Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GFXiNXS]

GFXiNXS's Map Maker
(Requires Photoshop CS3+)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got bored at work and decided to play around with the various detailed map exports in Photoshop.

After a few comments about people wanting to make their own, I hacked together a simple action script. The basic process is to export specified detailed maps, rename and place on root of C:\ drive, load the PSD file and run the included Action Script. Be sure to read the included text file

It's not what one would call a polished process, but the result could be fun for a small few.

Download:
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=3573

[Max White]

Thats VERY cool. Did you do this by hand, or write a program to convert it? If so, are you planning up uploading the program?

[GFXiNXS]

Trusty old photoshop all the way

[Max White]

I'm enviouse of your talents. Also inspired. I feel that maybe a utility to do this sort of work would be interesting... I don't think I'm up to the task right now, but maybe if I get some free time on my hands. It will be interesting to see if I could ever get it as detailed as your map.

[Dutchling]

looks great! too bad it ins;t a program though :S

[Chromasphere]

Yeah, it would be cool to have a program that could repaint and print out a favourite map in that style.  I'm sure someone is talented enough.

[Parker147]

Very cool. I always enjoy looking at the exported maps, this just blows those away. I'm sure something like this could be done with batch processing in photoshop or gimp (don't think Paint.Net has batch processing). Hopefully the comments will inspire you or someone else to attempt something like that.

[Maklak]

Fantasy cartographer lets you paint maps like this just, not as good looking.

[GFXiNXS]

Working on an action script as of now. So long as you have Photoshop CS3+, you should just be able to throw the varous exports into their respective folders and have it make itself. For the time being I'll only be working on small region maps as I noted the *.psd file for a large region would have been ~150MB

Still, should be at least remotely useful... hopefully.

[pickupsticks]

Love it!

[Rose]

Isoworld does this in an isometric view, but it can be easily changed to show a top-down view as well.

[GFXiNXS]

Isoworld does this in an isometric view, but it can be easily changed to show a top-down view as well.

Not competing at all here. This is just meant to be a fun little graphical addition that people may wish to use in community forts and the likes

Got the action script fully functioning. I initially had some troubles porting from Photoshop CS3 between CS5 but I think I ironed everything out. I'll write up some documentation to help people along and then post it all up.

A few glitchy things came out of this...
 - If you are missing a civ, it will complain (you just hit continue till its complete then hide the overlay group).
 - Dwarf fortress location dots have similar pixels to mountains etc. This results in very minor speckling here and there.
 - Human civs won't be displayed as there is no easy way of grabbing them.

All the same, the following is what I got out of a test run. Hopefully you'll attain similar results

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Rose]

I wasn't implying competing, I was implying possible collaboration.

here's some info I got from toady on the subject:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's a mess, really, and some of them have a random wiggle applied.  It would probably be best to have a few more options for export -- like a biome map that doesn't depend on elevation (and maybe sand material) at all, and the same for a site export, where there is no elevation modifier applied to the colors.  I'm not sure what you meant by wastelands -- there are the "wasteland" and "woodland" areas of the human towns, which'll be whatever biome color they are, and then the rocky desert badlands which might be called wastelands from more of a mad max perspective.  The badland deserts use (el,el/3,el/5) and the rock deserts use (el,el/2,el/4) where el is the elevation parameter.  For regular biomes, elevation is clamped between 100 and 150, then it subtracts 90 and multiples by 4.  So el should always between 40 and 240 for non-mountain/non-ocean biome squares.  I think the regular biome colors might end up being unique or close to it, but once you've got fields thrown in there it might not work out uniquely.

I wasn't sure if you meant you've figured out fields in terms of the farm fields or grasslands.  Anyway, here's a list, and pending a future unambious biome export, just let me know what you needed (with the caveat that there are random wiggles and material colors I won't be able to help with as much).

brook: (0,0,el), where el is the adjusted river elevation
river: (0,el*2/3,el)
mountain -- if elevation is <=200, do el-50, then *3, /2, (el, el*6/7, el*5/6)
if elevation is >200, el -153, *2, (el,el,el)
lake: (0,el/5,el)
beach: sand color, or pebbles (208-217,208-217,208-217), or rock (128-137,128-137,128-137), remainder (158-167,158-167,158-167)
ocean: (0,0,actual elevation)
glacier: (el/3,el,el)
tundra: (el*2/3,el,el)
swamp/marsh: (el/4,el,el/2)
taiga: (0,el/3,el/5)
temperate forest: (0,el/3,el/6)
tropical forest: (0,el/3,0)
temperate grassland: (0,el,el/6)
tropical grassland: (el,el*5/6,0)
badland: (el,el/3,el/5)
sand desert: material color * el
rock: (el,el/2,el/4)
village houses: (el,el,el)
planted crops: (el,el,0)
unplanted fields: soil material color * el
pasture/meadow: (0,el,0)

fortresses: elevation capped at 150/100 no further multipler, keep=(el,el,el), gate=(el/2,el/2,el/2), courtyard (0,el/2,0), wall (el*2/3,el*2/3,el*2/3)

a lot of those, you have to replace el with (el-90)*4

[GFXiNXS]

Heh, I think you are going well and truly beyond what I had in mind. I'm avoiding any kind of programming on this one. It just loads a bunch of region map exports and hacks them up into something halfway presentable. All via Photoshop's action scripts. Meaning you'll need to go through Photoshop, making my audience limited.

Still, had fun with the dismal amount of effort it required to throw this one together

[pickupsticks]

I don't have photoshop, so I'm not included in the limited audience.   
I know that Other Picture Editing Software Is Available.  Does someone knowledgeable have any info on whether this could be made to work for GIMP or any of the other (free) suites that are available out there?
I know absolutely nothing about ps action scripts and their portability, or otherwise.  So I shan't be the one to answer my own question.