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 Post subject: RPG Map Making Tutorial - GIMP
PostPosted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 4:16 pm 
Death Star Designers
Death Star Designers
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Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:06 pm
Posts: 249
I put together a map making tutorial using GIMP, on request, and thought I would offer it up here for anyone who is interested.

http://www.nivuahc.com/files/rpgmaps/rpgmapgimp.pdf (2.7MB PDF)

While the map, itself, is based on a typical RPG, the techniques used can be applied to any type of gaming map. The next couple of tutorials that I have planned will be involving maps specifically for Star Wars Miniatures.

I would appreciate any feedback.

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 Post subject: Re: RPG Map Making Tutorial - GIMP
PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 7:48 am 
Unnamed Wookiee
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Excellent tutorial, thanks! The only suggestion I have would be how to print your nice big map on your local 8.5x11 printer. Good to print at home to beta test before going to the large format printer.

--Winin


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 Post subject: Re: RPG Map Making Tutorial - GIMP
PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 7:34 pm 
Death Star Designers
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Winin wrote:
Excellent tutorial, thanks! The only suggestion I have would be how to print your nice big map on your local 8.5x11 printer. Good to print at home to beta test before going to the large format printer.

--Winin


Actually, I was talking about that very thing with my wife today. I have something that I plan to try out, soon, that should be economical and easy for just about anyone. If it all works out, we'd be talking about a high quality printed map for less than 6 bucks.

I planned on putting together a quick tutorial on slicing your image into smaller bits for printing to go along with it.

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 Post subject: Re: RPG Map Making Tutorial - GIMP
PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:19 am 
Unnamed Wookiee
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Excellent! The best thing I could figure out was to paste the pic into Excel and print from there. It worked, but of course you wind up with a white border around the page.

Other feedback: the lines created by the grid pattern are thicker than on the regulation maps. Thus the spacing is ever so slightly off when you print and compare maps side-by-side. Not a big deal unless you are one to get out a laser pointer to determine LOS. I just thought I'd point that out.

Oh, and you might want to mention something about resolution. I made one following the directions at 72 dpi, but when I printed at my laser printer's resolution (1200 dpi), the image shrank. I tried making one at 1200 dpi, but it froze the Gimp. I guess 600 or 300 probably still looks decent but won't choke the software. I haven't tried it though. I guess the point is that if you print at a different resolution than the image, then the whole thing will be scaled and 1" won't = 1".

Thanks again for the tutorial and link to the other site.

--Winin


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 Post subject: Re: RPG Map Making Tutorial - GIMP
PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:27 pm 
Unnamed Wookiee
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Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:40 pm
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Location: Dallastown, Pa
To make perfect slices of a large map...

1. Open the map in Adobe Photoshop.
2. Copy the whole map and paste it into a new image so it is a PSD file.
3. Make a new layer.
4. Now make a new image 8 X 10 inches.
5. Use the fill tool to make the image all white. Duplicate the image and use the fill tool to make it all black.
6. Now paste the black and white images onto the map ina checkerboard pattern (enable the snap otion in the view sub-menu to make this easier.)
7. Use the merge down option until there are two layers, the map and the checkerboard.
8. Using the magic wand tool, select one of the blocks in the checkerboard, then switch to the map and copy.
9. Press Ctrl-n to make a new image and Ctrl-v to paste the selection.
10. Repeat the process for each block in the checkerboard.

When this is done you will have perfect 8 X 10 slices of the map that can be printed and joined together with no gaps or overlaps.


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