The forest borders (see 3.2 Apply the changes)
For better flattening of the forest texture where it might disappear, I did the brightness/contrast
adjusment using an adjustment layer with a mask. Create this mask with the Project.tga converted
to grayscale, invert it, lighten it a lot with levels, with a high gamma (most parts of the
mask must be near white). Then, tune Brightness and Contrast through this mask. This allows
to erase the textures details more efficiently.
Selective forest shadows (see 3.3)
I handle the forest with two different displacement maps, whether its conifer forest
or evergreen/mixed. The shadows are sharper for conifers. (But I should once travel to the U.S
just to see if these are some fir and not some round head pine trees!)
Just use some different colour when you design the textures for selection (1.1).
Varying shadow lengths (see 3.3)
I wanted trees to cast different shadows lengths depending on the suns angle with
the terrain. We have this information with the shadow map! The deeper the terrain shadow, the
smaller the angle, and the longer are the shadows cast by the trees (or any object).
With the help
of SELECTION > COLOR RANGE, create three channels with the selections including shades from
black to a decreasing level of lightness. Remove the black areas in each. The pictures show
the three channels (red) used as masks over the selected areas (for of better understanding
purpose).
During the shadowing process :
- Apply only once the displacement map on the forest.
- Use the first channel to select a limited forest area, copy it to a new layer and apply
two DISPLACE filters.
- Go on with the other channels, each time applying more successive DISPLACE filters.
This effect adds a lot to the pictures realism. See the result on the final sample below,
especially the lower left corner.
Selective buildings shadows (see 3.4)
Larger buildings cast longer shadow. I draw suburban and commercial textures for selection
with different colors, and handled them separately with the help of the selection map. For an
even better effect, you may use a special color for all the large buildings on each sel texture
(thus using three colors on each texture) and thereafter let them cast really long shadows (i.e.
apply a lot of displace filters).
Automation in Photoshop
The whole process explained in this document is quite time consuming, and when it comes to
create vast landscapes as wide as full globe tiles, it would be a real pain if we couldnt
do some macros to automate those repetitive tasks. It was a main objective in the development;
therefore all the steps can be programmed as Photoshop actions. Read the softwares
help for good understanding and use of actions. The following aspects need some attention when
using actions :
- Dont select the colours with the magic wand tool, rather use SELECTION >
COLOR RANGE.
- Dont drag the layers from one document to another. Use COPY / PASTE.
- Possibly some problems may appear if the result of a selection is empty. Ill
give a look at this issue.
After enhancements - a close look :
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