How Do You Create A Vista?

[FirefoxRocks 0]

Not with a camera, but as in drawing a vista on the computer. I don't have commercial software like Adobe products but I have the GIMP installed on my computer. I was hoping that there would be instructions or something that I can find on painting a vista (on the computer of course).

[levimage 0]

Okay, I'm just going to give a mental image of how to create a vista without having Gimp open. Bare with me.1) Create a bunch of layers. Name them something like the colors your using or objects in you 'vista.2) Pick a tools from the tool box (pencil, pen, airbrush or brush).3) On each layer draw a series of fairly horizontal lines from end to end on the page. Adjust the brush sizes (not really the shape). These will be your foreground layer(s).4) Then create two new layers. These will be named 'sky' and 'ground' respectively. On these layers do a gradient from where your horizontal line starts to the top edge for the sky and on the other layer do a gradient from your Horizontal line to the bottom edge. Make sure you choose a gradient the reflects the kind of sky and ground you want. The ground layer should be the bottom stack of your layers with the sky above it. The other layers should be on top.5) make copies of some of the layers and go a Gaussian blur of various depths - to simulate the depth of field. Try to think of a vantage point of where your object start.6) in some of the layers you can erase some of the edges to give a a more jagged look here and there.7) create a sun, moon, planet(s) or what have you in the sky. This will be your light source.8) if you know how to do layer masks you can create copies of some of your foreground layers and do a white mask on them. Click the box that preserves the transparency and fill the layer with a color that is between the original color and that of your light source. Select the layer mask in the layers menu. Now select a tool like the brush and a brush size that will work for your depth of the layer. Make sure you select BLACK as your color and trace the edges (top of landscapes, trees, reflection of lakes, edges of clouds, etc.) on this layer. You can also go a Gaussian blur on the mask too. Do this will all the layers with objects you would like to do have light applied).Well that's it. Let us know how it turns out.

[FirefoxRocks 0]

By following that quick tutorial, I got the sky and ground, the sun and a whole bunch of empty layers. I tried the layer mask thing but it didn't seem to work, things were either washed out or too blurry with the layer mask applied.I'll keep experimenting with this, it seems interesting enough.

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

The sweet thing about GIMP is that it's quite similar to Photoshop in functionality and best of all it's free. Unfortunately, it does contain a good chunk of features that professionals need, but then again, it explains why Photoshop costs so much in licensing it.xboxrulz

[levimage 0]

I tried the layer mask thing but it didn't seem to work, things were either washed out or too blurry with the layer mask applied.

Well that depends if how high you've set your Gaussian Blur. When i comes to the make sure you know if you brush is solid or soft. Another thing you can do is adjust the opacity (by percentage) of you brush when you're on your mask layer. Finally you can adjust your opacity again by the slider on the layer you're working on.

If you're still experimenting you can right click your layer mask on your layers menu and show the mask, disable the mask, etc. This will show you how your applying your mask if you don't notice the differences upfront.

You can also duplicate some layers and try a simulate grain on one of them to give it some added texture if that is your thang.

Later McLuvin'

[FirefoxRocks 0]

Experimenting even further with the GIMP, I think that this method produces something more like a painting of a vista, not an image of a "real" vista. If I were to produce a painting of a vista, there could be various levels of complexity ranging from basic splashes of colours to pictures with filters, etc.I want to know if I can create something that looks like a vista and not just a painting.

[levimage 0]

Experimenting even further with the GIMP, I think that this method produces something more like a painting of a vista, not an image of a "real" vista. If I were to produce a painting of a vista, there could be various levels of complexity ranging from basic splashes of colours to pictures with filters, etc.
I want to know if I can create something that looks like a vista and not just a painting.

Okay it looks like you got the basic Idea. So if you want something more realistic then you are going to have to start doing some rendering of objects, sky, land, etc. You might start by creating file (Gimp images) of objects then add them in as layers. You could also took to other programs like Bryce 3d.

As far as GIMP painting you might create brushes, patterns, gradients - from crops real photos or stock image online.

Tools such as Scale, Skew, Perspective, clone, heal, and your basic cut-in-paste will help here to make things more interesting.

There should be some installed scripts to render clouds (e.g. Plasma Cloud), noise, and other similar textures which can further be manipulated into art. This will take some experimenting to.

You can even google gimp resources online. Look them up, check for screen shots, download and install them. Some will require a specific version of GIMP, and python program. The rest is just testing and creativity on your part.

Look at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ for some of my pictures. All have pretty much went thru GIMP in some way or another. The splash screen was from another program but also with treatment in GIMP. Enjoy!