by Joe Wetzel (joewetzel at gmail dot com)
[If you like this article, check out the other Worldbuilding articles on this website, particularly the Fantasy Religion Design Guide and the Local Area Design articles.]
I’ve greatly improved the icon set and included it in my hex map software project Hexographer. If you just want the icons for use in GIMP or something else, you may use the icon set posted in the Hexographer forum. It is a zip of PNG images. You’ll want to scale them down and convert them into brushes. Just credit me and/or the website here.
[...] Worldbuilding Resources: Hex Map GIMP Brushes [...]
Wow! Does this work with Photoshop?
Unfortunately I don’t have Photoshop. It is pretty expensive and GIMP meets my needs for now. You can try to open the brush files in Photoshop, but I don’t know if it reads GIMP brush files.
If it does read them, then convert them to Photoshop files following Photoshop’s instructions. If it doesn’t read them, I suppose you could open the map key above in Photoshop and clip out the icons from the map key and make them into Photoshop brushes.
If you do get it working, please send me the brush files and I’ll make them available here.
[...] of guide from other thread: I got the idea from Worldbuilding Resources: Hex Map GIMP Brushes ? Inkwell Ideas I am still learning the GIMP so my method may not be the best way to do things. First, download [...]
Thanks for the great map making tip!
^^^
Just on the bit above where the question was asked whether this would work with photoshop, the simple answer is no. if you want to get it to work with photoshop, you will need to open it with gimp, save it as a psd file and then open it with photoshop.
Thanks.
Are there some basic tips you can give to help with the map (such as how you did the coastlines without them being just straight segments from the hexes?)
I’ve looked over the GMP website (and manual) and it seems a bit too general (at least for fantasy map making)…
Thanks
You should do your oceans as a separate layer under your land. Also, do a number of water hexes that follow along your rivers as part of your ocean layer. Then, erase from the land layer to form your coastline and rivers using the erase tool. Maybe others know of a better way, but that was my process.
I highly recommend the Cartographer’s Guild Forum (http://forum.cartographersguild.com/) for help with GIMP and things like coastlines and mapping in general. Probably the best RPG Mapping resource on the web.
I tried to join a couple of weeks ago… The forum said I should receive an activation message soon but I never got one. I just tried logging in and I was able to. Weird. Maybe I’ll post there soon. I’m still trying balance spreading the word and getting feedback vs. people having a negative first impression of the early versions of the software and therefore not trying it again later.
totally awesome – is there anything like this for older 0e-1e style hack & slash dungeons? thanks & cheers
Hey Joe (wher you goin’ with that gun in your hand?)-Sorry, couldn’t resist…
Anyway, I look forward to trying this out. I have been using GIMP for a few months to make Old-School Blue maps. Here’s my thread over on DF:
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37746
Thanks for posting those brushes! Cartographer’s Guild is definitely a great resource, too. I recommend checking them out…
Hey this program is great! I’m working on my own map i wanted to get a lot of detail and cover a large area so i shrank the size of the hexes to half and played around with the size of the space to see what is the largest i could get before it would crash i have just over 41,000 hexes in my map and 10 layers so far ill post a link to it when I’m done, I’m just wondering if anyone knows a program or where i could download on to make my map into my own turn based strategy game for the p.c.