Hexographer: Overview

Role-Playing Game Tools and Articles

The home of the Hexographer hex map making software is moving. The new site is at: http://www.inkwellideas.com/roleplaying_tools/hexographer/

There are currently 67 responses to “Hexographer: Overview”

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1 On March 24th, 2009, Stevie O'Mao said:
I can’t seem to find where to download
2 On March 25th, 2009, Joe said:
The Hexographer isn’t a program to download and install on your computer. It runs from the web page using Java, a technology that is similar to Flash in this respect. (It does a lot more as well, but that’s another topic.) If you don’t see a box in the middle of the page that has text “Create new map” near the top, you need to get/update your computer’s Java application/infrastructure. Go to http://www.getjava.com
3 On March 27th, 2009, L Barber said:
Great tool for recreating classic maps!
4 On March 27th, 2009, greg said:
I think that is amazing!
5 On March 30th, 2009, Wil Hostman said:
Where was this 20 years ago when I needed it!
Very nicely done, but I’d really rather have a stand-alone than a web-launch.
It would also be nice to have the D&D alternate symbols (ala Expert Set) as an option.
6 On March 30th, 2009, Joe said:
A stand alone version is planned… so is a feature to let people import their own icons so you could create and import those symbols. (Or if someone else created them for everyone then you could import those.)
7 On March 30th, 2009, Wil Hostman said:
Good to know…
8 On March 31st, 2009, Charles said:
This is great! Is there planned logic for sensible (pseudo-natural) terrain formations?
9 On March 31st, 2009, Alex Von Tolmacsy said:
what file format are the custom icon graphics going to need to be?
10 On March 31st, 2009, Joe said:
What improvements would you suggest for pseudo-natural terrain formations? It does attempt to group the same terrain together and place terrain of one type next to terrain of other types that make sense based on some adjacency probabilities. (For example, hills will lead to mountains and mountains aren’t likely to be adjacent to ocean. Although it is just a low probability because it can happen.) It also does a first pass where it places a few bunches of the core terrain types. The size of these bunches are based on how much of that terrain should be on the map from those adjacency probabilities.
11 On March 31st, 2009, Joe said:
The custom icon graphics will probably expect simple pngs. You’ll be able to use any size you want as the software will scale them to fit within the hexes. However, they will probably have to be transparent, but you’ll be able to customize the hex’s background color for that terrain type. That’s what I’m thinking now, but keep in mind I’m still at least a couple of weeks from implementing that feature. So things may change, but I’m also open to suggestions.
12 On April 3rd, 2009, VectorSigma said:
Amazing stuff, as usual, Joe. Between this and your heraldry gizmo, you have saved me hours and hours of work and made it easier to run a really fantastic campaign. My gaming group and I owe you several drinks!
13 On April 3rd, 2009, Calvin herl said:
wow very nice I have spent the last week making hex maps. would love to see the stand alone version
14 On April 3rd, 2009, Parduz said:
Nice, nice thing.
I support the request to make it “stand alone”, and i want to throw 2 more suggestions:
1) The ability to hide the hex grid
2) Since the “tiles” will be transparent PNGs, and you’ll allow custom images as tiles, pls allow PNGs larger than the hex cell… in this way i can do semi-transparent tiles that “smooth” the terrain going over the other tiles blending the colors… hope you can understand me.
Thanks for your work!
15 On April 3rd, 2009, Joe said:
Thanks for the compliments all! In response to Parduz’s suggestions:
1. You can already hide the hex grid. Go to the “Options” menu and uncheck the “Show hex Borders” item.
2. I think I know what you mean. I can probably include an option when you add terrain “scale icon to fit grid” or even let you set the scaled size so you can set the scaled size to 120% of the hex size (or whatever) to get the overlap you want. The ability to scale to sizes large than 100% would give you an ability to overlap, yet the map would still look good regardless of what settings the user chose for hex width and height… What do you think?
16 On April 4th, 2009, Parduz said:
I think that it should work… i don’t know how it works right now, but seems to me that, on the map, only Settlements and Symbols stays on another layer, while all terrain icons just replace the previous one.
If you want to allow overlapping for the Terrain tiles, you will need to track what tile is over another…. basically you will have to assign a “Z Level” for each hex, and maybe allow the user to say “bring on front, send to back”. It will be great, but i see a lot of code behind it
Maybe allowing the overlap scale only for the symbols and the Settlements (wich seems to be already on another layer) as a first step should be easier…. just allow A LOT of custom tiles of that type
Or just create a new layer just for this purpose….
17 On April 4th, 2009, Parduz said:
As a side note, did you know HeroScape?
It is a boardgame with the “board” made with modular,stackeable hex tiles.

There was, some years ago, a flash map editor (LandScape), which is no more mantained.
Another guys comes out with a wonderful 3D editor, but it works only on Win PCs, so players with a Mac or other OS are from of the mapping stuff.

If you will like to implement the couple of things needed to draw Heroscape maps (basically, multihex terrain shapes, elevated terrain layers and a couple of map printing function) you’ll be submerged by the love of a very strong community…
Think at it
18 On April 4th, 2009, John said:
excellent stuff

cant seem to export the png though as id like to print out what ive made
19 On April 4th, 2009, Joe said:
What specifically are you seeing when you try to export to PNG? Does it dispay an error message? If so, what is it? If not, can you go to your web browser’s “tools” menu and turn on your “Java Console” then try to export to PNG again and email me the contents (or at least the last 50 lines of the java console? joexwetzel at gmail dot com. (Remove the x from my name in the email address.) Or send me your .hxm file.
20 On April 5th, 2009, John said:
details sent
21 On April 5th, 2009, Mark said:
I’m unable to save or export the PNG the error message is:
“There was an error while exporting your design.”
“access denied(java.util.PropertyPermission user.dir read)”
22 On April 6th, 2009, Joe said:
Thanks Mark and John… I’m working on it and I should have a fix posted in a day or two.
23 On April 7th, 2009, Fisdohit said:
Hello

Good work

[Great suggestion of a feature I've been planning all along that I don't want to disclose edited out. -Joe]
24 On April 7th, 2009, Joe said:
Mark and John:

I have not signed the software with an official certificate because those cost money and this project is “in the red.” Therefore, when you go to the software page the first time you will most likely see a prompt noting that “The software can’t be trusted.” You must click “OK” or “Trust” or whatever the affirmative button says to fully use the software. Otherwise, you will not be able to save or export your maps. (You will see an error regarding permissions if you try.)

The software has been updated a couple of times since you last posted, so if you access the software page again it should prompt you to trust the program. If you do, you’ll be able to save.
25 On April 7th, 2009, Mark said:
Thanks, that did help, but now it is giving a new error message:
“There was as error while exporting your design.”
Then it gives the directory I tried to save it to, then in () it has “access is denied”
26 On April 7th, 2009, Mark said:
Thanks, that did help, but now it is giving a new error message:
“There was as error while exporting your design.”
Then it gives the directory I tried to save it to, then in () it has “access is denied”
27 On April 9th, 2009, John said:
I can now save a png in the default directory , but i cant seem to find it afterwards

“Then it gives the directory I tried to save it to, then in () it has “access is denied””

i also get this if i try to save it anywhere else

would be nice to be able to print it will online
28 On April 9th, 2009, John said:
i can save and export to any directory but cant find the .png files afterwards?

have a nice map i now wish to print out!!
29 On April 9th, 2009, Jason said:
Hey, this is great. Is there any way you could be convinced to provide a BattleTech tileset? You might be able to just rip them out of the MegaMek package.
30 On April 9th, 2009, Joe said:
I’d be happy to look into creating a Battletech tileset. I was pretty into it during the early 90s, but I’ve only played occasionally since then. If you can link me to some images that have the look you’d like to see, that would help.
31 On April 10th, 2009, Jason said:
If you grab MegaMek http://megamek.sourceforge.net/idx.php?pg=main and unzip it, you’ll find that it provides a data/images/hexes directory (and subdirectories) where .gif files of each hextype can be found.
32 On April 11th, 2009, Chris said:
Neat program. Any way to rotate the hex grid 90 degrees so that the flat sides are vertical as opposed to horizontal?
33 On April 11th, 2009, Joe said:
Unfortunately I think rotating the hexes 90 degrees would be a lot of work, due to many side effects of that change. But if I see a way to do it relatively easily I’ll try.
34 On April 11th, 2009, King Nate said:
So I thought I would make a test map to learn the system and test out the save/modify later parts of this program and have a strange experience. It saves fine and loads find but when I went to my save location to delete the test map…it’s not there! Yet I can still load it from this website.

I then had the computer search for the file and it says it is not on my computer yet I can still load if from this website.

What is going on?
35 On April 11th, 2009, Joe said:
The software does add “.hxm” to the filename if you save and don’t include that ending. Does that explain it, or could it be something else?
36 On April 11th, 2009, King Nate said:
Thanks Joe for taking the time to respond, but .hxm doesn’t mean anything to me. I can see that .hxm is added to the end of the filename when I load, but I do not know what that has to do with why I can’t delete or even find the file on my computer.
37 On April 12th, 2009, Joe said:
I’ll email you Nate to sort this out.
38 On April 14th, 2009, Captain Rufus said:
Just got linked to your program. Its pretty nifty at making those classical Basic D&D Mystara styled maps.

I’m having a bit of trouble making nice rivers though.

Stuff I wouldn’t mind seeing? Canyons and snow terrain. (And maybe unless I missed it, a printable map key.)
39 On April 14th, 2009, nightwyrm said:
Nice map making program. I’ve been using it to make a countryside map for my new campaign. An annoying thing I’ve found is that whenever I want to save a map, the default save folder is always the “My Documents” folder and it’s a hassle to redirect it to the folder where I keep all my campaign stuff. If the program could remember where the last file is saved, it would be great.

Also, I’m now trying to use it to make a city map. I’m getting by with using the geographical tiles to mean city features, but a bunch of city tiles would be awesome.
40 On April 16th, 2009, SurvivorX said:
Found this program via google (after much trial and error >_>) and it’s just what I need to get a strategy game I’ve been working on rolling

Would it be possible to make it so people can download the program? Or can you already, and I’m just missing a link somewhere?
41 On April 16th, 2009, Dyson Logos said:
Any chance of loading in a “classic” Expert Rules map icon set? Just the classic B&W hex icons used in the back of the Expert Rulebook or in the classic Isle Of Dread. I’m a sucker for classic B&W mapping and used to use HexMapper with an imported B&W set, but that won’t run on my Linux box.
42 On April 16th, 2009, Joe said:
re: downloaded version.

I am planning a downloaded version, but I’ve barely begun that. It will have some really interesting additional features.
43 On April 16th, 2009, Joe said:
re: expert rules icons

The “pro” version I’m planning will allow you to swap in a set of icons to replace the default set. I may even make those as an alternate set that will come with the pro version.
44 On April 22nd, 2009, TJ said:
I’m trying to come up with a way to make the map “invisible” to players until they explore it. I’m currently looking at the Opacity feature and setting it to 70% for 1 hex away, 40% for 2 hexes away and 10% for 3 hexes away (0% for four or more hexes away) but what I’d like to see is the ability to export each individual hex to a separate file so you can reveal each hex independently to the players (I’m attempting to write some code that would place each hex graphically into the map with the proper opacity based on where the characters are and have been). Since each hex has a number, I can assign a value of 0, 10, 40, 70 or 100 to that hex in a data file for the character and then based on the values in the characters file show only that portion of the map which they’ve explored. The icons are great and features are wonderful and I’m just spending time tweaking the settings to get the world map I like (more evergreen) and you should add some fresh water features like lakes to the icons as well. I second the snow and canyons as well. Elevation might be a good feature to put in your long term list (sea level progressing up to mountains and mountains within mountains just keeps it rising up even more – Like the Alps, the Rockies, the Sierras, the Himalayas, etc.)

Don’t take all of what I wrote as some type of indication that I’m critical of it, I’m not. It’s absolutely FANTASTIC. I’m just going to use it to play on line with friends (who live across country) and I’m trying to see if I can automate a map that we can all share, that’s all.
45 On April 26th, 2009, Mark said:
Just checking in to see it there was a solution to the problem I am experiencing.

Included the previous message so you did not have to look for it.

thanks

(On April 7th, 2009, Mark said:
Thanks, that did help, but now it is giving a new error message:
“There was as error while exporting your design.”
Then it gives the directory I tried to save it to, then in () it has “access is denied”)
46 On April 28th, 2009, Joe said:
Yes Mark, there was a fix for that issue. If you see above John who was having the same issue said that he was able to save. but then he had trouble finding the files afterward. I think you are both using Windows Vista and maybe vista is sticking the files into a pre-defined user folder that is hard to find. (At least the one time I used Vista I had trouble finding things.) Please email me at jowetzel at gmail dot com to work this out further. (I’m trying to keep the comments from being a detailed debugging log that people won’t want to read.)
47 On May 2nd, 2009, Hexographer (free hex mapping program) Gets More Updates » Inkwell Ideas said:
[...] The software is web-based at: Hexographer [...]
48 On May 3rd, 2009, Craig J. Brain said:
This is a marvelous application! Is there any chance that the direction of the hexes can be changed in future versions?

Thanks very much!

Craig J. Brain
49 On May 4th, 2009, Craig J. Brain said:
I just found out in the upcoming features that you are planning on this! That is fantastic

Craig J. Brain
50 On May 10th, 2009, DeDiceManCometh said:
Pretty nifty. Two requests:

(1) Interiors (TFT/Melee and GURPS players will love.)
(2) Megahexes – these are thick borders around a group of seven hexes as part of the overall grid. See website attached for example. (TFT/Melee players will go berzerk!)
51 On May 10th, 2009, Mirroring the Roleplaying City Map Generator Application » Inkwell Ideas said:
[...] lead me to write my random dungeon generator reviews and was an early inspiration to me for the Hexographer application I’m [...]
52 On May 15th, 2009, Hexographer Hex Mapping Software Gets More Customization Options » Inkwell Ideas said:
[...] have been several updates to my Hexographer software since I last wrote a blog entry about [...]
53 On May 16th, 2009, yellowdingo said:
Awesome…
54 On May 19th, 2009, TheShadow said:
I’m loving this product! It’s what I have been wanting for years.

@DeDicemanCometh – what is this Melee/Wizard website you mentioned? I can’t see a link.
55 On May 27th, 2009, Moox said:
Love the software, I’ll be using it for a little game I came up with.

I figured out a way to make “Heroscape Style” maps! Use the roads to delineate rises. I’d love to post an example and explanation somewhere.

Best,
Moox
56 On May 28th, 2009, Joe said:
Drop me an email and I’ll add your example and explanation. joewetzel at gmail dot com.
57 On May 28th, 2009, Mike Cosgrave said:
Any chance of this folding into VASSAL, which could use a tile based map editor? or a .hxm export which VASSAL can import?
58 On May 28th, 2009, Joe said:
I hadn’t heard of VASSAL before your post. Looking into it, I don’t have time to try to port it, but I would be open to working with someone from the VASSAL project so it could import an .hxm file from Hexographer.
59 On May 31st, 2009, James Kutzer said:
I love this software! It has finally allowed me to place my old, faded, hand-drawn campaign map on my computer. One thing I would love to see is a zoom option, to enable me to zoom out for a larger area view of the continent.
60 On June 1st, 2009, Joe said:
You can already zoom, although since it doesn’t use the word zoom or display 50%, 100%, 200%, 400%, etc. it may not be obvious. Just set the hex height and width (using the selectors in the bottom right corner of the map editor) to something smaller. For example, if you’re using the default hex sizes of 36 pixels wide and 32 pixels high, set them to 18 x 16 to make the map 50%. This will let you see a larger number of hexes. One small problem with this is the hex width should be a multiple of four or else gaps appear between hexes due to rounding. I’ll add that to my list of issues to address.
61 On June 5th, 2009, “Terrain Wizard” feature makes the Hexographer mapping software even faster to use » Inkwell Ideas said:
[...] you haven’t seen or tried the Hexographer hex-map creation/editing software, it is a web-based program that lets you quickly and easily make [...]
62 On June 23rd, 2009, Hexographer free hex mapping software updated, pro version ready - EN World D&D / RPG News said:
[...] [...]
63 On July 27th, 2009, Michael said:
Great Program!
I’m having a ball creating my campaign map!
I’m looking forward to being able to add additional symbols, etc.
Is there a way to turn off the back ground colors to enable printing displaying black and white old school?
64 On July 27th, 2009, Joe said:
Yep.

See this forum post for the long instructions: http://inkwellideas.com/hexographer_forum/index.php?topic=2.0

In short, when viewing your map go to the “Options” menu choose “Customize Hexes.” Then set the background colors of your hexes to white, or whatever color you want. (If your map is mostly land, perhaps you want to keep the water hexes as shades of blue. Or if your map is mostly water, maybe you want your land hexes to have some soft/light colors.)
65 On September 22nd, 2009, Narf the Mouse said:
Major bug – Increasing the map size to the left does not adjust the note positions, so they end up in the wrong place.
66 On September 22nd, 2009, Joe said:
Thanks for the bug report. There will be a fix in the next version. (Within a week.)
67 On September 29th, 2009, Joe said:
A new version of Hexographer was posted last night. It has the bug fix for the issue of notes not moving as the map is enlarged. Thanks again!