Tutorial 1 - Maps version 1
You don`t like plain screenshots in your AAR, and want to make your maps look like that, follow this tutorial.
What you`ll need for this, simpler version, is just windows Paint, freeware Irfanview
*download link* , and map with blank provinces.
You can download pack containing 3 maps - for CK, Victoria (from forums) and EU3 (which I made by myself)
*download link*.
1. Once you have a screenshot, select, copy and paste into new file that part of map which interest you.
It is important to keep original size of selected part of the map.
2. Coloring Map. If some of you don`t know how to do that - click on bucket icon, then select appropriate color, and click on each province.
It`s good to keep either: bright or dark color scheme, so that you can put text in white or black font, that will be easily readable.
3. Borders. If you like you can draw them using large dot brush, shown on a picture below. With added borders map looks cleaner, and different countries are easily distinguishable. I`m using dark red color - it`s quite dark, but would`nt interfere with black font of the text.
4. Text. Just name countries represented on the map, and it`s done.
Important notes:
- if you want to create larger map (eg. Whole Europe) do all work, except text with Paint in original size. Once you finish, resize map using Irfanview(Ctrl+R), but use best quality (resample), and then use 'sharpen' filter (Shift+S) to remove blurry efect. Once file is saved, you can add text.
Example:
- Important thing about compressing files for usage on forums. Some people are using *.png which look nice but takes damn long to load, on the other hand simple *.jpg looks ugly. What i`m using in my screenshots/pictures/maps are *.gif files with best quality and good compression.
Open your image with IrfanView, and select 'save as'. Click 'show option dialog' and set quality to best, as well as rest of the shown options. You`ll get small files with good quality - it works good for all kind of images.
Hopefully someone will be interested with this. Those simple maps are really easy and fast to make. In next tutorial I`ll show you how to make maps using photoshop, if there`ll be interest.
