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How do you make a map

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:28 am
by C4 Dark Saint
Im on an island that doenst have any maps, and has almost no towns. I was woundering how to make a map... can any one give me a tip?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:30 am
by Sunni Daez
alot of people use paint... by copy and pasting the icon from your location page.. and matching the pixels... it really isn't that hard... just need to zoom the pic in paint so you can see the pixels.. practice!

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:39 am
by frenchfisher
I recommend paint.NET :)

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 6:12 am
by Torkess_theCommie
I used to use paint but then I started using Photoshop. I find it easier to match pixels if there are layers.

A rant about map making:
I lost my usb drive with maps from 2 of my map makers :x

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:36 am
by Trezker
I started my big map project in Photoshop. But since I switched to Linux I use GIMP instead.
60 pieces of map puzzled together. I keep roads on a separate layer as do I the location numbers.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:25 pm
by formerly known as hf
I tok a print screen of every location I went to (for both the map and list of connections, so you do;t have to necessarily visit everywhere to know where places connect to).

Then, you can either just hand-draw your own and scan it in, or draw it in paint or Gimp or somesuch.

Or, you can stitch together all the map-circles that appear on your saved location squares

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:26 pm
by C4 Dark Saint
Thnxs :lol:

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:01 pm
by Piscator
I used a program for drawing chemical formulae to compile the only map I ever made. Basically it was only the names of places connected by lines. It was much better though than the text-only maps that were around that time.

If I were to make a map today, I probably would use Paint.NET too.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:47 pm
by Doug R.
Believe it or not, I use power point, as it's the program I know best, and I hate working with layers. The only problem using power point is copying out of power point and pasting into a graphics program, like photoshop, but there are workarounds for that.

There are as many ways to make maps as there are people making them.

Re: How do you make a map

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 10:43 pm
by Peanut
C4 Dark Saint wrote:Im on an island that doenst have any maps, and has almost no towns. I was woundering how to make a map... can any one give me a tip?


With effort and blood, sweat and tears!

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:17 pm
by Crosshair
Wait... Peanut! Hello!

As for maps... It's a lot easier to make text ones... they serve well but don't look as good.

Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:47 am
by joo
If you're using the in-game map graphics for your map, one of the most important things is to keep all saved view as separate files. You can have one or more composite files for the actual map, but it is indispensable to have the originals available.

Any images you save should be in a lossless format such as .PNG or .BMP - only save as a JPG if you're publishing a final copy to go in a note, and even then I'd use PNG.

Also, keep a note on you char with the resources, exits and any other notation you want, with the last update date recorded for every location. It is best to give each location and ID number as you encounter them, so you can keep track of them. Even if you don't reference the locations by number on the map, you can use them for anchor id's in the HTML of the note and for distinguishing "unnamed location"s between each other.

edit: hey, the forum's working again! -- and I use mspaint to fit the pixels together. The secret 10x zoom is very useful :P

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 2:20 pm
by Redbeard
I used Visio...