minimap art

[Mobius]

I've experimented a number of ways of doing the minimap. I finally arrived on combining two things Stridor suggested. First take a snapshot of the map as an overhead in ScreenEdit. Use that as the background in a layered terrain map.

As Stridor suggested I used the layered map idea to create my main map. It has roads, forest, grass, water and fields levels, and the top layer would be buildings and special terrain. For the overhead map I only use the background, roads, woods and buildings layers and delete the others.
I have to change the blue water color to a light blue so it isn't confused by the blue dots which will show German units. Also the red building color must be changed so it won't be confused with Russian units shown on the map. I tried gray houses but it is hard to see. Right now I am using the ruins (yellow ochre) color for houses.

Reduce this overhead map to 160 x 160 and make it a png file and you have a nice minimap.