Situational Awareness Maps

[The Plodder]

Here's an experiment with some basic contours at 200m intervals, actually doesn't take that long to add as I've got a pretty good underlay map. What do you think? Is the map too busy now? Keep them or get rid of them? The faded red zone is the Westwall.

 

[luigi]

I find the map to be a little bit too crowded but also nicer. Two things: the resolution seems to be too low and I would rather have the counters and the text to less mixed in the map. Probably a less colored map could work fine. Anyhow, it is really a nice piece of work.

 

[john connor]

Better without, Plodder, I think, given they're to be relatively small I think it crowds it too much. Imho.

Peter

 

[The Plodder]

Better without, Plodder, I think, given they're to be relatively small I think it crowds it too much. Imho.

Peter

Yeah, I'll play around with colours and opacity before I decide whether to drop them. That's the actual size of the map, btw.

 

[The Plodder]

Here's a version that doesn't seem too busy to me yet the contours can be easily seen.While I quite like this, I'm going to try this method on a map that has more low levels and see what it looks like.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Rich, maybe you could achieve greater contrast by brightening the background colour of the unit icons. It's not a "biggy" though.

 

[luigi]

I agree with Dave, probably a less saturated background will work better. I guess that you have to decide if you want a more realistic kind of feel or more "pen and paper" one. I second the last one, i.e. less saturated and brighter background. Anyhow, as I have already said thanks so much for the work I guess it could really improve the immersion in the game.

 

[john connor]

Any of these are great, I think, to be honest. I think the main thing is to be able to see (1) roughly - the forces involved, (2) the area involved, and, in addition it's nice to be able to compare these two to (3) the bigger picture. There's nothing else needed, right? And the above version achieves this, and looks good (we could make that '(4)') ....

 

[The Plodder]

Good call on desaturating the background Luigi, I'm much happier with this result:



and here's another one that I did that had lots of low ground to compare:



Now I just have to add a small altitude scale and I'm happy..

 

[The Plodder]

and finally with all the bells and whistles:

 

[john connor]

Lovely! Great work, Plodder (as ever).

Peter

 

[David Heath]

Wow very nice.

 

[Daz]

It looks awesome Richard, well done mate

 

[The Plodder]

Thanks for all the kind words and comments. Remember when I said that when I make maps, it's an iterative process? As I was working on Battle of the Roadblocks,which is based off the Race for Bastogne map I'd added some more units and boundaries. I then went back to the Race for Bastogne map and added the units and corps boundaries in the north and also VII HQ which was in Bastogne at the start of the battle. It's then a case of rearranging the other map elements to fit.

 

[No idea]

I would like to say that the new maps are great. I love them.

 

[The Plodder]

An update for you all. I've now finished all the Bulge scenario maps so you should get them in the not-too-distant future.
Here's a preview of Spearhead vs Reich from Ride of the Valkyries:

 

[Daz]

They look awesome, well done mate

 

[MikeH]

Nice work there Plodder!!

 

[Art Hall]

very nice Plodder!

 

[The Plodder]

I've started work on the maps for HTTR. This time I'm using a master map which I will then cut to size for each individual SAM. I've got a superb map from 1944 to use as my template, if it wasn't copyrighted I'd just place the units on top and use that. I've now completed the waterways and rail network. I've just got the roads, borders, elevations and towns to go. Not to too much work. (Actually, it's doesn't take too long as I'm not including everything from the template) The pale area on the map is the size of the standard SAM you see in the game.