Cartography Workshop

Grum_l · Oct 8, 2006

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.

CRGreathouse · Nov 5, 2006

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.

Maldin · Nov 7, 2006

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

RPMiller · Dec 8, 2006

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.

Dykstrav · Dec 18, 2006

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!!!!!

kensanata · Feb 8, 2007

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)

0-hr · Mar 6, 2007

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

).

Priest_Sidran · Mar 14, 2007

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.

ZombieButch · Mar 19, 2007

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.

Pbartender · Mar 19, 2007

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.