Thread: Game Maps With Google Maps Functionality

I've never uploaded anything there and I don't know if anyone else here has either...maybe they have. There was a post a few weeks back (maybe as far back as 8 weeks) about doing so but I don't know if anyone has yet. You might get more help by asking over there.

I wasn't really wanting to know if anyone here had uploaded something to Obsidian Portal, I was simply using it as an example of what I want to try and accomplish.

I want to know if anyone knows a way to take a map that I have made (in photoshop if that matters) and place it into a google map/earth like interface. The Primary goals I would like to accomplish are...

1. Click and drag navigation
2. Zoom in/out capability
3. The ability to place markers (preferably with mouse-over information)

CoyoteMax has done that so he might be the one to ask...hope he reads this.

I've done something similar, but it did not have the ability to add new information (at least not as I'm able to work things). I used the Zoomify export from photoshop (cs3, i think cs4 has it as well, I don't recall if previous versions do - i know ps7 does not).

I believe it uses Flash as a basis so if you had flash programming knowledge you may be able to incorporate other options.

I was going to link in some other posts where we talked about this, but "zoomify" is not working as a search term

Found the link to the map I posted with the function enabled though!
http://home.cogeco.ca/~coyotemax/

Google Maps provides a free API that you can use on your own website using your own map(s). You have to register your website to get a key code to make it work. It really helps if you know some javascript to get it going.

You basically cut up your map into 256x256 pieces and tell the script to use those instead of the real-world ones provided by Google. You do this for every zoom level you want to provide. Ideally, you use different images for each zoom level, so the labels remain legible when you zoom out. You can also place your own markers via javascript.

From what you are describing, Obsidian Portal is using a script that does the cutting for you automagically.

You can read more about the API here.

You could also use the Zoomify tiles then, it chops into 256x256. Instead of using the zoomify itself, just grab the images it creates.

This is most relevant to my interests. Now all I need is one of those table-sized smart PCs so i can have fancy schmancy maps, then when its battle time ... ZOOOOOOOOOOM! .. oh look, 1inch grids.

:-)

On a more serious note, if you download Google Earth, you might be able to tell it to use your own world, and thus use your maps offline. I'm guessing. It follows logically in my mind though.

I spent a bit of time looking, it does appear that the google maps API can be used to create maps using custom map tiles and custom data.
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/doc...CustomMapTiles

I'll admit though, not being a programmer I started to nod off a bit when it started getting into examples.

Google Earth doesn't appear to have anything modifiable in this regard, all I could find was for custom maps using already existing imagery. Of course i only spent an hour looking, and there might be better search terms than I used, so someone else may have better luck.

Custom Map Types

Note: This is an Advanced Topic
If you find the GTileLayerOverlay too limiting, you can define your own custom map type, and develop an entirely new display paradigm. To do so, construct a GMapType object and add it to the map using the GMap2.addMapType() method.
Constructing a map type from scratch is an involved process. You will need to build a way to define and retrieve dynamic data to display on the map given current coordinates, and you will need to determine yourself how to reference and display tile images. How you do that is up to you; however, we can help you a little by explaining how Google Maps implements its tile references.

Hi, i have created custom google maps for my campaign. It's pretty awesome, you can create custom icons, overlays etc. You'd need an API-key registered at google. I generated a 6-level-deep map with fractal terrain pro and there's also PS scripts for tiling images. To make the images check the documentation as to how google map projects and coordinates are used. Too bad my personal webserver is not connected to the web else i'd show the link. If you have question about creating it let me know. I attached the java-scripts + 3 levels of images (level 6 is over 300K images I created in case you wanne check it. (the code is uncommented as I never intended to share it so you'd need to haves some knowledge of Javascript to apply this. Also the conversion from coordinates to tiles is a bit odd as i used the standard FT-pro export function and needed to convert coordinates to these). cheers