Map Making Steps

[tebeinteresno]

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

[Mad Russian]

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]

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

[tebeinteresno]

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]

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

[tebeinteresno]

Or maybe somewhere similar data of rivers or roads? )

[tebeinteresno]

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

[harry_vdk]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[WildCatNL]

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]

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]

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]

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

[harry_vdk]

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

[exsonic01]

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]

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]

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.