Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course Here's the method i use for creating convincing, non-repetitive base-textures for maps. firstly, get a texture either from mayang or similar sites, from googling, or from a photo you've taken yourself
Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course Then, using the marquee tool, select an elliptical, circular, or square (depending upon the texture) area - click and hold the tool button on the toolbox to see what other marquee options there are.
Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course go to select > feather. This will be to blur the edges of your base texture 'block'. You may want to skip this step if the texture is very rigid, but it helps in most cases, even on unnatural textures.
Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course The pixel radius means how much area of partial selection you want to use, depending on the size of your texture, this will vary. try it with different values to get a feel for it - small values only blur the edge slightly, large values will blur it a lot
Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course Then press delete to erase all the area outside, if your area is selected too close to the edge of the image, you'll need to touch up any hard edges with a soft eraser.
Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course Now, by dragging the layer onto the 'new' button at the bottom of the layers pallette (looks like a page with a corner turned over) you can clone the area around your image, creating multiple duplicates that can be positioned and scaled individually. You can clean up repetition at the end of this stage by merging the layers (linking them in the layers pallette, then using layer > merge linked) and then using the clone stamp to get rid of any glaring areas of repetitive patterns in the image.
Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course After this stage its often good to bring in a second layer of texture, and then blend it subtly using overlay, or multiply as the blending mode in the layers pallette.
Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course Then, using a soft, low-opacity eraser, gradually erase areas of this top-overlaid texture, so that only parts of it remain. This further reduces repetition in your textures.
Re: Map Post-Production Crash-Course and thats it this method also means that areas of different textures have a more gradual change between one and the other. :wave:
