Question for veterans map makers.

[oakranger]

Here is a question for you veterans map makers. What is the best order of work do you go on to create a map from beginning to end? By means, create the land, rivers and lakes, mountains, terrain.

[USRanger]

It depends.  Are you referring to an MA terrain or a real world SEA terrain?

[Tank-Ace]

Not a veteran, but for the few maps I've made, I've done it like this (with the exception of my current work-in-progress):

1)Brainstorm/reasearch (in the case of a real life map)

2)draw a sketch of what I want, drawn to scale

3)create all the land

4) adjust water depth if nessecary

5)place bases, spawns, and accompanying items

6) add mountians, rivers, lakes, etc AROUND the bases, so you don't end up with things like ends of runways being on the water, or hills making it impossible to lift bombers from certian runways

7) draw the terrain

8) touch-up/sanding the edges

[ghostdancer]

This is for historical terrains.

1) Get elevation bitmap for the terrain area.

2) Create land (waterd.bmp) file. When doing this I also create the lakes and rivers.

3) Create a CBM map (rough just land shapes no elevation stuff)

3) Match up the elevation with the position of the water.

4) Do water depth and textures for water.

5) Do land textures.

6) Make the final CBM map.

7) Then place bases, strats, etc., etc.