Conquer Club

I have been exploring the map foundry and the maps there look amazing. They are very complex, clear, detailed pictures. Do the creators of these maps draw out the entire map from scratch?

I was just wondering because I wanted to try to make a map, but I can't draw nearly that well! Also, if the maps are all drawn out can someone please point me to a good tutorial on how to do such percise drawings.

Thank you in advance for the help.

the mapmakers use graphic design software to get their work to that level. if you visit the map foundry there is information about how to get started as a mapmaker. at the top of the page there are stickied posts that you may find useful.

squishyg wrote:the mapmakers use graphic design software to get their work to that level. if you visit the map foundry there is information about how to get started as a mapmaker. at the top of the page there are stickied posts that you may find useful.

This, and also: first of all you will need a proper graphics software, which means basically anything but ms paint.

Paint.net and GIMP are freeware graphics software that can be used for mapmaking.

Then you need to figure out a theme and subject for your map. This is the most important part. Once you have a solid idea for a map, the rest will come - if your idea is good enough and you are willing to do hard work and learn new things, there will be people willing to help & tutor you along the way.

Then you will spend the next 6-12 months in the foundry, tweaking the gameplay and graphics of your map. You will slowly start to resemble a zombie or one of those lizards that live in caverns without sunlight.

When the map gods finally deem your map finished, you'll get a medal, some premium and lots of props & street cred.

Thank you natty and squishyg. The only way I can see me being able to make a map with graphics that good is coloring each individual pixel at a time, which would take about 6 months just for a first draft.

jrl332005 wrote:I have been exploring the map foundry and the maps there look amazing. They are very complex, clear, detailed pictures. Do the creators of these maps draw out the entire map from scratch?

I was just wondering because I wanted to try to make a map, but I can't draw nearly that well! Also, if the maps are all drawn out can someone please point me to a good tutorial on how to do such percise drawings.

Thank you in advance for the help.

One thing I've always done is taken an image and basically traced it.

Once I got that I deleted the original image, and cleaned up what I've got left.

I've not made a map here, but I've used this technique when soembody's logo or something needed to be reproduced and all you have is a picture or an image file (jpg, etc.).

Geographical maps are easy to make by finding a map (from google image) of the area you need. You select the area you need and crop to selection, then resize it to fit the CC size restrictions (840x800), make sure you use a large enough map... then you create a new layer and start tracing the borders.

The way I do this, I take the paintbrush at 1px width without antialias. Then I trace the borders on the new layer, and when that is done I fill the land area with the same colour as the borders. Now we have a "mask layer" which can be used to select all the land area with the magic wand. The reason we did this with the antialias off is that this way magic wand will always select the same area regardless of the tolerance setting.

Now we use the magic wand to select the land area and create another new layer. On this layer we will trace the borders of all bonus areas, each with a different colour - again with anti-alias off. Fill the bonus areas with the respective colours (the same you used for tracing). A neat trick is to use the magic wand to deselect each bonus area after you've drawn it, this way you can't accidentally draw on top of it anymore. After this is done we have another mask layer, which enables you to select bonus areas with the magic wand.

Now if you did everything correctly, you have the original map, and two mask layers on top of it. The mask layers will not be visible in the end product so it doesn't matter what colours you use for the bonus area layer, as long as they are all different.

Now create another new layer on top of all the others. This is the sea layer, which is basically your background. Usually this should be coloured blue. Add some texture to it too.

Now go back to your first mask layer that has all the land area and select all the land. Then go create another new layer on top of the sea layer and fill it with colour. Then apply antialias to it. Tadah, you have land on top of sea.

Later you can use the bonus area mask to select and add colours or colour outlines to the bonus areas (do this again on a new layer. Basically, every new element you add should be added to a new layer.)

These are the basics of how I make maps. Hope it helps.

jrl332005 wrote:Thank you natty and squishyg. The only way I can see me being able to make a map with graphics that good is coloring each individual pixel at a time, which would take about 6 months just for a first draft.

Remember that you shouldn't put this much work into your first draft. First post you idea for your map and a very basic drawing showing the territories and rough layout that you have planned. There can be much discussion and it is a community process with map making. Don't go too crazy at the start of the project or you'll run out of steam by the end when you may need to make dozens of changes.