Zandari Posted January 6, 2005 Report Share Posted January 6, 2005 Has anyone here ever tried using map editors or world editors from video games such as Age of Empires II, Empire Earth, Morrowind, Dungeon Siege, etc. for generating relatively small scale maps. It occurred to me last night that these things have pretty nice editors in some cases, with terrain, buildings, and lots of other goodies that would make for some pretty nice small scale maps. The trick is exporting them to a decent format. With most of them, you can take a screen shot that creates what I assume will be a .bmp on the Clipboard. This could then be imported as a background with some of the free map generating programs available on the web and overlain with a hex grid. My question is, has anyone out there tried this, how did you go about it, and how did it work out? I am not looking for something that is publisher quality, just something I could print out and slap on the table for a visual aid. Thanks HEROs! Zandari, defender of the couch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legendsmiths Posted January 6, 2005 Report Share Posted January 6, 2005 Re: Question about map generation I'm not sure that would give you much. There's probably a fair amount of editing involved, and something like Dundjinni or MapX does a good enough job and doesn't require any jumping through hoops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted January 6, 2005 Report Share Posted January 6, 2005 Re: Question about map generation I'm more in favour of Autorealm - as it's open source and free. http://autorealm.sourceforge.net However, that being said - if you are using a 3D game which doesn't allow screenshots, you're if for a bit of difficulty because they generally use OpenGL or DirectX which use video buffers that can't be screen captured with the default printscreen in windows. Have a look for programs such as Hypersnap (which is shareware) or Printkey which will allow you to take screenshots. Ideally you will want to use a graphic editor that has layers, such as Photoshop, so you can just slap a hex grid over the top and then worry about scaling afterwards. The nice thing about using 3D games is that they come with great texture mapping and lighting - which will give your floorplans a very professional look - if you have a decent colour printer of course... I haven't done any level design since Halflife, I don't have the time - but there are lots of good articles, levels and architecture out there to use. I highly recommend Neverwinter Nights (NWN) - as the online community is huge and is consistently creating new items, objects and terrain that fit the fantasy genre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted January 7, 2005 Report Share Posted January 7, 2005 Re: Question about map generation There was recently a mapping thread in General Roleplaying that might have some interesting ideas for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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