Creating a Hexgrid for a board game

[Pitman]

Hi, all. I am a new Xara user. I am also relatively new to illustration programs in general; I have tended to use things like Adobe LiveMotion to create my web graphics (see http://www.desperationmorale.com for examples). As you can imagine, there is a lot for me to get used to (and, alas, the manual is not the best--there were a lot of basic things that I found only in the tutorials, such as how to slice part of a photograph out of it).

So, if you clikced on that URL above, you'll notice that I am an aficionado (and designer) of stuff related to a World War II board game called Advanced Squad Leader.

In fact, I will be designing a historical module for this game based on the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, when the Polish underground heroically (but tragically) rose up against the German Army in the summer of 1944.

I have completed all the research for the map; now I actually need to go about creating it--or at least a playtest version of it that I can use for now.

This is not something I have ever tried before. However, ASL maps are not incredibly complicated. I have provided some examples below.

http://www.heatofbattle.com/images/FF11_nt.jpg
http://www.classicwargames.com/o/ima...20Map%2006.jpg
http://www.warfarehq.com/asl/asl_oob...icades_map.jpg
http://www.kmistudio.com/ASL-starter-kit.html
http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/asl_...ritable_03.jpg

So, what I need to do first is to be able to create a hexgrid for a 22" x 32" map. This means a hexagon pattern for the entire map, with a small round white dot in the middle of each hexagon (for line-of-sight tracing purposes). I presume it should be its own layer.

This is where I would like some advice. I had hoped that Xara would have some sort of pattern generating tool so that I could automatically create a hexagonal pattern, but it doesn't seem to have one.

What would be the easiest way to go about creating this hexgrid? I would sure appreciate your advice.

Also, a quick question: can Xara print out large graphics on multiple pages (such as printing out a 22" x 32" map on multiple 8.5" x 11" pages?

Thanks very much, guys. I really appreciate your help.

best,

Mark

[Egg Bramhill]

Welcome Mark.
What size do the Hexigons need to be?
Egg

[Pitman]

About 7/16" on a side or so. I want to create a 47 hexes by 29 hexes grid, on a 32" by 22" map, basically. Basically, the narrow side would have hexrows of 28 1/2 hexes each, with alternating hexrows having half hexes chopped off at alternating ends.

I just discovered this website, which looks extremely handy:

http://incompetech.com/beta/hexagona...Paper/hex.html

It occurred to me that I might be able to generate a hexgrid of the appropriate size, more or less, using this, then use Adobe Acrobat to save the PDF as a JPG, then import that into Xara and somehow make the white parts transparent.

That is kind of what I am in the middle of right now. I discovered that upgrading Adobe Acrobat Reader to the latest version has somehow screwed up my (older) copy of Adobe Acrobat, so now I am trying to download an upgrade version of Adobve Acrobat, so that I can convert the PDF file to a JPG file.

So far, 150 megs downloaded, 50 to go. I need to upgrade my 300 baud modem.

[a4hire]

You can very easily make a hexagons with Xara using the quick shape tool. Try create polygons and select 6 sides. I made this in less than a minute. With a little time you can make any grid that you want and lay patterns over it too. add dots in the middle or what ever you want. I will show my quick sample and attach the .xar file if you want to have it. I just made a few hex's, then grouped them, then clone the groups and place together to make the group. Make it a ss big as you want. When it is big enough you can draw a rectangle around it and slice/cut shapes to make it it rectangular.

[Egg Bramhill]

Mark

Try the attached xar file. I don't know if the hexigons are the correct size but they match a downloaded bitmap on one of the links given. You should be able to resize the hexigon grid easily enough to fit whatever size you want.

There are several ways of printing out various portions of the page, but see if you can use this file first.

Don't you just love Adobe !!!!!


Hi Bruce ... You beat me to it. E.

[Egg Bramhill]

This one might be a better match for your requirements.

[Egg Bramhill]

28.5 on a side

[Pitman]

Thanks, guys, very much. I will try these and see if they work for me. I really appreciate your help.

[Pitman]

Okay, so I've got another, related question. In addition to your hexgrids, I've got the one that the webpage generated into a PDF. I saved that as a graphic and imported it into Xara; a bigass black and white hexgrid graphic. Now, how can I make all that white transparent, so I just have a black hexgrid overlay?

Reading through the help files, it seems that Xara just sniffs at simple on-off transparency for a color and doesn't let you do it. It seems I can make the whole image varying degrees of transparent, or have part of it transparent and part of it not, but I can just make one color of the image become transparent. Surely there is some simple way to do this? What am I missing?

Sincerely,

Confused in Columbus

(or Mark)

[Pitman]

I guess I found an answer to that question myself. I was able to export it as a PNG, then when I imported it, it was transparent. I don't know why that didn't work as a GIF.