Maps, Modules, and Map Creation materials

By Maveritchell, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Update: A Primal Enterprise module released!

Hopefully this is a thread I'll just be able to keep updating. Below are several different pieces of content I've created for Edge of the Empire. Most recent content is the A Primal Enterprise adventure, which is an 80-page adventure that should last several sessions.

Obviously, these are all free to use, but I'd really appreciate it if you simply shot me a message or two telling me if you use them in your campaigns. Any feedback is valuable, but the most fun kind of feedback is that from people who've actually used your stuff. Thanks!

Some small examples:

aULb7QX.jpg

tV6IyCZ.png

aSRdriL.jpg

PaAFWrL.jpg

PLhDfy5.png

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I'm cleaning up this section - previously, I had a lot of links. Instead, I'll now simply direct you to my website, which has all of the previously-linked material (and new material as well) included and available.

http://thompsonpeters.com/eote/

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If you're looking for some quick-and-dirty instructions on how to make a map, view the below-hidden content (spoiler-tagged for post length):

Making a map using tools from Mos Shuuta Expanded:

You'll need an image editor that supports layering to really work with the tools provided here. Photoshop is the classic example, but for those of you without the means to buy PS, I'd recommend either GIMP or Paint.NET. Personally, I prefer Paint.NET (it's what I used to make these), but both are very capable pieces of software and especially worthwhile at the price of free.

Note that all my resources (except for the maps, which are .png) use the .tga file format, which I don't think opens in regular MS Paint, so you'll want one of the above pieces of software for that alone.

Once you've got your preferred image-editing software open, you'll want to set the size of your map. I like working in powers of two (a habit from game art), but if you're not using a grid, you can pretty much scale things however you want. If you're working on a grid, I have everything in this pack set up to work on grid squares of 64x64px (with that being a 5-foot square). All my vehicles are more-or-less to scale at this measurement, if you're into that sort of thing.

The easy way to go about this will be to import an image as your starting area. I've included the "tatground(1-3).tga" files as 1024x1024 tiles (look in the "Buildings_MosShuuta" folder), which will work well for the entire background of a small-sized map. I've found that most maps I like in the small/medium range are actually a bit larger than that, though (most of the included maps here are about twice that size, or 2048x1024), so you can scale your background accordingly and simply tile the ground textures. They are all set to be seamlessly tileable. You can find more tileable textures like these at CGTextures.com, my original source for the terrain base textures.

(It's also worth mentioning at this point that if you get much above a 2048x1024-sized map, you won't be able to import it into Roll20 with a free account, at least not in a single piece/upload. I had to split my docking bay into five pieces to get it all up.)

Once you have that, it's probably a good idea to overlay a grid on your map to start designing, even if you don't want to use a grid in the end product. It's simply a really valuable tool to the designer in terms of organizing spatial relationships.

Once you have a grid set up, you'll want to pull out the lego building pieces (found in the same folder as the ground textures). You'll find that they fit nicely together as long as you keep one side of the wall aligned to a grid line. These pieces are designed so that you can have "slack" in a piece - if one is too long, you can simply erase the extra. The texture I've used for the wall pieces is indiscriminate enough to blend well with almost any other part of the same texture.

Once you have your walls put together, you may want to cap off the ends (the parts that don't have black lines covering them). I used lines of 5-px width to outline these, so just switch to a black colored brush and use a line tool at 5-px width to cap these off.

Then you have the fun part - adding in the props! These can pretty much go in however you want. All I would point out here is that you can do a lot with the layers, for example, I often made sure to layer some boxes underneath my shelves and some above them, so that they looked like they were stacked on multiple levels.

Finally, you can add a touch of polish to your maps by adding shadows. The easy/cheap solution to this is to make (effectively) a blurry drop-shadow, which you can accomplish this way: Merge all your props into one layer, duplicate that layer, turn the brightness on that layer way down (so that all your duplicate props appear black) and then blur that layer ever-so-slightly. Once you've done that, offset that layer in one direction for however far you want your shadows to fall. You can be a little more precise with this, but this is the quick and easy way.

Anything from here on out is just being creative! The majority of the maps I've included here are made with only the lego pieces I've added, with the exceptions being the starships and the docking bay (which required too much specificity to nail down with legos). You can do a lot with these stock pieces - let me know if you have any questions!

Edited by Maveritchell

Thanks for sharing

Added some pictures, because I forgot how hard it is to get people to read lots of text (there's a full CR90 corvette deckplan map in there - see the albums!).

These are awesome, thanks! I can see a use immediately for the TIE hanger, I'm going to try and work it into my next session.

These are awesome, thanks! I can see a use immediately for the TIE hanger, I'm going to try and work it into my next session.

There are two TIE hangars there, just in case you didn't notice. Let me know how it works out! There's also a big 'ol (60-ish? I'm a little verbose)-page adventure that goes with it, too.

Edited by Maveritchell

Wow, you are an amazing map artist. Nice work

You mention there should be a pdf in there, but I don't see them. It's most likely I rolled Despair on my Perception check.

I loved your Mos Shuuta expanded and this also looks high quality! I have currently just started "The Enemy of my Enemy" module, but I think I will try your Bendu's Shadow next instead of Beyond the Rim. I am a sucker for great maps and sadly Beyond the Rim has basically ZERO usable maps.

I will keep you posted on how the use of these goes.

You mention there should be a pdf in there, but I don't see them. It's most likely I rolled Despair on my Perception check.

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Not your fault at all; I must've whiffed on that easy Computers check - I linked out to the wrong version in my haste. The links should be fixed now. Let me know if those work - you should find two .pdfs (one for each half of the adventure) in the main-level folder.

Reading the adventure. Wow dude. So good.

I'm really impressed by the work you've done here, specifically the maps. Do you mind sharing your workflow? What software are you using to create it, and do you use anything for reference? I'm running a Con game in November that has the players picking over the remnants of the Battle of Hoth, and I can't find decent maps for Echo Base, so I've decided to make my own, so some tips would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I'm really impressed by the work you've done here, specifically the maps. Do you mind sharing your workflow? What software are you using to create it, and do you use anything for reference? I'm running a Con game in November that has the players picking over the remnants of the Battle of Hoth, and I can't find decent maps for Echo Base, so I've decided to make my own, so some tips would be appreciated.

Thanks!

at the bottom of the OP he has a description of his workflow, you have to click the SPOILERS button to see it.

Have you seen this Echo Base map? It's quite good.

http://www.captainblasto.com/sw/hoth/echo_base_full.zip

at the bottom of the OP he has a description of his workflow, you have to click the SPOILERS button to see it.

Have you seen this Echo Base map? It's quite good.

http://www.captainblasto.com/sw/hoth/echo_base_full.zip

Duh-doy. Missed that, entirely. Thanks for pointing that out.

I had seen that map, yes. It felt small to me – I had seen other hand-drawn maps that drew out the habitat areas and made the base feel much larger, more like the long-term base that Echo Base was. However, we know that in the process of the battle, huge sections of the base collapsed so an argument could be made that the areas shown in that map are the only areas that can be accessed post-attack.

And, look at me threadjacking. I'll shut up, now.

Thanks, I got the new files, but I think you messed up the links for the Mos Shuuta expanded now as they link to the BF_SF stuff now

Thanks, I got the new files, but I think you messed up the links for the Mos Shuuta expanded now as they link to the BF_SF stuff now

There I go again! Tried to do it in a hurry as I left for work, and as always, haste made waste. Fixed now.

I'm running a Con game in November that has the players picking over the remnants of the Battle of Hoth, and I can't find decent maps for Echo Base, so I've decided to make my own, so some tips would be appreciated.

Rob, if you check out the asset downloads, you should be able to pick up a number of props that will fit well with your Echo Base map. I know that I made the bacta tank based off of the Echo Base tank, so that's for sure one you'll be able to use. Are you going to have snowspeeders there? I'd love the excuse to do a T-47, because I don't know that it's going to fit into the campaign I'm writing right now otherwise.

Per a request, I went ahead and took the YT-1300F from the Tatooine props and removed the furniture/cargo containers for a "clean" version. It's linked to under the "Tatooine assets" section.

If anyone else wants a clean version of any of the other ships, just let me know. That takes all of about 30 seconds to amend.

Hey Mav, I used your Prison Entry map for an encounter last night. Went great! I like your use of lighting, and Prison Entry is a great example of this. I also use Gimp, how do you utilize shading and shadows in Gimp?

Looking forward to running your proper adventure module. Very well written. I especially appreciate the care you took to make GM'ing the adventure fun and easily understandable.

Edit for screen shots of the fun

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2dtBKosXPdVSGFWZmJueGhvNE0&usp=sharing

The crew is trying to grab Zukatta (who stole their ship when last they saw her) as she is transferred from a CSA Prison Facility to Black Sun reps who want her to answer questions of their own.

This is after the first round of combat.

Edited by Conviction

I don't actually use GIMP (I use Paint.NET, but six of one, half-dozen of another), so this is hopefully tool-agnostic enough to understand:

First, you've got your image:

tIQolZ7.png

Add the light source (whatever it is) as a layer on top:

mrcPIbs.png

Duplicate the light source layer and blur the lower of the two light source layers:

rKB7JSV.png

Duplicate the blurred light source layer. Crank its brightness way up (so that it's white) and then blur it a whole lot. You may need to duplicate this layer several times to get the amount of white you want:

P4s48ER.png

Create a plain grey layer underneath the blurred white light layer and merge the blurred white light onto it:

i0JZjst.png

That makes what is basically a shadow map. That is what you'll then use as a multiply layer over your base image:

mWYDUQn.png

There's nothing really fancy about it, and you can put a little more effort into it for a slightly better look, but all in all it's a pretty simple and easy process. Shadows are a different thing, but they're even easier (I mention an easy way to apply shadows in the tutorial at the end of the first post).

Edited by Maveritchell

Thanks Mav. That's right I remember reading about shadows in there somewhere.

Excellent stuff! Definitely going to use these with my group!

Maveritchell,
These are truely fantastic. I dont want to think how long they took you to pull together.
The choice to seperate the props was a great one. It means from my point of view that those props can be used as tokens on a virtual table top.
I'll have to resize down a little - high resolution is fantastic for printing but not so great when you are playing online and everyone has limited bandwidth
Thank You

Thanks, R00kie. Glad you are able to find some use for them!

I'll have to resize down a little - high resolution is fantastic for printing but not so great when you are playing online and everyone has limited bandwidth

Yeah, it's always easier to make them large and require a scale-down, because upscaling smaller images looks pretty bad. I run into similar issues when I use my own maps on Roll20 - I end up splitting some of the larger ones into 3 or 4 pieces so that they can be uploaded.

On a different subject, here is a quick preview of one of the half-dozen maps or so I've already got made for the next campaign I'm working on:

wwDszUJ.jpg

Thanks, R00kie. Glad you are able to find some use for them!

I'll have to resize down a little - high resolution is fantastic for printing but not so great when you are playing online and everyone has limited bandwidth

Yeah, it's always easier to make them large and require a scale-down, because upscaling smaller images looks pretty bad. I run into similar issues when I use my own maps on Roll20 - I end up splitting some of the larger ones into 3 or 4 pieces so that they can be uploaded.

On a different subject, here is a quick preview of one of the half-dozen maps or so I've already got made for the next campaign I'm working on:

wwDszUJ.jpg

WOW! I am so excited for your next campaign dude! A true GM, my hat is off to you sir.

Edit: I have yet to start on your campaigns, still doing The Enemy of my Enemy. We got sidetracked for a few sessions and went completely off book for a prison break. Really looking forward to the space battles. I have it all setup on Roll20 already :D

Edited by Conviction

Wow, this post has so much good info and resources, should really be stickied!

I hope to give this a shot and see how it goes soon.

How long would you say it takes you to create a new map from scratch?

When you used MS paint to print out say a 4x4 map of letter sized paper, how did you attach them together?

How long would you say it takes you to create a new map from scratch?

When you used MS paint to print out say a 4x4 map of letter sized paper, how did you attach them together?

It depends on the map, really. It's easy to put together a map if I've already got a lot of assets made for it and if the map is a "generic"-type map (i.e. a map made to support a setting more than a situation). Those take a few hours, more or less. If I've got to make a lot of new pieces for the map, it can take a couple days' worth of work. Neither one is insurmountable, though. (And it helps that I'm a hack "artist" and can take shortcuts.)

I haven't actually had the chance to print out any maps for use on the table - all my GMing has been done digitally. If I were to print these out, I'd just take them down to a print shop (or a Staples/Office Depot/etc.) and have them printed out there. If you wanted to print them out at home, the best idea might be to use contact paper to stick a bunch of letter-sized sheets together (which would provide the added benefit of making it spill-resistant).

In other news, I've just about finished up the last tweaks on the abovementioned campaign. My group finished playing through a little more than a week ago, and I should have a formatted version out really soon. Here's another quick preview of one of the maps:

Kji6gyz.jpg

Edited by Maveritchell