Map designing contest
 

Hi,

I was thinking about organizing a small map designing contest.

What do you think (theme etc...)?

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Map designing contest
 

Hi,

By small do you mean the map size? How about 100 wide x 80 high. Theme could be summer countryside with towns and or villages.

Re: Map designing contest
 

Hi,

I was thinking about having (3) categories for small, medium and large maps.

As for the theme it could be fixed or it could be open.
In a case of a "fixed", I would be very interested for a "Vietnam jungle" or "Vietnam city" maps but this should be decided in a democratic way.

Anyway, we should wait for a while to see more opinions on the subject.

cheers,

Re: Map designing contest
 

I`d be interested in having a go at this. Map design is a key element in good scenario design, and as I have no experience of it, it may be a good place to start. Now, if I could just get it to work.....

Re: Map designing contest
 

Paul,

It must be terrible... to have the game, but not be able to play it... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Map designing contest
 

Hello Pyros.

A custom map contest sounds good. Categories of S/M/L sounds good also. Will this be in European measurements or other .. haahhahahahaha. [Hexes versus Yards or Metres].
I prefer hexes first, followed by Metric. The Imperial measurements mean nothing to me since Pierre Trudeau made sure that Canadian children learned the Metric Measurement System. Immediately, gas stations changed over to metric measurement pricing. Since most adults were not adjusted to doing the conversions back to Imperial measurements [English or American gallons] they were able to increase the price of gasoline without much conflict.
That's one smooth and smart politician. To be able to get what you want and what is needed in one step.

dvcc

Re: Map designing contest
 

Hello Skirmisher and Dita. I hope you both submit custom maps.
I played Dita's scen 250 the other night and it looked quite good. The SPMBT graphics look significantly better in Windows.

Gus

Re: Map designing contest
 

Hello Gus,

Welcome to the forum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Map designing contest
 

I'm game. Do we have map size measurements for the different categories?

How about..
 

Say, how about a Historical category. [You know actual maps from the period or for a specific battle]/
And an open category. An open category would be a map that relates actual strategy into game geography.
For example:
-the reverse slope
-the Hull Down cross-fire; this is terrain that prevents a frontal shot but allows the defender to shoot to the side along an 'X' pattern with other units while remaining Hull Down
-the amphibious landing
-the bridge assault
-the hide and seek thru an orchard or reforested forest

danstudentvcc

Re: How about..
 

Hi Gus,

What would be interesting would be to have some huge maps directly designed using a real topographic prototype!

If you search in the NET you could find some very detailed topographic maps (it would be even better if you could find a map from a historical battleground - should I add the word "Vietnam"...LOL).

cheers,
Pyros

Re: How about..
 

Hello Pyros. Hope you read my other message about how I was not posting about you me and viking2 at SZO; just about being confused.

Glad you mentioned topographic maps. I had been working on my Operational Theatres Map of Sicily here at the library. It is from the topographic maps that I am making the SPOpT maps. I am using the editors for WinMBT and SPWAW from Chlanda and Ectizen to make the maps correct by distance [in kilometers] and by elevation [sea-level to, in the 1000's of metres]. By making small adjustments I am able to change the road grades and to introduce line of sight obstructions that are below level 1 elevation changes.

I have also obtained some photos of the various regions of Sicily for the coming Operational Theatres battles.
We begin play much like the Coalition armies of today do. A series of aerial bombardments by B-17's and other allied air to soften up suspected concentrations of Axis units. Followed by an amphibious landing against Italian Coastal units. hehhehehehehehehe...[We hope the guns are pointed in the right direction or is that their upstretched hands/arms as opposed to rifle arms!!].
The aliases control everything from: choosing how to spend their command unit's points; what force compositions to use; they even assign their own air/naval/arty bombardments and have special forces to run recon or assassination attempts on Axis Generals.

Play will move from one SP map to the other [by the hour in real time]. During daylight hours if you are brave you can be like Patton 'Reconnoiteuring by force' deep into Sicily. Or not. There will be civilians as well, so the Allies have to be careful not to kill too many since they will be under both flags.

It should be fun and within game limits the maps will be close to the actual thing.

Gus

Re: Map designing contest
 

Here is the format I used for the one we did at SZO way back in 2003 (geez, how time flies)! Of course the Map dimensions are based on SPWAW and not SPMBT so these would need re-adjusting for the larger width maps/shorter height.

<font color="brown"> Maps must be submitted to Double Deuce no later than midnight, November 30th, 2003.

Maps will be categorized by total playing area (total # of hexes). To determine the map size use the following formula (Width * Height = Total Hexes). This total # of hexes determines what category the map will be grouped into.

The 4 categories will be;

SMALL &lt; 4000 total hexes (i.e. 100x40).
MEDIUM &lt; 6000 total hexes (i.e. 100x60).
LARGE &lt; 8000 total hexes (i.e. 100x80).
GIANT &gt; 8000 total hexes (i.e. 100x81+).

A panel of judges will be selected by Double Deuce from WarfareHQ Ladder Members who have NOT submitted any maps for the contest. Judging will commence shortly after the submission period ends. Each judge will score every map on a scale of 1-10. The map with the highest average score in each category wins. Maps will be posted to the WarfareHQ Download Section once all judging has been completed for general SP community enjoyment.</font>

Re: How about..
 

Hi Gus,
The trick with the conversion of real topographic maps into SP maps might be the method of assigning/convert relative heights to the map.
As you know a height of 1, 2, ...12 is a relative height.
So the issue is to adapt this scale using absolute topographic heights.
For example the height of 0 should be the minimum height in the topographic map, but still you should determine the step of elevation according to the real landscape.

Taking as point of reference that a hex represents 50 meters, what should the step of 1 height represent on a SP map?
IMO, this is relative and may change according to the absolute heights of the real topographic map (for example in a plain map the step represents less elevation and in a mountain map the step should represent more elevation; not from a gaming/coding point of view but from an artistic/map appearance point of view.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Map designing contest
 

DD,

The judge system is great, but what do you think about a mix system; 50% based on the judge vote and the other 50% based on a forum POLL? This way you will have the opinions of both the experts and the public! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Also, what do you think about creating thematic categories like conversion of topographic map (submit also the topographic map), highly bombarded/destroyed city environment/battleground etc..?

cheers,
Pyros

btw, how do you prefer to participate in this; as a judge or as a map designer? LOL...:)

Re: Map designing contest
 

I was thinking about incorporating a Poll, open to the public. This way we could limit votes to 1 person = 1 vote.

I think we should be open to any categories, just wanted to post what we used before as starting point. I like the topograhic category addition. Would they have to include the scan/image of the map for comparison?