RE: Map Making Steps (Full Version)

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Mad Russian -> RE: Map Making Steps (11/12/2013 1:57:39 AM)

All that time in S. Korea can be put to good use creating maps for FPC...[:D] [&o]

Good Hunting.

MR



JohnO -> RE: Map Making Steps (11/12/2013 1:28:56 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

All that time in S. Korea can be put to good use creating maps for FPC...[:D] [&o]

Good Hunting.

MR

I could, but we will start 12 hour shifts for a 24 hour exercise. Due to it being a classified exercise, no personnel laptops, no cell phones, no cameras, no books [:)] but I have cloud reader on my government laptop to read books [:)]



Mad Russian -> RE: Map Making Steps (11/12/2013 2:25:17 PM)

Whatever works. Could give you some ideas in the mean time.

Good Hunting.

MR



JohnO -> RE: Map Making Steps (11/21/2013 1:17:45 AM)

What is the max size can the map be for FC:RS? I noticed at the start of this tutorial you meant 20km by 20km.



Mad Russian -> RE: Map Making Steps (11/21/2013 1:23:17 AM)

They can be different sizes. The normal blank I use in HexDraw is 48 columns by 31 hex rows; not square.

I'll have to check about the absolute size that can be used in the game. What happens is that the bigger the map the slower FPC runs.

Good Hunting.

MR



Werewolf13 -> RE: Map Making Steps (11/22/2013 1:40:06 AM)

Was just wondering:

Can maps have a vertical orientation? i.e. 20Km N/S and 15 E/W instead of the normal horizontal E/W major axis?




CapnDarwin -> RE: Map Making Steps (11/22/2013 1:58:56 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Werewolf1326

Was just wondering:

Can maps have a vertical orientation? i.e. 20Km N/S and 15 E/W instead of the normal horizontal E/W major axis?



Yes. We standardized on 20x15, but you can make on of any size and orientation with in reason. Much bigger than the 20x15 the game will be slowing down some and also if you flood the map with units things will slow down.



Werewolf13 -> RE: Map Making Steps (11/22/2013 2:50:43 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Capn Darwin


quote:

ORIGINAL: Werewolf1326

Was just wondering:

Can maps have a vertical orientation? i.e. 20Km N/S and 15 E/W instead of the normal horizontal E/W major axis?



Yes. We standardized on 20x15, but you can make on of any size and orientation with in reason. Much bigger than the 20x15 the game will be slowing down some and also if you flood the map with units things will slow down.


Thanks...



tebeinteresno -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/23/2015 9:01:13 PM)

Maybe I'd missed something, but could someone tell me where you gets a good 80s maps of Europe, especially Germany?



harry_vdk -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/24/2015 6:40:14 AM)

The old sovied maps are interesing about this.
http://www.compasscaddy.com/soviet-military-maps-a-treasure-trove-for-wilderness-backpackers/

SAS.Planet is very nice as a resource of different current mapssource.
http://www.sasgis.org

Current german maps are found Digitale Topographische Karten (DTK)
http://www.geodatenzentrum.de/geodaten/gdz_rahmen.gdz_div?gdz_spr=deu&gdz_akt_zeile=5&gdz_anz_zeile=0&gdz_user_id=0


And mapstore, but they are not free of charge.
mapstor.com




tebeinteresno -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/24/2015 8:08:21 AM)

But how about topographic maps?
What is best used to create maps of heights?



Mad Russian -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/24/2015 12:21:33 PM)

Current maps are close enough elevation wise to get you started. Google Earth map view has a topo function in it. The elevations haven't changed since then of if they have it will be a slight change.

Good Hunting.

MR



WildCatNL -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/25/2015 10:19:56 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: tebeinteresno

But how about topographic maps?
What is best used to create maps of heights?


If accurate elevation data is essential, download digital elevation data (DEM) for the selected location (free from http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org , for example). 90m DEM data suffices for 500m hexes.
Then use a third-party tool (such as the free QGis) and define a palette that maps (up to) 10 elevation ranges to the FCRS elevation colors. Create a bitmap, load that bitmap into the FCRS map values editor, and scan the elevation map values. It's easier said than done, though, but it is what I'm doing for the Southern Storm maps. See the illustration below.

In the FCRS 2.09 update, Rob improved the map values editor so it picks a hex's elevation based on the average elevation color rather than the minimum color in that hex. It makes the map resemble real terrain a lot more!

William


[image]local://upfiles/31564/A82804C4B0C34E638CFE64BDF2BAD6F4.jpg[/image]



tebeinteresno -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/27/2015 12:40:28 AM)

Whoa!
Thanks! Very helpful and powerful method!

so now a have a couple questions:
how do you crop map for game? Just use coordinates or another method?
Do you normalize your map width? because I see that map much wider than in maps.



Stimpak -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/27/2015 5:21:45 AM)

I tried QGIS, but found it too complicated. Just sticking to making mini-maps with hexdraw for now :P



tebeinteresno -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/27/2015 9:14:17 AM)

Or maybe somewhere similar data of rivers or roads? )



tebeinteresno -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/14/2015 4:44:33 PM)

Do we have any standarts of Elevation steps in future maps?
50m? 100m? 200m?



harry_vdk -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/14/2015 4:54:38 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: tebeinteresno

Do we have any standarts of Elevation steps in future maps?
50m? 100m? 200m?


Hi,

There was a discussion about this point "Giving a hight to the elevation levels".




Ratzki -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/14/2015 6:10:12 PM)

From an outsider, has anyone looked at the mapmaker in PCO? It will crank out grey scale elevation bmp's pretty easy and they can b stitched together without much work. Just a thought.



Mad Russian -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/15/2015 12:14:54 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Ratzki

From an outsider, has anyone looked at the mapmaker in PCO? It will crank out grey scale elevation bmp's pretty easy and they can b stitched together without much work. Just a thought.


Yes, we checked it. Couldn't get it to do what we needed here.

Good Hunting.

MR



battlerbritain -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/15/2015 12:47:42 PM)

I've managed to find a free GIS called QGIS that seems fairly capable: http://www.qgis.org/en/site/about/index.html

I also managed to get some terrain data for Germany, at least the 2D part: http://download.geofabrik.de/europe/germany/hessen.html

I've even managed to get it to display the area I'm interested in for a scenario west of Bad Hersfeld.

Got the elevation data from: http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3/Eurasia/

The hgt files for around N50E09 to N50E11 seem to cover the Bad Hersfeld area.

I can even get it to display a different colour for each contour at 50m intervals, or whatever contour interval I like.

Hex grids are easy!

There's a plugin called MMQGIS for QGIS that allows creating of hexgrids. The tricky bit is specifying the horizontal or vertical spacing in metres in terms of lat/long. A bit of googling and converting got me using a horizontal spacing of 0.00194509 for this area of Germany to get 250m hexes, or 0.00389018 for 500m hexes.

I'll attach a png file of this area I'm working on and you can see what it looks like.

[image]local://upfiles/46685/DE49E3B5EC7E4BC98FE5CD7BF24003CF.jpg[/image]



WildCatNL -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/15/2015 7:55:23 PM)

Hi battlerbritain,

thanks for sharing this. That's a 250m hex map, isn't?

I'm also using QGis. See my Aug 25 post above for an example of the color coding I use - it's important to use discrete (non-interpolated) color mapping.

I specify the MMQGIS hex spacing H spacing / V spacing directly in meters.
I use the print composer to generate the bitmaps, with a paper sheet of 20.1" x 15.25" inch for a 46x30 hex map, export resolution 128dpi (128 pixels per inch). On the sheet, I use the scale of 1:39370 in order to arrive at 500m per 64 pixel hex, so 1km = 128 pixels = 1 inch (1km / 1inch = 1000m / 0.0254m = 39370). 250m hex need a scale of 1:19685.

If you need help filtering OSM data to extract streets, forests, etc., let me know. Be aware that the OSM data is fairly incomplete*, especially wrt to forests and streams.

William
*: at least the OSM data I'm using is fairly incomplete. I get mine from geofabrik.de



battlerbritain -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/16/2015 7:38:52 AM)

Hi William,

Cheers for that [:)]

Yep, the hexes are 250m. I'm having a go at preparing a couple of maps for 'Assault'. I'm also posting updates over at Comsimworld.

I'm quite pleased with progress so far. I've got to this stage in about a day from being a complete noob with QGIS. Most of that time has been spent hunting for data.

I had set the elevation to use a new colour map of Brown to BlueGreen (see attached screenshot).

Next items for tweeking though are:

a) get the roads to display as autobahns / main roads / minor roads etc. There are graphics for these already in the QGIS styles for the roads - just gotta figure out how to apply them. May need to edit the shapefile data for particular roads? Not sure how to do that yet.

b) grade the rivers as well.

c) add a 'tree' like graphic for the tress. There is a separate 'natural' layer shapefile in the Hessen data which shows tree coverage (not shown in the kirchheim picture I posted). It defaults to a plain green fill which I'd like to texturise. You can also set a %age of transparency for a layer which works well (the hexgrid I set to 80% transparency).

Hope this helps,

B



battlerbritain -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/16/2015 1:02:46 PM)

Got roads to show their type as well from the roads.shp file in the Hesse data.

Select the roads Properties, select Styling and change it from Single Symbol to 'Categorized'. Select column and select 'type' as the column. Click the Classify button - wait about 5 secs and smile.

That expands the roads out into the different categories. You can then double-click on each category and change it's colour or line type. There's even a set of pre-defined lines for motorways, roads etc. Double click on the line in the properties dialogue to set it to a pre-defined type.

Same thing for the waterways.

Hope this helps,

B



Stimpak -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/18/2015 2:49:30 AM)

I wouldn't mind some form of tutorial with MQGIS. I find it rather complicated to even get started with.



harry_vdk -> RE: Map Making Steps (9/28/2015 8:17:00 PM)

Some nice QGIS Tutorials and Tips v1.0:
http://www.qgistutorials.com/en/docs/working_with_terrain.html




exsonic01 -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/19/2016 1:15:40 AM)

Hello

I wanna challenge to the map making world. What could be the easiest way to create a hex map for a noob? HexDraw? Or QGIS? I found Hexdraw is not a cheap option, though.... :(



kevinkins -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/19/2016 6:28:27 AM)

I checked out:
http://www.hexographer.com/free-version/

You can produce color coded hexes using a Google map overlay and Hexographer but they look more like the paper war game maps some of us older guys grew up with. They will not look like the maps the are produced for the sim using hexdraw. They work fine. But I personally would not build a scenario for the community using the software. But again, it's worth a look. If Hexdraw could be bundled into a "Professional" edition of Flashpoint at the right price it might be a nice feature for those on the fence to go for.

Kevin



exsonic01 -> RE: Map Making Steps (8/19/2016 6:49:16 AM)

Thanks Kevin, you're right. Hexographer looks like a reasonable choice for the Forgotten Realm TRPGs with magic and sword, but not a good choice for the modern battle with "iron horses" and "thunder-rods". [;)] I think I may need to read more about QGIS.



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