Matrix Games Forums

Vic,

I'm going by your tutorial to try and make my first scenario. I'm using a map of Avalon Hill's "Fortress Europa" as an overlay. I've take the map that I have, which I drew for the VASSAL program, and then overlayed several screenshots of a blank map with hexes from your game over it. I pieced those pieces together to make a hex grid that covers the entire Fortress Europa (FE) map. I then free transformed my FE map to match up the hexgrid that I overlayed as closesly as possible. I saved this map for use as my overlay, but when I select it an then open it in the editor, the hexes start to match in the upper left but by the middle of the map, the hexes are way off. This leads me to believe that the hexgrid that is used in the game isn't uniform (they seem to compress in the middle and then stretch again towards the bottom). This makes making an overlay of existing boardgames next to impossible.

My question, mostly out of curiousity, but why do some computer wargames have hexes that are skewed (usually too wide)? I realize that to make this game engine use "true" uniformily sized hexes would be a major undertaking for you, but can anything be done to adjust the hexes in this game?

See the screenshots below for a visual of what I'm talking about.

In Photoshop (looks good - purple hexes taken from a blank map from your editor):


In the editor (FUBAR!):

Easiest thing you could do is to stretch the overlay a bit (either in graphics programm) or by increasing the width of the AT hex map.
 
The thing is this is the first time i am confronted by the idea of directly porting boardgames. I never thought about this when desigining.
 
kind regards,
Vic

Vic,
I think this might be a problem of dpi, between the map used for overlay and the dpi of the map engine ?
They are both at 72 dpi? ( i think the map engine use 72 dpi...)

as of patch v1.01 everything is always in the same DPI

wait... i misunderstood the original problem. i'll look into it. if it is ok in photoshop it should work in AT.
 
@GJK,
 
let me check this out. could you email me the file to vic@xs4all.nl

I think that the listed problem is that AT hexes aren't regular hexes (ie all sides aren't equal), they're distorted/elongated horizontally. So when you try to paste a "regular hex" wargame map it goes awry.
Looking at the pic the distorsion is like 1/15  - ie when there's 15 vertically aligned AT hexes there is 16 regular ones (look how the patchwork joins again after 15 hexes)
So even if you use a non hexed map as a background for a map it's a problem, because distances will be distorted (ie some locations 100 km apart will be 15 hexes apart if aligned W-E, but 16 if N-S !).
 
Suggested quickfix is to elongate the base pic 115% horizontally or compress 85% vertically (approx, to fine tune..), real fix would be to have regular hexes in the game ! [:'(]

I know what you mean GJK.  When I put my Blitzkrieg map on I got he same fuzzy outline. I have tried Vassel but I have many more cyberboard maps. I'm not sure how to fine tune them together easily but I like your idea of a screen shot. [/align]The first time I worked with my Blitz map I did about a quarter of it, saved it and when I loaded it back up ,where was my overlay?  Ha ha silly me. Its just a guide.[/align]Say Vic how about an option to be able to leave the overlay on! And make the game graphic transparent so that the mountains(or cities,forests) on the overlay are what we see but the values for the "transparent" graphic is what counts! We could make some really pretty maps that way.[/align] [/align]

Vic: email sent with all the files zipped up for you. As I wrote in my email for others following along:

I'm sending copies of my overlays per your request. Including is a gif that has just your hexes. I took a screenshot of a blank map in the editor, isolated out the hexes, colored them a bright color so that they would stand out and then I stitched several copies of those together to make a large blank "mapsheet".


Next is my Fortress Europa (FE) map. In Photoshop, I added the blank hex mapsheet over the FE map. I then "transformed" the FE map to make the hexes on it match as closely as possible the hexes of the blank mapsheet so that I could then use it as an overlay. Included is a small portion of the original FE map before I skewed it to fit into the grid from AT.


If you look at my screenshot on the forums of this map in the editor, it looks like there's an accordion effect in the middle as those hexes bunch up and then back at the bottom they line up again, but it makes tracing my original map next to impossible.

Hmm
With a set of purely transparent terrain tiles, we could use the "base" map looks directly in the game, that will allow all kinds of map types to retain their glory !
It doesn't look difficult, we just need to be sure of what the background color is [;)]

ORIGINAL: Vic

The thing is this is the first time i am confronted by the idea of directly porting boardgames.

And mods requiring disclaimers about having to own the original game box to use the mod. That's going to suck!

GJK,
 
i got it working in patched version 1.02. You too? i think the example you send overlayed perfectly with 44 by 34 hexes (or 44 by 33?)

Hadn't tried it yet Vic, didn't know that was one of the fixed items in 1.02 (sorry!), will try it this evening!

Ok Vic, I see what is happening. Whatever size you set your map to be in hexes (height x width) in the editor, your overlay will stretch or compress to fit inside that screen size so if you don't have the exact number of hexes set properly (including the offset of the top row with the half-hexes up there) then your overlay will be skewed and not align properly. My suggestion would be to not stretch/fit the overlay (or make it a toggle) and instead, fit it from the top left and if the overlay is larger than the map window, then the overlay would be cropped off and vice versa if the map is larger than the overlay then you will have some empty rows/columns of hexes that extend past the overlay.

Edit: And also, the editor counts the first row/column as "0" (i.e, 0,0 for the top left hex) so if your board game map is 44 x 35 hexes in actual size, you have to enter 43 x 34 in the editor otherwise it will stretch and extra row and column of hexes.