HexDraw - ASL-style Map Making App

[Whiterook]

I personally own the HexDraw system and love the possibilities for design my own scenarios and the custom maps tp play them on, for such games as Advanced Squad Leader/Strarter Kit and Valor and Victory in particular; I bought the software mainly for the latter game, in fact. The only thing that’s held me back with the system is learning how to scale the maps to the sizes used in ASL/SK and other similar games.



You can download a free trial… I’m not sure what the software costs these days but mine was something around $50 way back when. Believe me, I’ve searched high and low for a map generating software that can do what this does, and there simply are no others that I’ve ever found. This is worth a look and try!

[Whiterook]

A map drawn by Fran Oliva Gahete, over at the VASL group on Facebook…



I thought this a great example of what’s possible with the program! There’s a lot I like about his design, though the picture taken is a bit off-color and out of focus, the design itself is pretty darn cool. 

[Whiterook]

An update on this map making application tool… I saw you can still download the free Trial Version, however, it’s basically a try-it-out version, with good news and bad news: The good news is, you get full functionality when downloaded correctly; the bad new is, downloading isn’t as easy as it sounds, as you need to also download an precursor application to let the map making application to even work…and, my try at re-downloading this (versus from when I owned it many years ago, and the computer on which it was loaded on is long gone) did not have the ASL Libraries provided in the download documents.

I could not get my newly loaded Trial Version to work to save my life. Ugh. That shouldn’t dissuade you from trying, as you may have better luck than I did with a fresh download.

Now for me, I’m basically a bulldog! Once I set my mind to something, I sink my teeth in and bite like hell! I actually found my old copy of the application and files on a backup flashdrive I keep!   It had everything I needed to get the application program running again… However, it too, was the Trial Version. Ugh. The reason for the “Ugh” is, even though this version allows all the applications’ tool to your disposal… you cannot Print, nor Save your work. Ugh.

But remember, I’m a bull dog!!!

…I got the idea, hey, what if I take a screenshot of the new map? …could I save and print it off as a PNG? The answer… Yes!

• I made a simple map, as in, just a couple forest hexes;
  
• Took a screenshot (there are multiple ways to do this);
  
• Opened it in a visual editor and cropped the map… 
• 1. Looking at a typical ASLSK map, I noted the hex corner images first;
  2. Then I counted the hex columns (33, half hex to half hex) and rows (10, half hex to half hex)
  3. Then I counted how many hexes are in row of a half ASL map (15-1/2…hexes, A - P on the left/Q - GG on the right);
  4. Keeping in mind that the HexDraw application only shows so much in the editor, I saw that at an unaltered resolution (no shrinking of the image), I could indeed crop a half map (15-1/2 row x 10 column), which I did (I flubbed it up a bit, the point was made in doability!);
• Saved the resultant crop as a PNG;
• Printed a test page in black and white.

It worked a peach!!! -ish. I didn’t quite get the last bottom row right, but I was kinda wiped by wrestling with this application for three days straight!

This is what a typical ASL map board looks like…



This is a black and white print of half an ASL map looks like…



The green open terrain hexes are a smidge dark, but I can lighten them (I think). This at least provides me a way to use the HexDraw application to produce maps and actually save/print them! Also, I believe I can adjust the forest images to throw in space along the sides of the hex, akin to the ASL maps.

The thing is too… many maps I would make, like for the Gotterdammerung game, would be on a single, 8-1/2 x 11 standard bond paper map. I did check and counters from Gotterdammerung and the counters from a playtest WWII game I have on the table fit very nicely. I haven’t measured these vs an actual ASL map yet, but I will.