Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > The Fantasy Trip

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 07-05-2019, 03:54 AM   #1
xane
 
xane's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: London, UK
Default Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

I've been experimenting with creating tiles that allow "traditional" mapping but retain the hex/megahex grid used by TFT, I've yet to figure out how to do rooms but the corridors seem to be fine.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/408pvmdgib...04334.jpg?dl=0

I'd be interested what others think of this idea, particularly if it would help with converting maps from other RPG adventures for TFT.

Edit: some explanations:

* the inspiration for these comes from the Melee Map, where you can see a "straight" line of megahexes, so the idea was to recreate this pattern.
* as with any hexagon tessellation, there is a difference between left-right and up-down, the pattern is designed to minimise this as much as possible, there are still separate tiles for corridors running in each direction, each tile has a little arrow indicating what orientation it should be in, the tiles can all be rotated 180 degrees but not 90 degrees.
* the white borders are there because the half-hexes (those with a visible centre dot) are considered usable, so the border allows the character base to fit.
* the "wide" corridors are about 3 hexes wide (a megahex), which using the TFT scale of 1 hex = 4', means they are 12', but because the hexes are slanted it is more like 11', this is as close as you can get to a 10' corridor as per traditional mapping.
* the "narrow" corridors follow a 2-2-1 hex wide path, these are roughly 5.5' to 6' in width.
* the rooms have yet to be sorted out, shown are two types of tile that can be tessellated, these are very close to a 10'x20' room and a 20'x20' room, and still retain the megahex pattern.

Credits: J Roberts @ fantasticmaps.com for the flagstone textures, and Fat Dragon Games (fatdragongames.com) for the 3D doorways.

Last edited by xane; 07-05-2019 at 08:40 AM.
xane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2019, 05:16 AM   #2
Tywyll
 
Join Date: Nov 2017
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

These are amazing! I would love to see more and get copies!

One 'concern' I've had with converting old adventures from OSR sources... in a 10' corridor, in osr games 3 people can march abreast unless one or more is using a two-handed weapon, in which case only two can.

That's hard to do with hexes.

Last edited by Tywyll; 07-05-2019 at 07:07 AM.
Tywyll is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2019, 08:44 AM   #3
malchidael
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Near Milwaukee, WI
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

MegaHexes in general are not the friend of dungeon tiles, because they make alignment much more challenging than just hexes alone do.

You did a fantastic job with the corridors!
malchidael is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2019, 01:09 PM   #4
amenditman
 
Join Date: Nov 2018
Location: Florida Peninsula, Earth, Sol Sytem
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

Those are great!

Now I want a set or three.
__________________
The first rule of GMing
"If you make it, players will break it"
amenditman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2019, 01:48 PM   #5
malchidael
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Near Milwaukee, WI
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

So what did you use to do the MegaHexes? I tried rotating my CC3 MegaHex grids, but that was such a pain, I gave up on it.
malchidael is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2019, 02:38 PM   #6
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

I tend to just draw maps freeform and then overlay hexgrid transparencies. It means the GM needs to interpret which hexes and hexsides count as passable, but it removes all need to try to line up the world with any grid.
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2019, 11:51 PM   #7
JLV
 
JLV's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

Pretty nifty!

I'll go ahead and post this link again, if anyone is interested in seeing the "Squarehex" concept again...
JLV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-06-2019, 01:54 AM   #8
xane
 
xane's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: London, UK
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

Quote:
Originally Posted by malchidael View Post
So what did you use to do the MegaHexes? I tried rotating my CC3 MegaHex grids, but that was such a pain, I gave up on it.
The hex grid was copied, tessellated and rotated by eye (!), I need to do a more professional version 2 later which is mathematically accurate as there is a bit of misalignment in places and the original pattern was zoomed to get it to TFT standard 1.5" hexes, which has caused jagged edges, and this has not been helped by conversion to PNG or PDF images.

At the moment I am trying to secure permission for the textures I used, I might have to switch them, and then I will post a link for the set.
xane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-06-2019, 07:57 AM   #9
malchidael
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Near Milwaukee, WI
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Pretty nifty!

I'll go ahead and post this link again, if anyone is interested in seeing the "Squarehex" concept again...
MegaHexes are a central part of the 'feel' of TFT to me, but they are used for so little in actual play.

I did a quick Campaign Cartographer comparison of a small room with MegaHexes and one with SquareHexes just to see what visible impact it had.

I don't know where my door between the room and corridor went.... but since these were demos, I didn't care to investigate.

While non-traditional, the Square Megahexes seem to work pretty well and are almost un-noticeably different.

One thing I've been playing with is buying HeroicMaps maps from DriveThru, loading them into Campaign Cartographer, and laying a MegaHex grid over them. I haven't tried printing them out because, well, I don't have a campaign going yet, but I may have to set up a SquareHex template for them to see how that looks.
malchidael is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-06-2019, 08:20 AM   #10
malchidael
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Near Milwaukee, WI
Default Re: Traditional Mapping with Megahexes

Quote:
Originally Posted by xane View Post
The hex grid was copied, tessellated and rotated by eye (!), I need to do a more professional version 2 later which is mathematically accurate as there is a bit of misalignment in places and the original pattern was zoomed to get it to TFT standard 1.5" hexes, which has caused jagged edges, and this has not been helped by conversion to PNG or PDF images.
Hand rotation is fun! I'm trying to remember the rotation percentage I used when I did that for a map I created in Campaign Cartographer, but CC3 doesn't seem to save that in the file. I gave up after that map, even though it meant my Melee maps print on 4 sheets of paper instead of 3.
malchidael is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:09 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.