Lesson 2: Isolating a Room to Mod

For our example, we will mod the master bedroom. To zoom in, use View -> and choose the percentage you would like to magnify in on that room. We will copy the room to a new image to begin our work. First, we must separate it. Use the Free Select Tool (in your toolbox) to select the room. I use 400% when selecting rooms - you can use a higher or lower percentage, depending on your vision, monitor size and personal preference. In the bottom section of your toolbox, you can see the current tool's settings.

To use the free select tool, click to make a starting point. The tool will automatically draw straight lines between points. If you double click it will end the selection. I always set the tool options to "Add to the current selection" in case I accidentally double click before I am finished.

Begin selecting the room at the point you want to separate it from the main image map. Because you will not want to edit the white line between walls and floors, try not to include it in your selection. When you have reached your beginning point again, double click to "set" the selection and you should see the "marching ants." Zoom out to make sure you are satisfied with your selection. Use Edit -> Copy to copy the room to the clipboard.

Then use Edit -> Paste As... New Image to create a new master bedroom image for modding. Because you set the main image's background to transparency, GIMP will automatically make the new image have a transparent background as well.