rocketman Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 What I do so far, also a budding scenario designer, is use FRAPS (free) to take a screenshot from camera angle "6". Crop it in GIMP and you have a fairly good tactics map. Would be a shame if you have fun designing scenarios and let this stand in your way. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) ChappyCanuck, I've just discovered NomalDude's templates that JonS is linking to above. Most of the artistic work is done for you. All you really need to do is spend some time with GIMP or Photoshop to manipulate the layers/text. Although I've used GIMP several times before, I'm no expert. It took me about an hour to figure out what I needed to do to make my maps. This is a huge savings in time and expertise that I do not have and I'm very glad that NomalDude has posted his templates for all to use. Perhaps someone will make a YouTube to show how to use the templates. Anyway, like rocketman says, you can just use screen shots instead of operation maps. Or I've even seen some scenarios with just old WWII photos. All of the context is in the briefing anyway. The option to use maps is nice but not necessary. The templates are in the Repository, btw. Search in the CMBN repository using the word "template" and you should be able to find them. Edited January 22, 2015 by Pak40 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChappyCanuck Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 ChappyCanuck, I've just discovered NomalDude's templates that JonS is linking to above. Most of the artistic work is done for you. All you really need to do is spend some time with GIMP or Photoshop to manipulate the layers/text. Although I've used GIMP several times before, I'm no expert. It took me about an hour to figure out what I needed to do to make my maps. This is a huge savings in time and expertise that I do not have and I'm very glad that NomalDude has posted his templates for all to use. Perhaps someone will make a YouTube to show how to use the templates. Anyway, like rocketman says, you can just use screen shots instead of operation maps. Or I've even seen some scenarios with just old WWII photos. All of the context is in the briefing anyway. The option to use maps is nice but not necessary. The templates are in the Repository, btw. Search in the CMBN repository using the word "template" and you should be able to find them. Thanks Pak40. I downloaded those templates yesterday and spent fruitless hours trying to play with them in GIMP. You can probably note my frustration. I am currently using the screenshot method on my Mac (rocketman: I have a Mac and cannot use FRAPS but am using the Mac screenshot ability nonetheless). The problem is trying to label the map and use arrows/symbols, etc to make it interesting rather than just a plain screenshot of a map. It is opened in GIMP now and I am really giving it a good shot...I know what I want to do but actually doing it is the key. More experimentation. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Thanks Pak40. I downloaded those templates yesterday and spent fruitless hours trying to play with them in GIMP. You can probably note my frustration. I am currently using the screenshot method on my Mac (rocketman: I have a Mac and cannot use FRAPS but am using the Mac screenshot ability nonetheless). The problem is trying to label the map and use arrows/symbols, etc to make it interesting rather than just a plain screenshot of a map. It is opened in GIMP now and I am really giving it a good shot...I know what I want to do but actually doing it is the key. More experimentation. What I do is paste the screenshot into Power Point, add arrows and such, then take a screenshot of the Power Point slide and you're good to go. That is if you have Power Point. I have also tried the briefing templates but couldn't figure out how to do the map itself. I know some Photoshop, but not how to work effectively with layers. A youtube tutorial would be most welcome 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChappyCanuck Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) Rocketman: good idea. I have used powerpoint extensively. My problem now is getting a version of it for OS X 10.8.5. Nothing is easy eh? Edited January 22, 2015 by ChappyCanuck 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Glad you got that recommendation for using PowerPoint - good idea actually. I had a suggestion for a simpler editor on the PC but then I saw you were on a Mac. I am a heavy photo shop user and I certainly appreciate the down-loadable resources Chris provided but I can sympathize with people feeling not up to the task. There are just so many moving parts to keep track of. I hope you can get a set of basic tools that allow you to get past that briefing hump. Just think of that time spent as an investment in making it easier for you to make more scenarios. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) Working with GIMP is a little frustrating, especially dealing with text. I remember last year that it took me an hour to figure out how to move and edit text (you have to click exactly on the text) For the templates, here's what I've discovered: I opened the Market Garden map and discovered that NormalDude wisely put every different element on a different layer. Assuming you have the layers window open, you can play around with turning each one on and off (eyeball icon). He also grouped layers into certain sets and sub-sets of layers. For example, all the objective texts are in a group: OpMap Info bubbles NormalDude put all of the "frame" elements, including the objective texts, into several different groups or sub-groups. All that you really need to do is move all of these layer elements to the area of the map where your battle takes place. The only way to do that is to lock ALL of these layers together. Click the white space between eyeball and the layer name to "lock" it. The layers that need to be locked are every layer within the following groups: OpMap Info Bubbles, Us OpMap Plate, German OpMap Plate. Also, you need to "lock" the three following layers that are within the Names/Labels group: Scale Bar, Scale Text, Box Outline Once all of these layers are locked then you can move them. To do this, click on any one of the locked layers and then click the Move tool. You should be able to move all layers that are locked together so that they keep their relative position to each other. Change the objective text to match your briefing. I would Save As to the GIMP natural format at this point, probably name it as "US Objective Map - xxx Scenario" and then Save As again for the German Objective Map. The final step is to crop the maps to the Box Outline layer for each map. There may be better ways to do this but what I found is this: 1. Select the Box Outline layer. 2. Choose Image pull down --> Autocrop Image 3. Choose Image pull down --> Flatten Image (this may not be necessary) 4. Choose File --> Export As.. Windows bmp ...24 bit, I think you need to choose option to save without color map I hope this helps. Edited January 22, 2015 by Pak40 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Combatintman Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 You don't need anything really fancy to do briefing graphics. All I do is take screen grabs using FRAPS and paste them into a Powerpoint as others have done. Once in there, add your symbology, arrows etc and I then just copy and paste the lot into good old Paint where I size them to the appropriate size. Once done, I save them as BMPs and paste them into the scenario folder that I have created for the mission and import them from there. Examples of the results of this method can be seen here: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/115533-new-mission-into-the-green/page-2 No special skills are required at all - seriously - if you can do a screen grab, make basic Powerpoint slides and resize/crop images in Paint you can do this. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bud Backer Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) Rocketman: good idea. I have used powerpoint extensively. My problem now is getting a version of it for OS X 10.8.5. Nothing is easy eh? ChappyCanuck, I have a Mac as well. Some alternatives to Powerpoint: Depending on when you bought your Mac you may have KeyNote, which is Apple's version of Powerpoint. Check it out in the Mac App Store. If you have to buy it it's $9.99. I've used it for presentations and it's not hard to use and can produce PDFs as well as Powerpoint files, in addition to the Keynote format. An alternative to Photoshop that you can get for the Mac, as well as iPad, is Pixelmator. Simpler to use than Photoshop (which I use myself as a photographer). Again, take a look. Macworld has a review as well if you do a search. If you have an iPad, like I do, you can take a look at Skitch (check the app store). I use it to mark up screenshots with text, arrows, circles around units, etc. Very handy. I'm showing a few of the features. It's quite easy to use. Here's an example: Edited January 23, 2015 by Bud_B 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kohlenklau Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Somehow this reminds me of the scene in "A Bridge Too Far" when the Intel Officer is briefing Browning... "Sir, do you have time? I'll fire up my laptop and show you a powerpoint presentation. I have some jpegs that show jerry armor at Arnhem!" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChappyCanuck Posted January 23, 2015 Author Share Posted January 23, 2015 First of all, many thanks to the plethora of responses and solutions for this map thing. I managed to work a crude solution - tactical map only. I took an overhead screenshot of the map and then inserted it into a powerpoint "presentation". I own a Mac but I was able to download the free trial for Mac powerpoint. Next I created all the text, arrows, etc in powerpoint, then saved it as a .bmp file. Strangely enough, when I loaded it up in the scenario, the map is a mirror image, so I had to go back into powerpoint and flip horizontally. It is also a little difficult to get the map sized correctly in powerpoint - it took me a few tries to get the right size I needed in CMBN. I can now carry on with the briefing, which is easy because it is plain text. Whew. I was really giving up on scenario design, but this solution has given me the motivation to carry on. Thanks again everyone. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Yay! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Migo441 Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 I figured this crew wouldn't let you give up! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 @Pak40: thanks for the guide - will try 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bud Backer Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Don't give up Chappy. There really are a number of options to explore in terms of image editing. Be patient and enjoy this, map and scenario making are a way of making something very personal in the game, and well worth it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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