For those who haven't seen it before:
Over the past 2 months I’ve been working on a program that allows a user to create hex maps like those in Known World/Mystara/“The Voyage of the Princess Ark” Dragon magazine article series.
I had previously created hex map brushes for GIMP based on those maps, but the core architecture of this hex map tool came to me and I wanted to do it for a number of reasons.
The software is web-based at: Hexographer
Here’s a sample map snippet so you can easily see what it does:
Some key points:
-It starts as an applet in a web page so many people won’t have to install anything. (You may need to install/upgrade Java, however.)
-You can choose to start with a map of random terrain or a map of all one terrain.
-You set the map’s width and height in hexes and the size of the hexes.
-You can customize the random terrain generator to give a different mix of land.
-Then your map opens in a pop-up window.
-There you can select terrain buttons then click on the map to change a hex into that terrain. You can also drag over hexes to change all of those hexes.
-You can select generic line and text buttons to draw lines or add labels and there are also preset line a text buttons that have settings appropriate for coastlines, rivers, roads, country borders, etc.
-You can optionally turn on/off hex borders, hex numbering, terrain icons.
-Hex numbering is very customizable: font name/style/size/color; rows then columns vs. columns then rows; set the separator character; what number to use to start the rows and columns.
-If you add text and lines and note if each is a political feature, natural feature or infrastructure, you can turn each of these on and off as if they are layers. (The preset road/river/boundary line and text buttons are set up for this.)
-You can save it to a native format for later editing and export it as a regular PNG image so it can be edited in an image editor or printed.
-It also includes some planet/star/asteroid/etc icons to create a starmap. (Coming in the next couple of days is a feature to change the colors of those icons.)
-You can also import a map to trace over it if you want to use an old map or part of a map as a guide.
-And probably a whole bunch more.
Please let me know what you think, if you encounter any issues, and what you’d like to see added.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7prrWqKmlnF6kv6h706GpnpmUqHypsdeonquZoJ2ys3nFq5yeZaear26uwKycnWWYmsVuucCpZKCdnpq%2FosDOq2SenJmpvLN5xp6rrGWdpL%2BmedSpm5qslah7c4GUbG1uZw%3D%3D