a lot later on.

Now let's apply some effects:

- Filters->Noise->Scatter HSV with the values 2/3/160/10
- Filters->Generic->Erode
- Filters->Distort->Wind with Wind/Left/Leading/10/10

That's it for the Deep Ocean Layer. Now go to the Background Layer, select the shallow ocean parts, and go to the Shallow Ocean layer. Fill it with a light blue (I used 00afff), deselect, apply a Gaussian Blur as above, and again add transparency, dublicate it and then merge it with the original.

Now apply the following:

- Filters->Noise->Scatter HSV with the values 2/3/160/10
- Filters->Generic->Erode

Now merge the Shallow Ocean and Deep Ocean layers. Duplicate and merge them again to make sure that no transparency remans in the boundary between them.

Now go to the Background layer and select the land areas with the Magic Wand. Press SHIFT to mark more than one land mass. Go to the Oceans layer and delete all land parts by going to Edit->Cut.

Make the white layer at the bottom invisible and save the result as "OceansColor.png". Now you have a nice-looking ocean surrounding your islands!


I will cover some further examples later on, but they follow the same methods - establish basic lines with an Inkscape drawing, and then generate color effects with a variety of GIMP filters. Since I don't actually _draw_ anything with GIMP, I can easily generate a new map with the same effects even if the Inkscape map changes.

Of course, this doesn't mean that there is no room for improvement - far from it! For example, these ocean effects look nice in color and on the screen, but they look ugly and random when you print them out with a b&w printer. And I still haven't come up with a good idea how to make them more printer friendly.

Any suggestions?


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## Jürgen Hubert

Now let's create some mountains!

Load up "MountainsLayer.png" into GIMP.

Again, create a white layer at the bottom to make your efforts easily visible.

To the "Background" layer, apply Layer->Colors->Hute-Saturation with 0/50/0

Duplicate the "Background Layer", then apply a Gaussian Blur with 5 px to the dublicate.
Then create another dublicate, and merge that with the blurred image.
Repeat this step four more times.
Label the resulting layer "Blurred" and make the "Background" layer invisible.

Duplicate the "Blurred" Layer.
Apply "Script-Fu->Shadow->Drop-Shadow" with 5/5/15/Black/80% to "Blurred".
Apply "Filters->Artistic->Oilfy" with 3 px to "Blurred".
Reduce the Transparency of the layer to 50%.

Apply "Gaussian Blur" with 50 px to "Blurred Copy".
Apply "Filters->Artistic->Oilfy" with 10 px to "Blurred".

Merge the "Blurred copy", "Blurred", and "Drop-Shadow" layers.

Now the mountains _look_ good. However, if you want to combine the mountains with other terrain features - such as vegetation - problems will soon become apparent. You can test this by filling the while layer at the bottom with a different color (see attached image).

To be ready for such future changes, create a new, transparent layer called "Foundations".

Go to the combined "Blurred" layer, and apply Layer->Transparency->Alpha to Selection.
Go to the "Foundations" layer and fill the entire selection with white five times.

Now make the white background layer invisible and save the rest as "MountainsColor.png".

And now you can combine the result with the saved "OceansColor.png" - see the result attached to this post. You should place the "OceansColor.png" layer on _top_ of the other layers to avoid any terrain features growing into the ocean!



In general, I like this effect, but some people have cricicized it as too regular. I would also like to know how to make them more "plastic", with better light and shadow effects - and I have no idea how to do glaciers and snow. Any suggestions?


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## Jürgen Hubert

No feedback?

Hmmm...


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## SkidAce

Other than I'm following the thread closely and....WOW!...no, no inputs..../grin


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## jharn

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> No feedback?
> 
> Hmmm...



I am following the tutorials as well.  I am very new to Cartography and so I have been reading and learning.


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## Jürgen Hubert

I'll add some stuff about painting rivers in the evening.

At the moment, I'm trying to think of ways of making good-looking greyscale maps with similar methods - something that will still look nice after you have printed it out.


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## Hand of Evil

Excellent thread


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## Jürgen Hubert

Well, let's move on to rivers.

Load "RiversLayer.png" into GIMP.
Create a white layer and merge the Rivers layer with it.
Apply Gaussian Blur with 2px two times.

Now the "background" of the layer is probably a bit darker than "pure white", and we don't want that. Pick the background color with the "color picker", copy the HTML value of the color, and go to Layer->Transparency->Color to Alpha. Click on the color, and enter the HTML value. Now you should again have a layer that only has the rivers in it and nothing else.

Duplicate the layer and merge the two copies.
Create a Drop Shadow with -2/-2/4/Black/80%

Apply the following to the layer with the river:

Filters->Noise->Spread with 3/3
Filters->Artistic->Softglow with 10/0.75/0.85
Copy this layer _twice_ and merge the three copies.

Now you are finished with the rivers. Save the image as "RiversColor.png"

But don't close the image yet! Instead go to File->Open As Layer and import the other Color images you have created. Move the layers around until you have the following order, from top to bottom:

Oceans
Rivers
Mountains
An empty, white layer.

It starts to look interesting, doesn't it? Save the whole thing as "BackgroundColor.png" - it will be useful in future steps.


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## Jürgen Hubert

Now open Inkscape again. Create a new layer at the bottom named "BackgroundImage". Go to File->Import and load the map image you have just created. Move it around until the lines of the Inkscape map are directly over the bitmap image.

Now you can place new terrain features directly on top of the main map! You can simply put cities, names, or more intricate features on the map with Inkscape and export it together with the background image, without messing up your existing work and having to do it all over again.

But let's first add some vegetation into the background. Create an additional layer called "vegetation". Since this is supposed to be a simple tutorial, we will only two two different types of vegetation - grassy plains and desert.

Simply draw lines on the land areas depending how you want to divide the land into different vegetation zones. Then save this layer together with the Coastline layer (as usual, make all other layers invisible before saving) as "VegetationLayer.png"


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## Jürgen Hubert

Now load "VegetationLayer.png" into GIMP.

Let's start with the plains. Select all areas you intend to be plains with the Magic Wand. Now create a new, all-white layer named "Plains". Go to the new layer and bucket fill the selected area with the color 00f817. Deselect everything and apply a Gaussian Blur with 40 px.

Again, pick the background color with the Color Picker and transform it to Alpha. Duplicate the layer and merge it.

Now apply the following:

Filters->Noise->Scatter HSV with 2/70/160/10
Duplicate the layer.
Apply Filters->Generic->Erode to the duplicate, set its transparency to 50%, and merge it with the original.
Layer->Color->Hue-Saturation with 0/-50/100
Filter->Artistic->Softglow with 10/1.0/1.0
Filter->Distorts->Wind with Wind/Lef/Leading/10/10

That's it for the plains! Looks nice, doesn't it?

Now let's switch to the deserts. Go to the zone outline and select the desert regions with the Magic Wand. Create a new white layer named "Deserts" and bucket fill the selection with ffeb42. As before, deselect everything, apply a Gaussian Blur with 40 px, turn the background color to Alpha, dublicate the layer and merge it again.

Now apply the following:

Filters->Noise->Scatter RGB with 0.2/0.2/0.2/0
Filters->Blur->Motion Blur with Linear/15/135
Duplicate the layer.

Apply to the copy:
Layer->Color->Brightness-Contrast with -100/100
Turn the color _black_ to Alpha.
Erode the layer and unify it with the original.

Now merge the Plains and the Desert layers and save them as "VegetationColor.png".

Then add the other layers - Moutains, Rivers, Oceans - that you have created previously. The vegetation must be _below_ all other layers with the exception of the white background! Now you have a finished Background image - save it under the same name as before, and you can immediately use it under Inkscape!


While I like the general effects, they have several downsides:

- It is hard to get the vegetation zones precisely the size you wanted them to be. Does anyone here have any suggestions for this?

- They don't look good in greyscale, either.

If anyone has any ideas how to cope with these, I am all ears.


Apart from that, I created these effects purely through random experimentation with various filtering effects. If anyone has a better combination of effects - or ideas how to create other vegetation types - please tell the rest of us how you did it!


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## Jürgen Hubert

The rest is almost trivial. Go back to Inkscape again and create four new layers called "City Locations", "City Names", "Place Locations", and "Place Names".

Turn all layers except for the background image invisible. To increase contrast for the city and place locations, turn the Opacity of the background image layer to 70% or so (but be careful, because then you'll have to cycle the image through GIMP again to remove the transparency of the image).

Create two small black circles - one with a black filling, and one without. Copy and paste the first one to the "City Locations layer" to all locations where you want cities. Copy the second one to the "Place Locations layer" to all locations where you want to place unique sites.

Now you only need to label these sites with the Text tool in the City Name and Place Name layers. I recommend using different font sizes to distinguish the two - I used a size 12 font for cities and 10 for place names. Export the image as a png, load it into GIMP, add a blank white layer below it and save it again - and you are done!

And if you want to add new cities or locations, or want to move existing ones around, then you can easily do those changes in Inkscape without altering the background image...


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## gill_smoke

Great Job. You covered the basics, made a good looking map and inspired others to follow of that I'm sure.


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## Hussar

Very, very sweet.  Have you seen the tutorial at Santharia Dreams?  It's for pshop, but, it's pretty good too.


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## Artimidor

As you've mentioned Santharia and Jürgen pointed me to this thread (it's always helpful to learn some other techniques, so thanks for that!), some updates from my side on Santharian map making:

The tutorials on the site are pretty ancient by now (as are my old maps) and I just didn't have the time yet to make a much better tutorial with everything I've learned in the meantime concerning usage of textures etc. But I can give you at least a few glimpses on how things have progressed in Santharia concerning map making.

Personally I prefer handdrawn stuff combined with Photoshop techniques (shadows etc.) and usage of textures plus 3d objects added in. It's a lot of work, but the results are quite satisfying methinks.

As I don't have an advanced tutorial yet, here a some stages of map drawing, which might help you follow the process:

_(Click on images to enlarge. Note that the enlarged versions get pretty large!)_



 



 



 



 

Links to further development stages:
- Stage 5
- Stage 6
- Stage 7
- Stage 8
- Stage 9
- Stage 10
- Stage 11

And the final result looks something like this:

The Manthrian Province

Hope that provides at least a bit of inspiration for aspiring map makers 

Artimidor
Webmaster of the Santharian Dream


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## Hussar

That's some seriously pretty maps.  I've tried your tutorial and found it to be really easy to follow.  My artistic skills are somewhat lacking, but, I've kept trying.  Thanks for that.  And thank you Jurgen for more pointers.


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## Naryt

While this tutorial is AutoRealm specific, it does lend itself to being used in other programs:

http://wiki.autorealm.org/AR/RoyIslandTutorial


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## Berandor

This thread is great! I can't draw maps for my life, but I wish I could, and maybe some day, I'll be able to, thanks to you.


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## Jürgen Hubert

Here's an alternate way of creating mountains. It's probably a good idea if you use a nice, strong primary color as a background for this...

Load the Mountains Layer into GIMP.
Apply a Gaussian Blur with 5px.
Use a Magic Wand with Antialiasing, Feather Edges Radius 10, Select transparent areas, Threshold 10 on the empty parts of the layer.
Select->Invert
Create a new Transparent Layer
Bucket Fill with White on the selected areas.
Select->None
Script-Fu->Shadow->Drop-Shadow: 4/4/15/80
Script-Fu->Shadow->Drop-Shadow: 8/8/15/80

Save the results as usual.


This probably doesn't look as good for color layers, but it seems to be somewhat crisper for b&w maps. I'll investigate b&w effects further when I find the time, but like I said, I can use any suggestions...


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## XCorvis

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Here's an alternate way of creating mountains. It's probably a good idea if you use a nice, strong primary color as a background for this...
> ...
> This probably doesn't look as good for color layers, but it seems to be somewhat crisper for b&w maps. I'll investigate b&w effects further when I find the time, but like I said, I can use any suggestions...




Er, that's actually somewhat nauseating. Ease up on the blur.


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## Jürgen Hubert

Hmmm... How about this as additional steps?


Merge everything and copy twice. Merge the two copies.
Filters->Enhance->Sharpen: 99
Select Regions by Color->Antialiasing, Select transparent areas, Threshold 100
Select->Shrink: 2
Select->Invert
Edit->Cut

I know it's still not ideal, but do you think this works better?


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## XCorvis

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Hmmm... How about this as additional steps?
> ...
> I know it's still not ideal, but do you think this works better?




I'm not fond of the specific graphic you're using, but the basic effect (to keep the shadow fuzzy but the actual object sharp) is the right way to go, IMO. So yes, that's better.


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## Ebonyr

When you build large cities do you draw or detail every building or do you draw them like google maps does? 

I thinking about going with a layout without detailing every building and then only detail large public or special buildings or structures.

Your thoughts please.


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## Jürgen Hubert

Ebonyr said:
			
		

> When you build large cities do you draw or detail every building or do you draw them like google maps does?
> 
> I thinking about going with a layout without detailing every building and then only detail large public or special buildings or structures.
> 
> Your thoughts please.




Unfortunately, I haven't drawn a city map yet, though I plan to do so within the next few months.

At the moment, my intention is to make it pretty basic - a rough layout of the neighborhoods, with the locations of the major throughfares and significant points of interest. Drawing every single building would be far too detailed - the city has more than 1,6 million inhabitants!

But at this point, I would appreciate any advice from people who have done it before.


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## terrainmonkey

hey

I've been following this thread for a while now. about cities, they are very labor and time intensive. the only real reason to do a city for a game is if it is going to be a campaign setting in itself. like the city of Bryest that i designed. it was a setting for a multi level dungeon slavers type campaign, with rival thieves guilds, assassins, and a dark overlord that held the people in an iron grip. the dungeons below the city actually were like a prison, where he would send prisoners into with barely a hope of survival to fight against the denizens of long dead necromancers in the town's history. but that is for another thread. didn't mean to bore you.

Take a look at the city of Bryest, this one took about 12 hours with Corel Draw. now that i know how to actually use the software better, something like this would only take me 2. 

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=163663


Here are some maps to my campaign world that folks might like.
The first is the eastern half of the continent

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f127/terrainmonkey/drakold4.jpg

This is the western half
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f127/terrainmonkey/drakold2a.jpg

and this is the entire setting. http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f127/terrainmonkey/drakkengardall.jpg

this process involved a hand drawn black and white map which was then scanned in and added to with text and color for the terrain features. i tried several different ways to get the maps to come out right, but finally had to break down and draw them by hand and then scan them, because i don't have a stylus just yet. that is one of the next things i get, as it will greatly speed up my map making skills. i'm still a noob compared to several people on these threads.


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## Ebonyr

Most of the cities in my homebrew will be between 10,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. I like the Ptolus city map with every building, but that is really labor intensive. 

I think I going the route of the broad overview showing the major streets and points of interest. I will also do some color coding to show the different districts of each city or town.


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## Jürgen Hubert

Ebonyr said:
			
		

> I think I going the route of the broad overview showing the major streets and points of interest. I will also do some color coding to show the different districts of each city or town.




I'd really like to see some filtering effects that _hint_ at street patterns and buildings without going into detail...


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## full_moon_draw

I done this rough city map some time ago - ok it's very primitive compared to some of the stuff you guys come up with - but the streets were created by a couple of rough street plans used over & over as a "fills" in photo paint 5.

If all you're interested in is a rough layout of the city so that you can "hoof it" when your players reach the city & add detail as you go along - may be this sort of thing will do the trick?

Cheers - FMD


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## Ebonyr

Here is a ci  that I have done by drawing all the buildings. It is time consuming to say the least. This map took me about 4 hours to complete. Yet, I still need to put the street names and develop a city guide showing the major interest points for further adventures.


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## Grum_l

Hi all,

I was asked here to show how I did my forests.

As I said there, I used Photoshop to draw my map. The attached images below show the process of creation.

The image "Wood.jpg" (#1, form left to right) is the finished example. How do we get it?

1. We create a new file in Photoshop and add two additional layers - one for the background and two for the forest (two different greens).
2. The image "Background.jpg" (#2) shows the plains. Its the lowermost layer.
3. "Wood 1.jpg" (#3) and "Wood 2.jpg" (#4) are the two layers above. Each contains a cloud of dots (two different greens).
4. Change the style of each "wood" layer. Add several effects to get a layer style similiar to the images "Wood 1 with effects.jpg" (#5) and "Wood 2 with effects.jpg" (#6).
5. When you look all layers at the same time you see something like "Wood.jpg" (#1).

Because GIMP is used here, I hope it was useful.


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## CRGreathouse

Grum_l said:
			
		

> Hi all,
> 
> I was asked here to show how I did my forests.
> 
> As I said there, I used Photoshop to draw my map. The attached images below show the process of creation.




Cool.  I should post one of my maps if I can dig one up.  I should really make a new one in GIMP -- my last one was made with some cheapo program.


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## Maldin

For those people particularly interested in city maps, I've got a "Guide to RPG Map Making" on my website (far too long to post here) that you might find interesting. Lots of sample maps of different types and styles, as well.
http://melkot.com/mechanics/map-guide.html
I'd be more then happy to answer any questions about that page here.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
================================
Maldin's Greyhawk  http://melkot.com


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## RPMiller

If anyone is interested in additional mapping related tools, examples, tutorials, gaming, or just chatting there is a Cartographer centric forum here: http://forum.cartographersguild.com/

If nothing else, drop in and say hi and look around. We would love to see examples of folks work and since there are members from other forums such as Dunjinni there is a good chance that questions will get answered and free stuff shared.


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## Dykstrav

I just wanted to tell you THANKS for this thread. I've been begging someone to show me how to use Photoshop for years and all I've ever gotten was a suggestion to just start playing around with it and figure it out for myself. You've taught me more about photoshop in one night than dating four animators and two years of film school ever did.

THANK YOU!!!!!


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## kensanata

*Labels*

I wanted to share how I make labels in The Gimp.

 Prepare your image. In my case, I have two layers: Colors, and the ink, produced by scanning two drawings I did. Make sure the Layers dialog is visible.
 Pick the text tool, click somewhere, write text. I used size 5mm and Herculanum as my font. This will create a new layer, the text layer, containing your black text only.
 In the Layers dialog, duplicate it, select the lower copy. Then use Layers / Colors / Invert to turn it white.
 Use Filters / Blur / Gaussian Blur with a large blur radius. I used 15px in both directions.
 The effect will be a very delicate white arround your black text. To make it stronger, I just duplicate the "white font shadow layer" a few times in the Layers dialog. I'm sure there's a better way to do it. 

Result:





(Flickr page)


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## 0-hr

Speaking of trees, how would one go about crafting a forest like the one Chris West did in his excellent "City of Liberty" map? I'm familiar with using photoshop and lots of little green blobs (plus drop shadows, strokes, and bevels) to make forests, but can't manage West's beautiful unified canopy.






Is that just a pre-exisiting texture stroked and shaded? If so, I need to figure out how to create a similar texture from scratch (then of course I need to figure out how to achieve that shading  ).


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## Priest_Sidran

Ebonyr said:
			
		

> Most of the cities in my homebrew will be between 10,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. I like the Ptolus city map with every building, but that is really labor intensive.
> 
> I think I going the route of the broad overview showing the major streets and points of interest. I will also do some color coding to show the different districts of each city or town.




This is a city map I did (though it is a ruined city) I did this in MS Paint, and while it took a while and is not top of the game it was relatively (relatively as in it gave me a headache) easy. It starts with an area of black which you then proceed to plot roads an alley ways into as you desire. It works in the short term for city maps.


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## ZombieButch

Some folks had asked how I made my Foster's Meadow and Western Lands maps in Photoshop. I've posted a quickie on how I created the paper texture backgrounds  over at Zombie Nirvana; I'll have more on how to use them when I start up my Fantasy Cartography podcast.


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## Pbartender

Ebonyr said:
			
		

> When you build large cities do you draw or detail every building or do you draw them like google maps does?
> 
> I thinking about going with a layout without detailing every building and then only detail large public or special buildings or structures.
> 
> Your thoughts please.





			
				Ebonyr said:
			
		

> Most of the cities in my homebrew will be between 10,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. I like the Ptolus city map with every building, but that is really labor intensive.
> 
> I think I going the route of the broad overview showing the major streets and points of interest. I will also do some color coding to show the different districts of each city or town.




Here's a quick city map I recently made for my Iron Heroes campaign.

I started with a white background in Photoshop, and drew in the roads on a new layer in black using the line tool in various widths (setting up a fine grid, and activating the "snap to grid" feature can also be helpful). Solid filled polygons for the town squares and markets.  Then, I just inverted the color of the streets to make it white streets on a white background.  Finally I "stroked" the street layer - 1 pixel wide, black, outside edge.

That gave me nice, outlined city blocks with space between for streets, but without having to define specific buildings.  I left them in black and white for an engraved wood-cut sort of feel, but from there it would be easy enough to fill in the streets and/or city blocks with whatever color or texture you prefer.


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## ZombieButch

Pbartender said:
			
		

> I started with a white background in Photoshop, and drew in the roads on a new layer in black using the line tool in various widths (setting up a fine grid, and activating the "snap to grid" feature can also be helpful). Solid filled polygons for the town squares and markets.  Then, I just inverted the color of the streets to make it white streets on a white background.  Finally I "stroked" the street layer - 1 pixel wide, black, outside edge.




Here's how I'd do the same thing; a little different, same results, with some of the work automated. 

First, I'd make a Solid Color layer filled with white, and fill the layer mask with black. I'd give it a Stroke layer style, with a black stroke set to whatever thickness looked good, and maybe an Inner Shadow to give the buildings a bit of depth. 

Then I'd set the foreground color to white and draw on the layer mask to create the streets; the Line tool set to Fill Pixels would work dandily, but any drawing tool with Anti-Aliasing disabled would work. 

The streets would automatically be both white and stroked (and since it's a Solid Color layer, you can easily change the street color just by double-clicking on the color layer and selecting a different color).

Here's a (very) quick version. The shaky-looking streets were just drawn in by hand via a mouse; I've had a couple of cups of coffee already, so I've got the caffeine jitters! 

Quick city map


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## Pbartender

palehorse said:
			
		

> First, I'd make a Solid Color layer filled with white, and fill the layer mask with black. I'd give it a Stroke layer style, with a black stroke set to whatever thickness looked good, and maybe an Inner Shadow to give the buildings a bit of depth.
> 
> Then I'd set the foreground color to white and draw on the layer mask to create the streets; the Line tool set to Fill Pixels would work dandily, but any drawing tool with Anti-Aliasing disabled would work.




Yeah...  Layer masks are one aspect of PS I haven't messed with much yet.  One of these days, I'll have to start playing around with them.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

I've worked out a neat effect for displaying different countries and regions in different colors, like you often see it on political maps. Unfortunately, I forgot the files I used to create the map on another computer, so you will have to create this from my description alone, with the final image (which I attached) as a result.

First of all, you need to have some sort of line drawing (created with Inkscape or whatever else you use) that includes (a) all coastlines and major lakes and (b) all political boundaries. For our purposes, these lines must be _continuous_ - so if you normally use some sort of dot or broken line pattern for the boundaries of your nations, switch them to continuous lines and then save them in .png or another bitmap format.

Load the bitmap into GIMP. If your bitmap didn't use transparency, convert all the white parts of the line drawing to transparency (with Layer->Transparency->Color to Transparency). Create a new white layer and move it below the other layers. Create a transparent layer named "Color" and move it to the top.

Now pick the "magic want" tool with a threshold of 0 and select a single country with it on the line drawing layer. If you have islands or other non-continuous regions that are part of the same country, also select them by pressing the shift key and selecting them as well with the magic wand.

Enlarge the selection with Selection->Grow: 1 pixel. Now move to the "Color" layer. Select a color that seems appropriate for the country in question, and use the "bucket fill" tool with the "fill entire selection" option. Now the entire country should be painted in the appropriate color.

Repeat the process with all other countries. Select a nice blue tone for the ocean and lake areas, and do the same with them.

Now the entire "Color" layer should be filled. However, it is quite likely that the colors now have a very high saturation - which might be problematic if you want to add text later on. Simply change the transparency of the "Color" layer (in the "Layer" dialog) until you are satisfied - I used a Transparency of 30%.

You may have noticed that the regional borders of my map have a small strip of "brighter", more saturated color. You can get this effect in this way:

Double the "Color" layer and call the new layer "Borders". Switch to it. Use the "Select by Color" tool and set its threshold to 0 - this way, all parts with the same color will be selected and you don't have to fiddle around with the Magic Wand again. Select all oceans and lakes with it and cut them out (with Ctrl-X, although Edit->Cut will do as well).

Now select a single country with the tool, and shrink the selection (with Selection->Shrink, appropriately enough) with a width depending on how large you want your borders to be (5 pixels are appropriate for a map with the same resolution as in the attachment). Cut out the rest of the selection. If the country lies next to the border of the map, be sure to switch off the "Shrink from Boders" option when shrinking the selection. If it still shrinks from the border, this means that your selection does not entirely reach it - in this case, you need to grow the selection by one or more pixels first, and then shrink the selection later by the same amount in addition to the "standard shrinkage".

Repeat the process with the other countries. Fiddle with the transparency of the "Borders" layer until you are satisfied - and you are done! Now you can re-import the image as an additional Inkscape layer - or use it in whatever other ways you can imagine...


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

Thanks to the pointers by Grum_l, I think I have figured out how to do some simple forests.

- Create two new transparent layers. Switch the mode (in the layer dialog) of the upper layer to "dissolve". Pick a dark green color and a large brush (like the Circle (19) brush) and use the "Paintbrush" tool with low Rate and Pressure. You will now paint lots of small dots instead of a continuous stroke.

After you are finished, merge this layer with the other transparent layer, which will result in a layer with dots with a "normal" mode. You should now have something like the first attachment. 

Copy this layer and apply a Gaussian Blur with 3 px to the copy. Merge the layers again, and it should look like the second attachment.

Repeat the same process with a light green color (see the third attachment).

Create a drop shadow under both of the green dotted layers. These should have a displacement of 4/4 and a blur radius of 10.

The result is a nice, two-layered forest - see the fourth attachment. Feel free to experiment with this process, and tell us about the results!



Hmmm... I wonder how well a small ebook on such mapping techniques would sell at RPGNow?


----------



## Ishmayl

Out of everything so far, I really like this forest tutorial the best Jurgen.  That's an excellent way of doing them.  Thanks for the tips.


----------



## ZombieButch

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Hmmm... I wonder how well a small ebook on such mapping techniques would sell at RPGNow?




I'll tell you after it comes out.  

I've been kicking around the idea for one since last month; the plan right now is to do the book in 5 parts. The first part, just covering some of the basics, will be free; the other sections will cover Overland, Towns and Cities, Interiors, and Dungeons. 

I'm also going to record video podcasts of some of the lessons and release them on YouTube and, if I can find some high-volume hosting, on iTunes as well.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

palehorse said:
			
		

> I'll tell you after it comes out.
> 
> I've been kicking around the idea for one since last month; the plan right now is to do the book in 5 parts. The first part, just covering some of the basics, will be free; the other sections will cover Overland, Towns and Cities, Interiors, and Dungeons.




“Fantasy Cartography with Adobe Photoshop”? Hmmm. Well, maybe there's still a market for such a book for those who can't afford Photoshop...


----------



## ZombieButch

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> “Fantasy Cartography with Adobe Photoshop”? Hmmm. Well, maybe there's still a market for such a book for those who can't afford Photoshop...




Actually, Adobe is planning on releasing a free, online version of Photoshop within the next six months, similar to Google's Docs & Spreadsheets. Free is pretty affordable.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

palehorse said:
			
		

> Actually, Adobe is planning on releasing a free, online version of Photoshop within the next six months, similar to Google's Docs & Spreadsheets. Free is pretty affordable.




Unless I can comfortably use it from my computer in my parents' house where I only have a modem connection, I think I will remain sceptical...


----------



## ZombieButch

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Unless I can comfortably use it from my computer in my parents' house where I only have a modem connection, I think I will remain sceptical...




That's cool; not everyone can be the target audience.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

I've figured out a new way of creating mountains.

Load a line drawing of the mountain ridges (as detailed in the earlier tutorials) into GIMP. (First Attachment)

Select the black lines with the "Select by Color" tool. Since line art is probably too small to easily select, just click on the white areas and then use Selection->Invert. Grow the selection by 1 px with Selection->Grow, move to a transparent layer (call it "Baseline"), and bucket fill the selection with a nice, dark gray color. Make the original line art invisible. (Second Attachment)

Copy the Baseline layer and and make it invisible, and apply a Gaussian Blur with 50 px to the copy. Copy the blurred layer again, and apply the "Dissolve" mode to the upper layer. Merge these two layers. (Third Attachment)

Repeat the process (starting from the Baseline layer), but now only apply a Gaussian Blur of 30 px. Do it again with 10 px. Merge the three layers. (Fourth Attachment)

Copy the merged layer. Apply a black Drop Shadow with a Displacement of 8/8, a blur radius of 15, and an opacity of 80% to the upper layer. Apply Filter->Artistic->Oilify with a mask size of 3 to the lower layer. (Fifth Attachment)

That's basically it - but to top it off, let's give the mountain a snow cover. Go to the line art drawing again. Select the white areas with the "Select by Color" tool. Invert the selection and enlarge it by 10 px. Shrink it again by 30 px. Make the line art invisible again and bucket fill the selection on a new, empty layer with white. Chose Selection->None and apply a Gaussian Blur of 15 px. See the Sixth Attachment for the results.

I think that looks better than the earlier attempts, doesn't it?


----------



## Hussar

Sweetness and light guys.  And, Palehorse, let us know when that book comes out.  I'd be interested.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

I've tried out some new ways of creating base terrain. Please tell me what you think.

Fertile Plains:

Fill the area with a not too bright green color (I used 08a653). Create a new layer above it. Fill it with Filters->Render->Clouds->Plasma with a Turbulence of 1. Set the Layer Mode to "Multiply" and set the layer opacity to 50%. (First Attachment)

Deserts:

Fill the area with yellow. Use Skript-Fu->Render->Lava with a Size of 10, a Roughness of 7, and the Default Gradient. (Second Attachment)

Make the black transparent with Layer->Transparency->Color To Alpha. Use Filters->Colors->Colorify to change the color of the remaining bits to a "dirty" orange. (Third Attachment)

Set the Layer Mode to "Dissolve". Use Filters->Distort->Wind with Wind/Left/Leading, a Threshold of 10, and a Strength of 10. Merge the layers. (Fourth Attachment)

What do you think?


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

I redid the mountains and combined them with the plains and desert patterns, but I think I used too dark a gray this time...


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

I've been trying to create a better shift between borders. Here is what I came up with.

You start out with a line drawing of the borders between the different vegetation zones. (First Attachment).

Now create a new layer and call it "Color". Go back to the line art drawing. You can select the different vegetation zones by using the Magic Wand  on the relevant part in the line art drawing and enlarging it by 1 px. I will use the lower areas for a desert zone, and the upper for a plains zone. Whenever I refer to "selecting" a certain zone, I am referring to this procedure.

Select both of the zones in turn, go to the Color layer, and fill them with the primary color (I choose a "lighter", more yellowish tone for the plains so that it won't contrast with the desert areas as much. (Second Attachment)

Go back to the Line Art layer and select the line by selecting the non-line layers with the "Select by Color" tool and inverting the selection. Grow the selection by 15 px. Go to the Color layer and apply a Gaussian blur of 15 px to it. (Third Attachment).

Select the Plains layer and enlarge it by 15 px. Apply the Plasma filter to it as described above. But before you merge the layer with the Color Layer, apply Skript-Fu->Selection->Blend Borders with a border size of 15 px to it. (Fourth Attachment)

Now repeat the same process with the desert layer, and you are done... (Fifth Attachment)


This seems to work well enough, but it has some problems if your region borders the page border - as you can see here. I suppose you will have to first enlarge the picture and then make sure that your vegetation zones extends 15 px beyond the original size...


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

Thanks to Ra-Tiel, I figured out a nifty new trick for scaleable random maps with coastlines and height lines.

First of all, call up this site and create a random map you feel comfortable with. Use higher scales if you want more detail. (First Attachment)

Load the map into GIMP. Now you need to divide the map into clear, distinct colors representing the ocean, ice caps, and different elevations. For the purposes of this tutorial, I will use three different land heights. First, change Image->Mode to RPG - GIF images like these maps have predefined palettes, and if you continue to use them you will not be able to pick your colors freely.

Use the Select by Color tool and pick a low but non-zero tolerance (I used 32). Select an ocean color with it. Then press the SHIFT key and klick on the other ocean colors until you have all ocean areas in your selection. Bucket fill the selection with a nice blue color. Use the same procedure with the ice caps, but fill it with white. (Second Attachment)

Go back to the Select by Color tool and select a lower tolerance (I picked 16). Select the highest elevations and expand from them (you will need to decide for yourself how much of the land masses should be at these elevations). Fill it with a grey color. (Third Attachment)

Select the next lower elevations and fill them with orange. Fill the remaining land masses and fill them with green. (Fourth Attachment)

Now save the image as a PNG file - not as jpg, since we want the colors as crisp as possible and jpegs always have some weird pixelating effects at boundary areas. Load the image into Inkscape. Select the bitmap, and use Path->Trace Path: Multiple Scans with Color and 8 scans.

And now you have a vectorized map with height lines which you can scale as much as you want, and which you can now use further with Inkscape or export as a new map in a different scale. (Fifth Attachment)

There seem to be some sort of weird effects when the colors you picked are too similar to each other. But I am trying to work them out...

Your thoughts?


----------



## industrygothica

I've been following this thread for a bit and taken a couple of tips here and there.  So far this is all I've come up with.  Just a random outline with the pencil tool in Photoshop, and water and land layers with some difference clouds and a little noise added.

I'm having an awful time with mountains.  I prefer the individual mountain look over the top-view ranges.  Any tips?


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

industrygothica said:
			
		

> I've been following this thread for a bit and taken a couple of tips here and there.  So far this is all I've come up with.  Just a random outline with the pencil tool in Photoshop, and water and land layers with some difference clouds and a little noise added.
> 
> I'm having an awful time with mountains.  I prefer the individual mountain look over the top-view ranges.  Any tips?




No filter tricks, I'm afraid - such mountains would probably have to be done by hand, or by creating icons that you can recycle again and again...


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## Jürgen Hubert

I've just discovered a site with _beautiful_ map-making tutorials. They are in German, but I will try to see if I can translate some of their points and show how to do them with GIMP...


----------



## ZombieButch

industrygothica said:
			
		

> I'm having an awful time with mountains.  I prefer the individual mountain look over the top-view ranges.  Any tips?




The short version: 

Well, you could create a custom brush shaped like a mountain, and add a bit of Size and Roundness jitter in the brush engine to vary the sizes. You'd have to watch the overlaps, though, since it's like the mountains wouldn't be a solid color, so you'd have some areas where one edge might run into another. 

Or, you can make a custom pattern the looks like a mountain range, using the Offset filter to make sure it's seamless. Then add a Pattern fill/adjustment layer and switch the blend mode to Multiply. Fill the pattern layer's layer mask with black, then paint white back on the mask to reveal the mountains wherever you want them to appear. 

Or, you could just draw a half dozen mountains (or even use someone elses map with mountains on it that you like) and use the Clone Stamp to duplicate them onto your map; you'd probably need to set the stamp's mode to Multiply while you were at it. 

That's three off the top of my head.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

Another neat trick you can do with forests:

Generate the green dots with the airbrush and the dissolve layer as usual. But before you use the Gaussian Blur and the Drop Shadow on them, create another layer above them and fill it with Filters->Render->Clouds->Plasma, with a Turbulence of 7 and a random seed. Set the layer opacity to 50%, the layer mode to Multiply, and merge the layer. Then follow the usual steps (and follow the same procedure with the other green layer)...


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

And now, an idea for creating swamps:

Select the area you have designated as swampy. Enlarge it by 10 px. Fill it with a dark green color. Set the layer to "Multiply" and the transparency to 50%. Use Skript-Fu->Selection->Blend Borders with 10 px on it. Create a new, transparent layer below it and merge the green layer with it (this way, you will have a "normal" layer instead of a transparent one).

Create a _white_ drop shadow below it with a displacement of 0/0 and a blur radius of 4. Copy that shadow and merge the two to intensify the color. Create a _black_ drop shadow below it with a displacement of 1/1 and a blur radius of 2.

I'm quite pleased with how this looks.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

Here's a new way of doing mountains:

- Create the "base" of the mountain - the area where the mountain soars up from its surrounding area. I used a simple ellipse as the base in this case.

- Use the Script-Fu->Selection->Distress Select script. I used the default settings (Threshold 127, Spread 8, Granularity 4, Smooth 2, Smooth Horizontally & Vertically), though you might want to play around a bit.

- Fill the selection with grey.

- Use Script-Fu->Selection->Fade Outline with 10 px.

- Create a new, transparent layer _below_ the current layer and merge the layers.

- Set the layer mode to "dissolve".

- _Cut_ the current selection.

- Select the inner area with the Magic Wand.

- Repeat the whole process, starting with the Distort Selection script. Repeat it as often as you still have a selection remaining. (First Attachment)

This looks very well for greyscale maps. But how to do it with more colorful maps?

I've come up with the following technique. First, make sure that the individual mountain layers have "Normal" as their layer mode (if neccessary, by using the old technique of creating a transparent layer below them and merging them).

Then create a black drop-shadow for each layer, with the usual 8/8/15 values.

Then put a Gaussian Blur of 5 px on each of the layer. See the second attachment for results.

I think this looks nice, but if someone can thing of an improvement for this process I am all ears...

You should be able to create cliffs in the same way.


----------



## S'mon

I love Arr Kelan's fantastic free hexmapper program:
http://home.paonline.com/zaikoski/ak/TOOLS.HTM

It lets me create & print out professional looking maps (and import/export .bmp files) for both tabletop & pbem play.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

And now a way of creating canyons:

Create a selection with the canyon borders. If neccessary, make the borders irregular with the Distress Selection tool. Fill the selection with black. 

Invert the selection. Use the "Fade Outline" script, but with the "enlarge selection" option and a lesser width (7 or less) - after all, canyon walls tend to be steeper than mountainsides. Right-click on the layer in the layer dialogue, and choose "apply layer mask" (this way you won't have to merge it with another layer...). Switch the layer mode to "destructive". (First attachment)

Create a _white_ drop shadow with a displacement of -4/-4 and a blur radius of 10. Go to the "base" layer, select the parts outside of the canyon with the magic wand, go to the drop shadow, and cut the entire selection (this removes the parts of the shadow outside the canyon). Now create a _black_ drop shadow with a displacement of 4/4 and a blur radius of 10, and again use the same procedure to remove any parts of the shadow outside of the canyon. (Second Attachment)

Your thoughts?


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

Here's another little trick: How to make text stand out from the background.

If you have created the text labels externally (such as with Inkscape), load them into a seperate layer. Otherwise create them locally with GIMP - still using a seperate layer for them.

The black letters are somewhat hard to read on dark background, aren't they? (First attachment)

Even using a different color than black won't neccessarily help, since there are inevitably areas where the text is above relatively bright terrain. So, what to do?

One way is changing the brightness (with Layer->Colors->Brightness-Contrast) of the background terrain so that the background is universally bright. But that means loosing your nice, intense colors. (Second Attachment)

The second way is to create a white "shadow" around the text. First select the text with the "Select by Color" tool. Then put a white drop shadow below it, with a displacement of 0/0 and a blur radius of 20. Copy this drop shadow twice, and merge the copies. (Third attachment)

Much better, isn't it?


EDIT: Whoops, I hadn't noticed that *kensanata* had already covered that...


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

A new way of doing height lines for mountains:

Create a selection for the basic shape of the hill. Go to a transparent layer and fill it with black. (First Attachment)

Use the Script-Fu->Alpha as Logo->Alien Neon script. Use black as the "glow color" and white as the background color. Set the size of the stripes to how far you want your height lines apart. Set the width of the space between stripes to 1 px. The number of stripes represents how many height lines you are going to get. (Second Attachment)

Now apply the layer mask to the layer. Go to the layer with the original black shape (which should be invisble now) and select that shape with the magic wand or "Select by Color" tool. Go back to the "Bands" layer and cut the selection. (Third Attachment)

Optionally, you might wish to change the layer mode to "dissolve". (Fourth Attachment)


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## Jürgen Hubert

Another way of creating plains textures:

- Create a layer with a green background color.

- Create another layer on top of it and fill it Filters->Render->Clouds->Solid Noise. Pick the parameters as you wish.

- Apply Layer->Transparency->Color to Alpha to the layer and pick *black* as the color.

- Apply Filters->Colors->Colorify to the layer and pick a different green than in the background.

- Switch the layer mode to "Dissolve".  Merge it with the Background layer:

- Repeat the process and use a different green and different parameters to bring in some more variety.

- Apply a Gaussian Blur with 5 px to it.


----------



## Hjorimir

Pbartender said:
			
		

> Here's a quick city map I recently made for my Iron Heroes campaign.
> 
> I started with a white background in Photoshop, and drew in the roads on a new layer in black using the line tool in various widths (setting up a fine grid, and activating the "snap to grid" feature can also be helpful). Solid filled polygons for the town squares and markets.  Then, I just inverted the color of the streets to make it white streets on a white background.  Finally I "stroked" the street layer - 1 pixel wide, black, outside edge.
> 
> That gave me nice, outlined city blocks with space between for streets, but without having to define specific buildings.  I left them in black and white for an engraved wood-cut sort of feel, but from there it would be easy enough to fill in the streets and/or city blocks with whatever color or texture you prefer.



Any chance that you could do a more detailed step-by-step for those of us who have Photoshop (but don't really know how to use it at all)? I really (REALLY) like how that turned out. Even the river is snazzy.

I'll be your best friend!!!


----------



## Pyrandon

Thanks for starting this thread, Jurgen!  I especially appreciate your interest in exploring multiple techniques for map creation--plus, of course, the discussion you've generated! 

Quite some time ago in this thread a few members discussed city maps & creating buildings not one by one, but by using techniques to _suggest_ urban landscapes.  This is an issue I tackled myself as well, so I thought you might be interested in the results & how I fumbled my way to them.  Attached is an example of one of my city maps in two forms:  representational & artistic (the latter being my preferred version).  

For those of you who may be interested I have posted a corresponding tutorial here  (warning:  it's a _huge _ PDF...).  The tutorial is for Photoshop, but as you will see, others have begun tailoring it to the GIMP.  I hope it helps some of you in some small way!

Thanks for all the inspiration, Jurgen & friends!


----------



## Wolv0rine

Pbartender said:
			
		

> Here's a quick city map I recently made for my Iron Heroes campaign.
> 
> I started with a white background in Photoshop, and drew in the roads on a new layer in black using the line tool in various widths (setting up a fine grid, and activating the "snap to grid" feature can also be helpful). Solid filled polygons for the town squares and markets.  Then, I just inverted the color of the streets to make it white streets on a white background.  Finally I "stroked" the street layer - 1 pixel wide, black, outside edge.
> 
> That gave me nice, outlined city blocks with space between for streets, but without having to define specific buildings.  I left them in black and white for an engraved wood-cut sort of feel, but from there it would be easy enough to fill in the streets and/or city blocks with whatever color or texture you prefer.



That's sweet and all (I don't want to sound like I'm saying you didn't do a great job with it) but what I want to know is how you achieved that rocking effect on the river!


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

And a new way of doing mountains:

- Create the "base" of the mountain range in whatever way you feel comfortable with (using Distress Select as appropriate). Select this "base" and fill it with a dark brown color in a new layer. Keep the selection. (First Attachment)

- Apply the "Fade Outline" tool to this layer. Apply the Layer Mask to the layer. Copy this layer, and then apply "Fade Outline" to the new layer. Repeat until the Selection is gone. (Second Attachment)

- Switch the layer mode of all layers but the lowest one to "Screen". (Third Attachment)

This already gives us a nice, plastic mountain. However, let's add some light effects to improve it:

- Apply a black drop shadow to each of the layers. (Fourth Attachment)

- Apply a yellow drop shadow with the opposite direction and only 20% opacity to each of the "brown" layers to give them some "daylight" color. (Fifth Attachment)

- Alternatively, you can use red or orange instead of yellow if it is supposed to be bathed in the light of dawn. (Sixth Attachment)


I must admit, I am much happier with this way of doing mountains than the previous ones, and I believe I will use it from now on. Unless, of course, I can come up with an even better method...


----------



## ffaat

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> I must admit, I am much happier with this way of doing mountains than the previous ones, and I believe I will use it from now on. Unless, of course, I can come up with an even better method...




Well, I have a way that isn't necessarily better, just different.  I posted it over here:
http://cartographersguild.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=322

Attached is an example (using your grassy background).


----------



## Pbartender

Wolv0rine said:
			
		

> That's sweet and all (I don't want to sound like I'm saying you didn't do a great job with it) but what I want to know is how you achieved that rocking effect on the river!






			
				Hjorimir said:
			
		

> Any chance that you could do a more detailed step-by-step for those of us who have Photoshop (but don't really know how to use it at all)? I really (REALLY) like how that turned out. Even the river is snazzy.
> 
> I'll be your best friend!!!




Alright, here we go.  Be aware that specific menus and options may vary from version to version of Photoshop, but the basics generally remain the same.

*The Shoreline.*


First, we'll establish any shore lines.  Since my campaign world is based on real world Europe and North Africa, I simply went to maps.google.com and found the actual river that my city would have been located on had it truly existed in the real world (the mouth of the Rio Guadalquivir in Spain just north of Cadiz). 
Once you find a coastline or river you like, hit alt-[Print Screen] to get a screen shot of the browser window. 
Open a new image in Photoshop with a white background, paste in your screen capture image, and crop it to your liking.
Convert your "borrowed" map to greyscale. Then, adjust the contrast of that layer Until all the water is black and the land is white, and adjust the brightness, until the coastlines look right.
Now, you'll have some left over bits -- labels and roads and such -- to clean up.  Just set the background color first to black and use cut box and eraser to clean up the water, then set the background color to white and do the same for the land. You should now have one layer with a basic outline with black water and white land, and another white background layer.
Use the magic wand to select the black area, and delete it.
Use the stroke function to outline the shoreline with a heavy black line (~4 or 5 pixels, location: outside, 100% opacity, Mode: Dissolve).
Stroke the shoreline layer again with a thin white line (1 pixel, location: outside, 100% opacity, Mode: Dissolve), and then again with a thin black line (pixel, location: outside, 90% opacity, Mode: Dissolve). Continue alternating 1 pixel wide white and black strokes...  all the white stripes should be at 100% opacity, but the opacity of each consecutive black line should decrease by 5% or 10% (Until you reach 0%). Using the Dissolve mode with the decreasing the opacity creates the dashed shading along the shorelines.


----------



## Hjorimir

You're the man, Bpartender!


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

I've begun to copy my tutorials over to the Art Tutorials Wiki. Feel free to join me in the effort!


----------



## stargate525

Your walkthrough for creating plains background is good. I replaced the greens and yellows with shades of blue, and it makes very good glaciers.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

Someone recently added a tutorial for creating hex maps to the Art Tutorials Wiki - check it out if you are interested in those!


----------



## Ishmayl

Jurgen, did you ever have a chance to translate that German map-making site?  I would love to try to make some maps in those styles, but I do not sprechen ze deutsche very well.


----------



## gamerprinter

*I create maps using Xara Xtreme 4.0*

I recently posted a tutorial at cartographers' guild on how I was creating maps like this: 






Here is a link to the tutorial...
http://forum.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2432

I am using Xara Xtreme 4.0 to create everything in this map (still a work-in-progress). Though Xara Xtreme costs about $80, it is a complete desktop publishing application, not just a mapping or vector app.

I use photo textures from http://www.cgtextures.com for my forest, mountain textures. Everything else is beveling, transparency, feathering, layering, halo drop shadowing, text tools all within Xara Xtreme.

Please note, this is not the only style of maps I create, I also work with 3D applications and create completely hand-drawn maps that are scanned in to Xara, with coloring and compositing in that application alone.

GP

PS: I dabble in GIMP and Photoshop, as well as PD Particles and many 3D apps. I'm also playing with MapTool.


----------



## stargate525

I've got an additional step in the forest example that Jurgen posted on page two that, I think, gives the forests far more depth. You can judge for yourself below. 

What you do is make a third layer of airbrushed forests in blue. Yes, blue. Hear me out. After you make the dropshadow for the new layer, DON'T merge the layers. Delete the third layer of forest and keep the dropshadow.


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## Silverblade The Ench

I actually like using 3d art programs, for doing smaller scale stuff, like a cavern, forts, etc 

Not only can you do top down views, and add grids for scale, but in 3d views you can get a real "feel" for how the actual place looks and would "work", which is important if you're after realism/long term games.

I did this version of the "Rock of Bral", an asteroid space port form Spelljammer, early last year. before I got a 64 bit PC, alas. Had reached the limit of what my 32bit PC could take, lol. 
Wanted ot do more detail, so I think I'll have to go back, and completley rebuild it on the new art PC, one day, 8 gigs RAM quad core and 64 bit is amazing!

Anyway, I couldn't get more work done on the sides of the asteroid, nor all the mansions/estates, as I wished, due ot simple limitations of RAM.

I used the original illustrations of the Rock, to work on a height scale in Photoshop. Note, in Vue or bryce, use 16 bit greyscale images for precision, *NOT* 8bit, or you end up with hellish "staircasing", as 256 (8bit) grey shades doesn't have enough blending, too few colours, so you get a "staircase" or step pyramid blocky look on the terrains, need to export as 16 bit tga or tif

I used greysacale images, just simple .gif images will do, to drive "material distribution and ecosystems", that is, a black and white image, is used to tell the program, where on the asteroid model, I want buildings, or rock, or grass.
So the streets/buildings are based off a simple street map, sort of, and I can vary that at will.

Vue uses "ecosystems", you assing trees, or buildings, whatever, and it uses "instances" of them, sort of like ghost copies in memory, so they don'tuse up all your computer memory.

You can make armies of soldiers/orcs, or forests, what have you. Here, I used it to replicate a few houses many, many times, in organized 90 degree directions, to give streets of houses.

[sblock="The Rock of Bral, in 3D"]




[/sblock]

THis is an illustration I made years ago in Bryce, for an encounter at a gnoll mine
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/erynavar/htm/adventures1.htm
I built the watch towers in 3D (and give 'em away as a freebie on my site too), and sculpted the terrain inside bryce to fit what I imagined.
Also did CC maps.
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/erynavar/htm/gnollmine.htm

[sblock="Gnoll mine"]




[/sblock]

And this is a pic from a layout of a hobgoblin mountain cave fortress, created in Rhino3D

[sblock="Hobgoblin Fortress"]




[/sblock]

So, much as I like Campaign Cartogrpaher, Paint Shop Pro...my absolutely crappy drawing skills make me go towards 3D


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## Bunnicula

hot damn, Silverblade, the Rock of Bral is awesome.  How long did that take you?


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## Silverblade The Ench

Bunnicula,
cheers! 

hm, 3 or so weeks, iirc. had lot of problems though, as the large image maps, models etc, kept crashing my system, due to amount of RAM used, hence, I switched recently to 64 bit 8 gig RAM system.

Oh and the Squidship model took me about a month to make, that's usual time to make such models for me.


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## Jürgen Hubert

I'll be stuck at a place with only a modem connection for the next week... but if you have the time, feel free to add some of the tutorials to the Cartography Section of the Art Tutorials Wiki. That's what it is _for_.


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## Silverblade The Ench

TarionzCousin
never too late! 
(sorry thought I had replied to ya ages ago)


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