Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: 2DIE4 on June 26, 2012, 12:34:03 PM

Title: Terrain maps
Post by: 2DIE4 on June 26, 2012, 12:34:03 PM
Does anybody know of a way to print full size terrain maps? Or a way to open them in print to modify for print? I would like to mark targets for coordinated strikes over time.
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: Vinkman on June 26, 2012, 12:43:01 PM
Does anybody know of a way to print full size terrain maps? Or a way to open them in print to modify for print? I would like to mark targets for coordinated strikes over time.

a full size map would cover 152,100 Square miles. How much paper you got?  ;)
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: ImADot on June 26, 2012, 12:50:47 PM
Many of the SEA terrains have an associated "strat map", which is what I think you're looking for. I'm not sure if they're all easily found, but an example for the BoB09 map can be found here:

http://www.hitechcreations.com/wiki/index.php/BoB09 (http://www.hitechcreations.com/wiki/index.php/BoB09)
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: 2DIE4 on June 26, 2012, 01:12:37 PM
Thanks ImADot for a intelligent reply.
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: Bizman on June 26, 2012, 02:02:49 PM
Another approach: While in game on your desired map, even offline, open the clipboard. There's a + sign in the upper right corner. Unfortunately you can't slide the metal clip above your screen, which limits the amount of magnification - a rotatable monitor would give some more, or even a laptop or other non-gaming device. FPS don't matter in this case... Take a screenshot or several, ALT+S saves them all to the C:\HitechCreations\AcesHigh\Scrshot folder. Open each screenshot in your favourite picture editor and crop the map out for further editing. This way you can create partial maps with more details as well.
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: Vinkman on June 26, 2012, 02:07:45 PM
Thanks ImADot for a intelligent reply.

Oh, come on, that was a little funny.  :salute
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: 2DIE4 on June 26, 2012, 02:23:36 PM
OK I'll give ya 1   :aok
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: 2DIE4 on June 26, 2012, 02:24:41 PM
Another approach: While in game on your desired map, even offline, open the clipboard. There's a + sign in the upper right corner. Unfortunately you can't slide the metal clip above your screen, which limits the amount of magnification - a rotatable monitor would give some more, or even a laptop or other non-gaming device. FPS don't matter in this case... Take a screenshot or several, ALT+S saves them all to the C:\HitechCreations\AcesHigh\Scrshot folder. Open each screenshot in your favourite picture editor and crop the map out for further editing. This way you can create partial maps with more details as well.

Yea I've tried this in the past, it's a lot of work.....
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: earl1937 on June 26, 2012, 03:42:28 PM
Does anybody know of a way to print full size terrain maps? Or a way to open them in print to modify for print? I would like to mark targets for coordinated strikes over time.
Check Pand post in this forum for further info.
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: Bizman on June 27, 2012, 11:42:19 AM
Yea I've tried this in the past, it's a lot of work.....
Took me almost 7 minutes to open AH, log into MidWarArena, take three screenshots (all, Knights and Bish), open and crop them in IrfanView and print them with CutePDF virtual printer. Looks like this:

(http://www.telemail.fi/petrin.atk-apu/Grind.jpg)

OTOH, I'm no pro in picture editing.
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: 2DIE4 on June 27, 2012, 12:20:16 PM
Are the programs you used available free ? In the past I tried to do it with paint. Are you able to edit them ? I now have adobe photoshop, do you think this would be useful ? Your shots came out really good.
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: icepac on June 27, 2012, 12:56:58 PM
Are there any maps the clearly show which rivers are navigable by PT boat and clearly show the borders of water.

It's no fun to drive a tank a sector to find a river that's not on the map or run aground a PT boat at the mouth of a river that clearly extends inland a good distance.
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: ImADot on June 27, 2012, 01:10:39 PM
Are there any maps the clearly show which rivers are navigable by PT boat and clearly show the borders of water.

The clipboard maps are made by the terrain creator (usually with Photoshop or other graphics program) and can include any kind of detail he decides to put in. If he chooses to make land green and water blue and nothing else, then that's what you'd get in the game. As far as your position marker on the map, there is some degree of precision (or the lack of it) that would probably make the level of detail you want to see on a map impossible as you travel across the arena. But on the other hand, you might at least be able to see to not go in "that direction" past "that point" in your travels.
Title: Re: Terrain maps
Post by: Bizman on June 27, 2012, 01:16:46 PM
Are the programs you used available free ? In the past I tried to do it with paint. Are you able to edit them ? I now have adobe photoshop, do you think this would be useful ? Your shots came out really good.
Yep, they're all free. IrfanView (http://) isn't actually a picture editor, it's a viewer, but it can do basic things such as cropping and changing to another format. CutePDF is a virtual printer with which you can create a PDF file from almost any type of document. It works from the printer menu, but instead of using paper it saves the file to a desired location. The one in my post above is a jpg-image made with IrfanView from the original bmp-screenshot. It was then minimized for internet with the Microsoft XP Powertoys Image Resizer. An equivalent for the resizer (http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/) has been made for newer OS'es, too.

Photoshop can do all this and much, much more (not sure about the pdf, though). For only this kind of jobs it would be overkill, but since you already have it, use it. Paint would do, but it can't fit large pictures to screen which can make cropping a PITA.