Create Old School Hex Maps using Azgaar's and QGIS

[agroschim]

Hi everyone,

it has been a long time since I posted here last but I finally got back into making maps for the roleplaying games I am running. Today, I made something that I just have to share.

Recently I (re)discovered Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator which procedually generates great maps including states, biomes, towns etc. either from scratch or from a provided heightmap. The great thing about Azgaar's is, that you can export all information either in csv format or geojson, a format that e.g. QGIS can read. Tom or notveryprofessional who also wrote the geojson export for Azgaar's made a series of Tutorials on Youtube on how to use the exported data in QGIS. He created a Google Maps like map for his fantasy world called Dragon Eye. His map looks great for what it is. However, it is not a format which I would use in my gaming sessions. So I asked myself, can I use the geoinformation provided by Azgaar and QGIS to make an old school hex map?

The answer is yes, yes you can and it looks okay-ish:

To Hex Map.png

Pretty decent actually, if you consider that the map is procedually generated. Everything you see is generated by Azgaar's. All I did was import the information into QGIS and use QGIS to style it using SVG icons created from Thorfinn Taits Illustrator tools. There are some obvious problems with the map however, owing the the way Azgaar's generates random maps. Azgaar's uses random points and a Voronoi partition in order to partition the map into cells which it assigns the biomes and all other information. This creates unnatural sharp edges between the biomes as can be clearly seen with the coast line. I am currently thinking about how I can smooth out the sharp edges of the cells that Azgaar's creates.

If people are interested I can post updates on my map and write a short tutorial detailing my steps once I have a workflow established.

[Bindusara]

I find funny that you put your map on an hexagonal frame : Azgaard use voronoi patterns for avoiding hexagons :-D
I think the sharp edges come from the geoson file : as i remember it, the voronoi pavement is saved, not the smoothen borders. He had the same pb when writing the generator, and smoothen it . See https://azgaar.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/coastline/

[agroschim]

I had some success smoothing the coastlines with built in QGIS tools. As for the hexes, I wanted to convert the Agaar output to a map in the style of the old D&D Gazetteers maps of Mystara. All in all this whole project was more an experiment than a serious attempt at making a usable map. I will attach my ### Latest WIP ### but this will also most likely be my final one.