I think this is pretty cool, nice work.
Greetings everyone !
I hope I'm posting in the right section. If not, a word and I'll move my post to a more appropriate place
I'm submitting for your appreciation a personal project I'm working on for the paintball players community I practice with (LARP/Milsim type paintball games), intended to become both a referencing tool for teams wishing to meet other teams and communities, experiment new fields, and fot organizers to help set up large scale campaings.
_ All based on a hexagon-shaped grid, I've isolated eleven field types, from Wasteland (junkyards, or recycled scraps obstacles) to deep forest, and even indoor or caves (yep, we have that type of fields to play in !!).
_ Each paintball field, wether kindly lent/rented by the owner, or professionnal field, would be described as a cluster of hexagons, based on a rough size estimate, and on its variety, each hexagon showing the type of ground the field has to offer.
_ All these clusters (I intend to reference as many fields as possible) are then to be gathered on a main grid, showing both said fields, and teams location (by its logo/patch or other means).
_ Once this is done, the map, main grid in itself would have to become kind of interactive (still working on a how/what with a computer engineer friend of mine), so any member could click and get intel on the team he wishes to challenge (number of players, type of favourite ground, special characters and so on), and propose a field for said challenge.
I can conceive the amount of work this project involves, but I've been in the paintball playing game since around 4/5 years ago, and organizing scene since about the same time (got the virus right away I might add ...) and I feel now that my knowledge of different fields and people I was led to meet allows me to either do it on my own, or invite organizers friends of mine in the journey, provided all the tools are in place. It's an ambitious project, but don't we need that to drive us ?
So here's what I got so far :
_ In terms of field classifications :
Let's note that all types aren't complete yet, the white doodles are just sketches I drew in my pocket notebook and scanned to fill in blanks. Anyways, it gives a general idea of how the layout would be. Also, I'm thinking of dropping the "field limit" entry, maybe switching it to something else, or making it white, given the dark background. Not sure yet ...
I just realized that forest and deep forest don't look that different when cropped down to a low resolution. I've been working too close to the details and didn't seem to pay enough attention to the overall readability of the tiles. I'll have to fix that ...
So far, just two types of field have been done, regular/mixed forest (and its twin, deep forest) and pinetrees forest (again, with its dense twin) :
Plain, regular forest :
Dense, deep forest :
Fairly spaced pinetrees (often encountered) :
Denser pinetrees
Urban
_ What the full grid looks like once all tiles would be assembled :
_ And a rough preview of what the map would look like in the end (not quite sure yet, it is bound to have subtle and/or main changes during the process) :
So, what do you guys think ?
I hope the function/goal of the map itself is clear, although it's still a work in progress, currently submitted to only a few people. It is also still to be cleared by my fellow "coding expert", who has been a great help with this. It will take some time, data gathering, actual mapmaking, glitches fixing and so on, so here is just the embryo of the whole thing. I also intend to add special features in terms of game rules, like special players/team abilities, typical to a field type, and specific to its "controller" during the game, or between games, so lots left to write, sketch and brainstorm on ...
Thanks for any comments ! Cheers !
Last edited by twister; 07-04-2011 at 02:28 PM.
I think this is pretty cool, nice work.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
This looks pretty great. I can't wait to see the entire map filled up so I can see the whole deal.
“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden
* Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt
Nicely done, looking forward to seeing more.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Thanks for the comments ! Truly appreciated !
Just added the "urban" field type entry ... and edited the initial post.
Pretty glad about it, I might say ...
Done with sketchup (for the buildings), and photoshop took care of the rest ...
I'm realizing that this project could perfectly fit to the monthly lite challenge, but given the time this thing would take to be fully complete, I'll never make it before the end of July ...
Anyways, If it shows good progress and that I feel like it's worth submitting as an entry, I might do it, enven in a static form ... We'll have to wait and see ...
Last edited by twister; 07-04-2011 at 02:27 PM.
*WIP*
Just done the semi-urban type field ...
I have a question now ... Is it enough recognizable from the "urban" tile, or should I add more plants, and maybe less buildings ? My head is too much into the work, and I can't decide ...
Now to the hardest part, the wastelands ! Hard finding the proper equilibrium between junk and natural elements, and manage to make each one recogizable (desert, forest, and semi-urban ...)
I'm having problems as well for the indoor tile, I can't seem to find a right way to represent the boundaries without having to put a forest or grass all around ... I'll post an example when I find the time ...
Coming up monday, meeting with the "engineer", to talk abount the feasability of such a project !! wish me luck !
*WIP*
Quick note, after seeing the tutorial about deep zoom from MitchPjm, things seem to take a much easier turn, so I might eventually manage this project afterall ! Seems quite easy to mount a zoomable picture, with tags, info and so on ...
Here, just quickly wrapped up the "indoor" tile ... I just hope it's fairly identifiable at small scale, but the zooming ability might solve that issue ...
Only tiles left are the wasteland types now ... I'll might as well be completing the project sooner than expected afterall, provided I don't stumble across some unanticipated technical issues ...
This looks great - awesome in fact. In terms of feasibility - its most definitely feasible. If you want a movie of these tiles in a hex grid on a zoom-able map in my app then just shout and ill be glad to show it. I'm pretty certain that MapTool and Fractal Mapper could do this as well if you don't feel like writing a VTT tool from scratch.
Thanks for the comment !
I indeed don't feel like having to plunge myself into a field I'm not (at all) familiar with, so thanks for the tip !
I'm just curious as to what you meant with "a movie of these tiles in a hex grid on a zoom-able map in your app" ... Not sure I understand, sorry for asking . But for the sake of it, and of course if it's not too much trouble, I'll be very glad to see that !
Cheers !
Ok, ill put something together and mail a link in the near future.