Is there a guide or overview on how to make a map?

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Jazzepi

Does anyone have any advice on how to create good wrap around maps? Like, what process should you follow so that it wraps nicely?

Jazzepi

This is done by "tiling".

There are many tutorials online, but the premise is this. You start with an image file, which I represent with this ASCII "map".

BCDEFGH
BCDEFGH
BCDEFGH
BCDEFGH

Then you copy a sliver from the left side (B) around to the right side (after H), like so:
BCDEFGHB
BCDEFGHB
BCDEFGHB
BCDEFGHB

Then you edit it until H lines up with the copied B (various clone, copying and smoothing tools help if you can't draw). Then you remove the "B", and your map tiles left to right (but not top to bottom).
BCDEFGA
BCDEFGA
BCDEFGA
BCDEFGA


You don't have to actually copy slivers and put them to the other end. Photoshop has a filter called Offset that makes the same thing, except easier, and I'm sure other image manipulation programs have something similar. They can turn ABCDefgh into efghABCD, both horizontally and vertically if you choose so. When you have removed the edges, do the offset again with inverted values to get back to your original map. If you see any new errors, fix them, too.

ABCDEF
ABCDEF
ABCDEF

DEFABC
DEFABC
DEFABC

If the ASCII representation was too confusing to be helpful, I can upload some images. It's probably faster to just search for tutorials on tiling textures. It's much simpler than it sounds.