Help ID'ing, or How-To

[z0m4d]

Hi, everyone, this is my first post. I've been impressed with the hex grid maps found here and here. The original creator has been non-responsive for a few years.

I'd like to learn how to do maps like these. Does anyone recognize the features from a software program, or do you think they were hand designed? Disclosure: I know only the basics when it comes to GIMP.

Thanks in advance.

[Midgardsormr]

Any photo editor (Gimp, Photoshop, Xara, PhotoPaint, and so forth) should be able to do that kind of job (I can only see the maps on the first link. The second requires joining a YahooGroup to see them). You've got some aerial or satellite imagery turned into textures. Those are used to make tiles, which are then arranged on a grid with the hex-mapping overlay on a layer above it. The buildings are just rectangles with some shadows. Do a search for "motion blur shadows" on this site to find a nice technique for making shadows of that kind.

I notice that the shadows are built-in to the buildings, so if a building is rotated, the shadow is being cast in the wrong direction. If you decide to make some maps like these, I'd encourage you to apply the shadows as a last step so that they're all falling the same direction.

For some tips on creating the tiles themselves, do a search for "Gimp layer masks" on this site. You'll find lots of useful information.

[z0m4d]

Thank you very much. I was hoping there was a software out there that already had similar "realistic" aerial textures/tiles. Maybe I'll just have to learn how to do it myself. Appreciate your help.

[Korash]

you might want to look at hexographer...or something like that. Not sure if it does the type of terrain that you want though...

[Midgardsormr]

There are probably tile packs available that you could use in any number of programs. Browse around Drivethrurpg.com to get an idea of the thousand or so products available there. Quality, of course, varies wildly, but the assets are out there, and people are making more all the time.

Some of the above products are physical tiles, but there are also some designed specifically for virtual table tops (VTTs) that could be easily imported to any graphics program, and most of the others are pdf, which can be imported into a graphics program with a little bit of trouble.

The difficulty is finding exactly the terrain you want in the style you want at a price that is reasonable.