Oh how I love hexes.

[DrPraetorious]

Oh, how I love hexagons.

Mediafire link since attachments are still busted:
http://www.mediafire.com/?1zioy2hufv1

Here's a map with a hexgrid laid over it. Maps like this are pretty easy to make because the auto-border parser has no trouble finding adjacency on a hex-grid.

Here's how to make one in GIMP.

0) Copy my hexgrid into your patterns folder for GIMP. On my machine this is: F:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\patterns

1) Draw your map (no borders or province dots obviously.) This is set up for wrap-around maps, you'll have to manually delete province dots at the edge if it's not wrap around. This one is easy wrap-around, I just took an existing map and reflected it over the central axis twice.
2) Scale the map (Image->Scale Image) to be an exact multiple of 206x177. Alternatively, you can scale the hexes in hex_extended.pat (it opens in Gimp) but make sure that the white dots are still in the right place. Also, these hexes really are the right size for dominions to look good.
3) Select the entire map (Ctrl-A on a windows machine.)
4) Select the paint bucket tool. Set the Opacity slidebar to 100%, set Mode to Normal, set Fill Type to Pattern Fill. Click on the pattern and select the hex_extended pattern. Set the affected area to "Fill whole selection" and click.
Anchor the new layer, save the .tga file (with a new name) and tada! you've got a hex-grid laid over your map.

[Gandalf Parker]

I havent looked at GIMP since about midway thru Dom2 but I remember it had some great features for generating random maps. Here are some leftover images from the Dom2 discussions which are probably still in the Dom2 forums.
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/projects/GIMP/

I remember that some people also came up with step-by-step to generate some pretty cool random maps in other programs such as photoshop.

These would work great with the hex-map overlay.

[DrPraetorious]

GP, my faculties are <100% at the moment, but do you have links to the dom2 forum posts? I'd love to be able to generate random maps from inside GIMP, and given the power of the scripting language I'm sure it's possible, but I don't see the threads to which you refer.

I'll look again in the morning when I'm sober.

[Gandalf Parker]

Wow quite a wealth of info I managed to collect into one of the threads I found.
GIMP and Maps
Thats what I like to do. Spark the conversation, ask the right questions, get the right answers from the experts. I wonder if anyone ever did anything with it?

That thread has info on:

The generation scripts

making wrappable maps

creating a template of the white dots so you can blur or run other affects on the map then put the dots back

Here is another thread of interest also: JAVA Programmer (and Win-DomMap, and some GIMP)

[DrPraetorious]

I've got a modified version of the built-in map script that doesn't produce quite as much water.

I've attached the current output I can generate - once I've figured out how to fix the mesas, and maybe add some deserts, forests, swamps and tundra, I'll post the scripts.

[DrPraetorious]

Okay, I can produce pretty handsome random maps now.

They come with mountains and seas - I have to add

* I really, really wish that I could delete individual province connections from inside dominions' own map-editor. Having to switch over to the text editor to delete an adjacency is a pain.

* Does anyone understand how thick-border detection *works*? I can't make anything red on the maps (such as the lower levels of the mountains, which are handsomely snow-capped at the tops) or I have to fix all the borders by hand, which is a major pain. What range of red/brown values is it finding? Maybe I can just fiddle them over a color level by hand.

[Gandalf Parker]

You can delete a connection in the map editor.
Ctrl and left-click.

[Gandalf Parker]

quoting Kristoffer
reddish borders are useful if you don't want to specify every neighbour of every province. The computer uses red colours to guess neighbours. You will probably have to check on all provinces to make sure that they work properly, but it will save you some clicking trouble. Bright red and symmetrical borders will give you a good map file. More brownish or very thin borders, strangely shaped provinces or sea areas will leave you with some provinces with too many neighbours.

[Gandalf Parker]

What you might do is use bright red borders. Then after you have a .map for it, swap the color on the image to something easier to look at.

[DrPraetorious]

Oh, you're right, that's what I should have done. Would be easy since the red borders that I actually want are on a different layer!

However, I changed the bottoms of the mountains to an ochre color which looks fine for now.

I'm going to fiddle with this a bit more and then post the code.