Ludgarthewarwolf’s Mountains Tutorial (1)
How to (simply) make mountains in GIMP and Wilbur
This is a tutorial for making semi-realistic mountains in Wilbur and gimp. It’s adapted from Arsheesh’s
Eriond tutorial, and works well with it. We begin with a black and white histogram of a continent.
We then begin to form our mountains by drawing out some “caterpillars”. Begin by blobbing out long
sections that will be the foothills of the mountains, then forming rough ridges and mountain chains.
Each should be represented in its own layer, for about 4 different layers.
Ludgarthewarwolf’s Mountains Tutorial (2)
This is the finished look of the mountain blobs, with each color relating to a rough elevation and layer.
After that, we transform each into a white histogram by simply selecting the color we chose as the
elevation, and then filling the selection with white. This is for when we import the data into Wilbur. At
this point each layer should be exported separately from GIMP.
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We import the data into Wilbur by opening the first elevation of mountain blobs. Add the others by
using “select-load selection”, then using the “mathematical-offset”, to offset each elevation by around
30 (adjust to taste). The final results should resemble the screenshot above.
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The erosion process is roughly as follows: add some noise, precipitation erosion for 25 passes, rinse and
repeat, with one variation that comes toward the end of including a layer of cloud noise set to multiply
on top of the mountains in GIMP. The clouds are made by rendering slid noise clouds on two layers,
then rendering difference noise on top of those 2 layers, and then setting the topmost layers mode to
addition.
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What the clouds should look like.
Each process will be different for each case; some mountain chains will look different with different
specifics. Below is what I have found works for most mountains:
1. 15% noise
2. 25 passes
3. 10% noise
4. 25 passes
5. 10% noise
6. 25 passes
7. 8% noise
8. 25 passes
9. Save and open in gimp, change the cloud layer mode to multiply and move above the mountains
layer
a. This is the most crucial step, it creates more random and naturalistic looking mountains
10. then export back to Wilbur
11. Erosion 15 (without a selection)
This order is simply a starting point, each user is recommended to adjust these values and
durations depending on the result they wish to achieve.
Note that in all the erosion passes I use a selection loaded from the bottom most mountain
blobs to keep everything contained, except for the last set of passes
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What the mountains will begin to look like after the initial erosion passes.
What the mountains look like after multiplying clouds.
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These are what the mountains look like in their final form, after we run a few precipitation passes
without a selection boundary to help blend them in. After here we simply save and open it in GIMP, then
change the mountains layer mode to screen and move the order on top of the continent below.
These are the mountains placed on a continent mocked up with the Eriond tutorial’s style, using clouds
to mimic land topography. At this step it is suggested that some light low opacity white airbrushing be
done around the mountains on the base land/continent layer to help blend in the mountains.
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Rough draft of a continent map using this tutorial
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Maps made with this method:
Donne
Conglomera (subreddit project)
Mountains were always the hardest part of a map for me to create, and I hope that this will help others
who are stuck at this crucial step of map making.
