painting topos with photoshop

[joseph alexander]

Is there a tutorial somewhere in regards to painting topos with PS. Looking for a way to do a topo fast and dirty. The site is huge, close to a mile, so rendering trees isn't going to happen. are there tree brushes or something? or a way to pattern trees, then use a gradient ramp to paint in contour, looking for something fast and dirty..

 

any advice would be much appreciated,

 

-joe

[Ernest Burden III]

Looking for a way to do a topo fast and dirty

 

I'm not sure what you are trying to do.

 

Do you want to make a surface fom topos?

Import a pixel image of a topo map and magicwand select each level (do selection>expand 1 to cover the topo line itself), fill with gray00, then select next fill with gray10, then gray20, etc (or 00, 01, 02) when done, blur, save as grayscale TIF and use a surface from heightfield tool found in many modelers--Bryce, FormZ, Rhino, C4D, probably Max and Viz. You would finally verify the vertical scale is correct, just scale the Z (up) axis so your lowest level is correct and also the highest.

 

Do you have a surface and want to add topo lines to it?

use a texture map on a vertical surface that has horizontal lines at your topo intervals and then apply that mapping to the surface--lines will appear on the surface at proper topo heights.

 

Or--whatever you are trying to do?

[joseph alexander]

umm. just the opposite actually. I just want a way to paint a topo map. No 3D. (The topos come directly from a 3d model.) I'm looking for a way to get a brush, or maybe a copy technique, that will allow me to paint trees, and paint ground in photoshop. So I'd paint pattern on the ground, then gradient shade it by hand, then pattern on trees. I want to know if there’s a way to paint it so I don't have to model it. Cutting and pasting masked renders is an option, but I'm interested if there's a way to paint masked patterns (faster way)... does this make sense?

 

-joe

[Ernest Burden III]

In versions of Photoshop starting with 5 or 6, there is a way to 'define brush' where you create any graphic or image you like and make it into a brush. Once its a brush you can just paint on your imagery. Just like you want.

 

I'm not able to describe how to do this right off memory, but if you search by 'photoshop define brush' you will find many tutorials on how to do this.

 

Once you have made your brushes, if you are using PS6 or 7 you can have them applied with some random variation.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

for a brush that paints grass, open your grass texture, select all, then go to 'edit' 'define patter'. go to your scene image, select the area you want to be grass, the go to 'edit' 'fill' then select pattern, and set it to the pattern you just created.

 

 

not sure about the trees. the best way may be to create one, then just use copy and paste. keep pasting and moving until you get all of the trees you need.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

In versions of Photoshop starting with 5 or 6, there is a way to 'define brush' where you create any graphic or image you like and make it into a brush. Once its a brush you can just paint on your imagery. Just like you want.

 

I'm not able to describe how to do this right off memory, but if you search by 'photoshop define brush' you will find many tutorials on how to do this.

 

Once you have made your brushes, if you are using PS6 or 7 you can have them applied with some random variation.

the only problem with this, which may not be a problem, i think brushes can only utilize the active color. so if you are creating trees that only have one color, then it will nto be a problem.

[mbr]

I am pretty sure you can make brushes with multiple colors...or maybe that's Illustrator's symbols?

 

I'd go with the copy, paste, transform. I usually make one with a shadow, merge them, and just copy and paste. A little clone tooling can make the trees seems a little more unique. It's quick.

 

You can also make a few, put them in a Layer Group, and duplicate the entire layer group at once (such a handy feature, I usually end up with 3 versions of every layer, with the original, adjusted, and cropped/cut - makes for awfully large files, though).

[STRAT]

brushes do use the active colour, but varying gradiants in the brush itself compensates for this.

 

brushes are a nice way to go. read up about them.

 

seek out nisus, he paints using custom made brushes effectivly.