Wednesday, March 3, 2010

This Kind of Map or That?

So, here's the in-progress version of the map of the Hajal region (the sample setting for Dying Sun) which I posted a while back:


This one I did with Illustrator.  I was, however, just reminded of the excellent Hexographer program, which has added some good stuff since last I played with it.  A few minutes of fooling around gave me this equivalent map:


I think I prefer mine, but I'm a bit unsure.  So, dedicated masses, what do you think?

11 comments:

  1. Yep, I much prefer yours

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  2. Thanks for giving Hexographer a whirl. You and others may still like yours better, but because you're doing back and white one tweak I'd suggest is to make the terrain hex background colors white or at least softer. To do so go to the "Options" menu then "Customize Hexes". If you have the pro version you can also swap out the default icon set with a B&W specific icon set available in the "Announcements" section of the Hexographer forum. But changing the background color is an option in both the free and pro versions.
    --Joe (Hexographer Creator)

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  3. Definitely the first one. Easier to read and less ink when printing.

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  4. I like hexographer, but I like your map better.

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  5. I like hexographer but I always assumed it had been written for the inept (like me). If you can produce your own maps without it, I think you should. You version is very clean.

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  6. Well, I'll call that a mandate from the masses. :) Cheers.

    Joe--I still think Hexographer is a great tool.

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  7. No worries. As I said, with a few tweaks I think Hexographer's would look better than it does. But everyone's taste is different and doing things in a specific tool is going to force at least a few stylistic decisions.

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  8. Hey Joe--as I said on the thread on the OD&D board, one thing that's really lacking is a good way to represent a cliff or elevation like the Godhri Rodge depicted on my map. The elevation line as it exists now is pretty much indistinguishable from any other line (that's the elevation line on the second version, denoting the Lost Sea).

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  9. I saw the question about the elevation lines yesterday. I'll bump up the priority of the request since now a few people have asked. It is one of those things that I want to do, but just had other things that were more in demand. I can't say for sure that it will be in the next release though.

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