CreatingWithPSP25


ver. 2.5
CONTENTS

	Color Depth And File Size An Operational Level Map: Base Terrain Adding A Hex Grid Adding Terrain Features Manipulating Vector Objects Adding Roads And Rivers Adding A Rail Line Adding Compound Terrain Features Adding Text Adding Symbols Obtaining Symbols Creating And Adding Counters Designing Counters Creating a Counter Template Labels & Transparency Counter Rotation Antialiasing Creating Charts & Tables Moving On A Tactical Level Map: More Complex Clear Terrain Creating ADC2 Or CB Hex Grids Adding Elevations Adding Depressions Completing The Tactical Map Adding Atmospheric Effects Creating Your Own Patterns Creating Seamless Tiles Creating Non-Seamless Patterns Blending Layers Using Textures A Man To Man Level Map: Using Picture Tubes Final Thought
If you are fortunate enough to have a copy of Paint Shop Pro 7, you can create decent looking wargame maps and counters in a fraction of the time required when using the CyberBoard or Aide de Camp editors. I created the demo maps that are part of this package in less than 3 hours. This paper will walk you through the process and explain the techniques. Although the features of PSP7 we will be using are somewhat "advanced", the process is not hard.
A note on Paint Shop Pro versions: Versions 8 to 11 are now out, but I continue to recommend version 7 (or 7.04, to be exact). Version 7.04 contains the highly useful Alien Skin EyeCandy 3.1 filters, is fast, bug-free, and uses a modest amount of RAM. Versions 8 to 11 lack these filters, offer little additional functionality, are noticeably slower, somewhat buggy, and use more RAM. The marketplace tells the story: as of Sept./07, versions 8 to 11 were selling (new) for $17 to $60. Version 7 (new) still sells at its original price of $100.

COLOR DEPTH AND FILE SIZE

Before we begin, we must address the trade off between color depth (or density) and file size.

As you create your map using PSP7, you will have to work entirely with a color depth of 16 million colors (24-bit color), as many of the features we will be using are only available in this format. This raises an issue that needs to be considered at the outset. Will your final product be displayed in 16 million colors (24-bit color) or in 256 colors (8-bit color)? If necessary, you can use Colors>Decrease Color Depth>256 Colors to change the image from 16 million to 256 colors at the very end of the map creation process.

If you will be using CyberBoard, version 2, you have no choice – it can only display images in 256 colors. Reducing your image to a depth of 256 colors tends to cause some loss of definition and raises the prospect of unsightly “palette shifts”, where one or more of your chosen colors is changed to something else you did not intend. You can minimise this problem by always choosing colors from the CB color palette (included in this package) and by checking the appearance of your map from time to time in the CB Design module as you progress. Version 3 of CB uses 65535 colors (16-bit color), which largely eliminates the problem.

Aide de Camp 2, however, IS capable of displaying a map in 16 million colors. Use that capability if you can.

Why would you choose to display a map in ADC2 in just 256 colors? Because of file size – an image with a color depth of 256 is stored in a file just 1/3 the size of the same image in 16 million colors. Since ADC2 also limits a single map sheet to a maximum file size of 4 MB, your map may simply be too large for a depth of 16 million colors. To avoid this problem, you will have to reduce to a depth of 256 colors (which poses the same disadvantages explained above) or cut your final map into sections which are each less than 4 MB in size, and then use ADC2’s ability to display multiple map sheets joined together to form one large map.

It’s your call – is superior color more important to you than file size? I would stick with 16 million colors if at all feasible. The demo maps in this tutorial have a color depth of 16 million.

To estimate the file size of your map, find the number of pixels it contains by 1) multiplying the number of pixels per hex times the width in hexes, 2) multiplying the number of pixels per hex times the height in hexes, and 3) multiplying the two resulting products. The result is an estimate of the number of pixels, and also the size in bytes of the image file if it has a color depth of 256. Triple that figure to estimate the file size in 16 million colors.

Once you have made that decision, we can begin. We will create 3 demo maps. If you make a mistake (and if you are like me you will make a lot of them), just hit the Undo button on the tool bar. Let's get started.

AN OPERATIONAL LEVEL MAP: BASE TERRAIN
Map graphics differ significantly according to the scale of the map and the game. Mountains, for example, should be portrayed differently on a map for a strategic or operational level game than on one for a tactical level or man-to-man game. To cover the ground thoroughly, we will walk through the creation of an operational level map, followed by a tactical level one, and then end with a bit of practice on a man-to-man level map.
Let's start by building a demo map for an operational level game. Open the Operational.bmp file included in this package and examine it – that is what we will create.
First, we will create a new image and cover it with our base terrain. Most of the demo map will be clear terrain, so we will use that.
Select File>New and set the image dimensions to 800 by 600 pixels. Use a white background color. Make sure the image type specifies 16.7 million colors (24-bit color). You should always work in 24-bit color even if you know that you will be reducing the image to 8-bit color (256 colors) before using it in CB or ADC2 or posting it on the net. This is because many of the more advanced features of PSP7 are only available in 24-bit color mode. Click OK to create the image.
Set the Foreground Style to Patterns by clicking on the small black triangle and then selecting the Pattern icon, which is the second one from the right. Click on the current foreground pattern to display the Pattern Selector. Use the Edit Path button to point the Pattern Selector at the folder where you have stored the patterns in the package that is part of this tutorial. Then, click on the vertical bar in the Pattern Selector window to bring up a display of the patterns we will be using. Select the "clear" pattern. Make sure the scale is set at 100% and the angle at 0 degrees. Click OK and the clear terrain pattern appears as the Foreground Style.
Select the Flood Fill Tool (the paint can) and then click on the image to fill it completely with the clear terrain pattern.

ADDING A HEX GRID
The next step is to add a hex grid to the image. Actually, it is best to let CB or ADC2 draw the hex grid itself, as there are certain advantages to that (such as the ability to use the line of sight capability in ADC2). However, we still need a hex grid while drawing our map for the purpose of placing objects in their proper locations.
You cannot just draw a hexagonal pattern on the image because neither CB nor ADC2 uses "true" hexagons (where each side has an equal length). We need to use a hex grid which corresponds precisely with the one used by CB or ADC2. I will describe later how to create your own hex grid for CB or ADC2 in your favourite size. For the time being, we will use one of the six CB grids (or 6 ADC2 grids) that I have already created for you.
Use the File>Open command to open up the file selection window. Then, open the hex grid image "CBHexGrid75Vert", a vertical grid of 75-pixel hexes.
We are going to draw the various elements of our map in layers. This gives you far more flexibility than just creating an image in a single raster layer. Layers can be altered and deleted without affecting the rest of the image. The visibility of a layer can be turned on and off, or adjusted to create special effects. A layer can be “locked” to prevent unintended changes to it.
Select Layers>New Raster Layer. It is a good idea to name each of your layers; name this one "HexGrid". After you press OK, you will have an image containing two layers, with the hex grid layer selected. Confirm this by opening the Layer Palette and examining it. At this point, any changes you make in the image will only affect the current layer. Nothing you do will alter the background layer at all.
Open the Pattern Selector again. Scroll up to the very top of the thumbnail image display and you will see the hex grid pattern whose image you have just opened. ANY open image will be displayed, for as long as it is open, in the pattern list. Any such image can be applied as a "pattern" to another image. The fact that the image contains some transparent portions, as the hex grid does, does not prevent its use as a pattern.
Use the Flood Fill tool to completely fill the new layer with the hex grid pattern. There you have it, a 75-pixel vertical hex grid in the exact shape used by CB. This will guide us as we create the rest of the map.
Open the Layer Palette Window and click the small lock icon on the right hand side of the hex grid line; that will protect this layer against any accidental changes by locking it.
At this point, you should save the file. *Be sure to save it as a Paint Shop Pro image (.psp**), because this is the file format which will retain all the advanced features we are going to use. We will change the file to a Windows bitmap eventually, but it is very important to do all your work on a PSP7 native format file and change it to a bitmap as the very last stage in the process.

ADDING TERRAIN FEATURES
Let's add an area of Rough terrain. Later, I will explain how to create your own patterns; for now, use the ones I have made for you. Change the Foreground Style to the Rough pattern included in this package. As always, be sure the scale is set to 100% and the angle to 0 degrees.
Now, set the Background Style to Patterns and then select the Rough pattern again for the Background Style. We want the same style in both the foreground and background at this point.
We need to create a new layer but this time it will be a vector layer (I will explain why in a minute). Select Layers>New Vector Layer and enter the name "Terrain Features".
Layers can be moved up and down in the image. We want the terrain features layer to be above the background layer but below the hex grid layer. Open the Layer Palette window and click and drag the terrain features layer into the proper position.
We are going to draw the terrain features as vector objects. Using vector graphics provides a lot more flexibility than raster graphics. Vector objects can be moved, enlarged, contracted, and pulled into a different shape easily. They are also easier to delete if you make a mistake.
Click on the Drawing Tool, which looks like a pencil drawing a line. Make sure the Tool Options Window is visible, and then select the first tab of that window. Set the type to Freehand Line, the Width to 1, the Line Style to Style #1 Solid, and place a tick beside Antialias, Close Path, and Create as Vector. Select the second window tab. Open the drop-down list under "Join". Now choose the Round style and set the Curve Tracking to 10. These are the settings we will use for creating irregularly shaped areas of rough, mountains, forest, etc. In effect, you are drawing a line of "rough" one pixel wide and filling in everything enclosed by the line with a background of "rough".
Draw yourself a Rough area somewhere on the map. Make it an irregular shape with lots of indentations, etc. Don't make it too large as we have a number of other objects to draw. Left click on the layer and trace the outline of your Rough area. When you get back near the starting point, release the mouse button and the line will complete itself. Do not release it too soon as the line will be a straight line and you do not want a square edge on your terrain. At this point, the Rough area is a vector object surrounded by a selection box indicating that that object has been selected.

MANIPULATING VECTOR OBJECTS
To select a vector object after it has already been deselected, use the Vector Selection tool that is the last one on the toolbar. Alternatively, you can select the object from the Layer Palette Window.
For practice, we will delete this object and draw it again. Hit the Delete button and draw another area of Rough terrain.
Now let's move the Rough area somewhere else. Place the cursor over the selection point in the middle of the selection box; the cursor should change into four arrows. Now click and drag the vector object to some other part of the map.
Let's make our Rough terrain a bit bigger. Place the cursor over the selection point in the upper right corner. Right-click and drag it outwards. When you release the mouse button, you will see a larger patterned area. Now do the same thing in reverse to make it smaller.
Want to rotate the area of Rough terrain to a different orientation? Place the cursor over the selection point that is immediately to the right of the central selection point. The cursor should change into two circular arrows. Click, and then drag the vector object in a circular rotation and it will change to a different orientation.
You can gain even more control over the shape of the vector object by going into Node Edit Mode. Switch to the Vector Selection tool and select the vector object you want to edit. Open the Tool Options window and click on Node Edit. The vector object will change to a single line with small boxes indicating nodes along the line. You can click and drag on any node to move it and change the size and shape of the object. To add a node, place the cursor on the line and press the CONTROL key. The cursor will change to the word “ADD”. Now, left-click and a node will be added to the line.
From time to time, you may need to make the same change (e.g., a 90-degree rotation) to each of several vector objects. You can select several vector objects by clicking and dragging with the Vector Selection tool, by selected individual objects while pressing the SHIFT key, or by using Selection>Select All to select all the vector objects in a vector layer. Then, use the Objects>Group command to group them, after which they can all be rotated, etc., with a single command. Use Objects>Ungroup to release them when you are done.
Often, you will want to add a terrain feature that is adjacent to one or two map edges. No problem. Draw the feature in the usual manner and, when you get to the edge of the image, just keep on drawing. Swing the line around to the place on the edge where you want to enter the image window again and draw the line back to near where you started. Part of the vector object is outside the visible area, but it is all "there". If you wanted to, you could click and drag the entire vector object into the visible area of the image. Try this technique for the final Rough terrain area, which you will place in the lower left corner of the map.
Now, go ahead and add another terrain feature to the layer. Leave the top part of the map open as we are going to put some ocean and a coastline there. Try adding a mountain range using one of the mountain patterns I have included. These are handled in exactly the same way as the area of Rough terrain.
Next, we will add forested areas on the right and left sides of the map. My forest pattern is partially transparent, like the hex grid patterns, so it must be opened in its own image window (as you did with the hex grid). Once that is done, the forest pattern will appear at the top of the pattern thumbnail display when you open up the Pattern Selector. Set the forest pattern as both the Foreground and Background pattern and then draw some forests as vector objects in the same manner as the Rough terrain area. Draw one on top of the Rough area to demonstrate the partial transparency of the pattern.
Use the Town pattern to add an urban area. There are a number of other patterns I have provided; their purposes are obvious from the file names. Save the file.
ADDING ROADS AND RIVERS
Let's add a river. Set the Foreground Pattern to Deep Water. Set the Background Pattern to None (select the null indicator on the far right of the small window that opens when you click the black triangle). Open up the Tool Options window, select the left-hand tab, and set the Line Width to 20 pixels. This time, clear the check box beside Close Path. Leave everything else as it is.
Move the cursor down to the bottom of the image then click and drag towards the top to create the river. Be sure to include some realistic twists and turns. After you have created it, you will find that it doesn't quite join the bottom edge correctly; it doesn't look like it flows off the bottom edge. To rectify this, click and drag the selection point in the centre of the object and move the river down until the appearance is correct.
Let's draw a paved road from right to left across the upper part of the map and across the river. We need to make sure that the river vector object is no longer selected. Use Selections>Select None to get rid of the selection box. Set the Foreground Style to Paved Roads and the Line Width to 10. Leave everything else alone. Draw yourself a road that starts at one side of the Window and runs off the opposite side. Move the cursor a few pixels past the edge of the window so as to create the impression the road is running "off" the edge of the image. These lines you have drawn are vector objects and can be grouped, moved, rotated, enlarged, contracted, and deleted in the same way I have described before.
As you can see, where it crosses the river, the road is on top. But let's assume that you had drawn the road first and, when you drew the river, you found that it was flowing over the road. Unless you want a washed out road, this needs to be fixed. It's simple.
The answer is to move the road vector object to a higher position in the layer hierarchy than the river vector object. Let's see how this works.
Open up the Layer Palette Window and click on the plus sign to the left of the Terrain Features layer. This opens up a list of the vector objects you have created but, at the moment, each one is called "Freehand". You can, and probably should, rename these, which you can do by right-clicking on "Freehand" and selecting the Rename menu option.
When you rest the cursor on the line for a vector object for a couple of seconds, a small window opens up which shows you the vector image. Use this feature to locate the road image. For practice, click and drag it down below the river vector image in the Layer Palette Window hierarchy. When you release the mouse button, presto!, the road is now underneath the river. Click and drag the road back into its proper position.
Use Selections>Select None to get rid of the selection box and then use the Dirt Roads pattern to draw yourself a dirt road feeding into the paved road. Save the file.

ADDING A RAIL LINE
A railway line can be added to the map in exactly the same way as a road or river. The only difference is you need to use a "Custom Line" that resembles railway tracks. I have included one for you in the Styled Lines folder. Use the File>Preferences>File Locations>Styled Lines command to point at the Styled Lines folder I have provided. Set the Foreground Style to Color and select a suitable dark brown color.
This time, set the Line Type in the Tool Options Window to Point to Point and the Line Width to 2. Select the drop down list under Line Style and scroll down to select the Railway style. Check the Antialias box but leave the Close Path box unchecked.
Click at the left edge of the Image Window to start drawing the line. Move right and down, then click again to end the first track section. Each time you click on the map a node is added to mark where the section in question will end. The last node should be placed just below the bottom edge of the image window. If you want to add a curved section of track, left click and then drag to draw a curve in the line section that ENDS where you have just clicked.
Press CONTROL Q to end the line drawing process.

ADDING COMPOUND TERRAIN FEATURES
I use the phrase "compound terrain feature" to refer to a vector object which contains a foreground pattern of one thing and a background pattern of another. Let me illustrate.
We will draw ourselves a coastline - a body of deep water fringed by a sandy beach. Set the Foreground pattern to Desert, set the Background Style to Patterns, and then set the Background pattern to Deep Water. In the Tool Options window, set the Line Width to 15 pixels (the width of the beach) and tick off the Close Path box. Leave everything else alone.
Now we will draw our coastline. Starting from the right hand side of the image near the top, draw an undulating line across the map to the left side. When you get to the left side just keep on going off the edge of the image and then, still holding the left mouse button down, swing the cursor above the top border of the image all the way over to the right hand side and down close to where you started. Then release it. At this point you have a coastline vector object (a "compound terrain feature") which is partly inside and partly outside the image. As usual, it can be moved, rotated, enlarged, etc.
Let's draw one more compound terrain feature to make sure you've got the concept. Set the foreground pattern to Marsh, the background pattern to Shallow Water, and the Line Width to 10. Make sure Close Path is checked. Draw yourself a shallow lake fringed by marsh.
Now, uncheck the Close Path box, set the Foreground pattern to Shallow Water and the Background pattern to Null, and draw a stream flowing from the marsh to the near edge of the map. Save the file.

ADDING TEXT
Let's add some text to label a couple of features and give the map a name.
Create a new vector layer called "Text". Move it to a position above the terrain features layer and the hex grid layer. All text will be created as vector objects. This allows you to manipulate text objects in any and all of the ways described earlier. For example, you could Group a number of text objects and then rotate them all with a single command.
Let's give a name to the urban area. Click on the Text Tool (a capital A). Click on the layer somewhere near the town you have drawn; it doesn't matter exactly where you click - because this is a vector object, it can be easily moved after you create it.
Set the font to Arial (a nice, clean font with good visibility), the size to 9, and click the Standard Text button. Click on the Fill Color to open up the Color Palette and then choose pure black. You can set this numerically by setting Red = 0, Green = 0, and Blue = 0. This is called the “RGB Value”.
Fill in the name of your town in the large text box and choose Create as Vector. Check the Antialias check box. Leave Auto Kern turned off. You may wish to make the text Bold by clicking the Bold button.
When you click OK, the text will appear as a vector object on the layer. Move it into position and deselect it. If you don't like its position, you can always select it again and move it.
If you want to change the font, text size, etc., then select the text vector object, click on the Text Tool, and place the cursor over the object. When the cursor changes to display a capital A, click again and the text entry box will open up. You can now make your changes.
Let's add a map name in the upper left corner. Click there with the Text Tool. This time, set the size to 18. Set the Fill Color to pure white (RGB = 255, 255, 255). Save the file.
ADDING SYMBOLS
Let's add a couple of graphic symbols to the map to liven it up a bit.
Create a new raster layer called "Symbols" and position it above the Terrain Features layer but below the hex grid layer. Go into the folder where you have stored the symbols included with this tutorial and select the symbol called "airfield1". After it opens in its own image window, hit the Copy button to copy it to the Clipboard. Then, switch back to the demo map image and select Edit>Paste>As New Selection. The symbol appears on the tip of your cursor and you can now click on the layer to position it. Click Selections>Select None to remove the marquee.
As you can see, this symbol image is partly transparent; that gives it a natural look against the background. Save the file.


OBTAINING SYMBOLS
Where do we get symbols from? Assuming you are as artistically challenged as I am, drawing them ourselves is not really an option.
A variety of symbols are available on the Internet, but the best ones can usually be found in old computer wargames. This raises aspects of copyright law which are beyond the scope of this tutorial. Suffice it to say that lifting a few small symbols from an old, out of print wargame that is no longer available commercially is not likely to offend anyone.
Let's assume you have an old wargame with some useful symbols. The first step is to use PSP7 to do a screen capture of the symbol.
Run PSP7, select File>Import>Screen Capture>Set Up, and then set the capture value to "Area" and the hot key to F11 (or F12). Click the Capture Now button and PSP7 will minimise itself and run in the background.
Next, run your wargame and bring up on the screen a scene that includes the symbol or symbols you want to capture. When you are ready, hit F11 and the cursor will change. Left click a little above and to the left of the image area you want to capture and the cursor will change again. You will see a rubber-band selection box with some numbers in it. These numbers tell you the size, in pixels, of the capture area. Expand the selection box until it is past the lower right corner of the area you want. Then, click again and PSP7 will maximise itself and display the selected area in a separate image. You can now save this image to disk.
The next step is to zoom in and select a rectangular area that includes only the symbol you want. When you have it, hit the Copy button to copy the image to the Clipboard and the Paste button to paste it into a separate image.
Next, you need to isolate the portion of the symbol you want and render the rest of the image transparent. Select Layers>Promote to Layer to enable yourself to use transparency. The area you want to make transparent will probably be an irregular shape, so use the Magic Wand to select the first such area. You will probably have to play with the Magic Wand Tolerance settings a bit before you get the selection correct; start at Tolerance=0 and slowly increase it if necessary. This takes a bit of practice. Leave the Match Mode at "RGB Value" and Feathering at 0. Clear the box for Sample Merged.
Once you have made a correct selection of the first area to be rendered transparent, you need to extend that to the other similar areas in the image. (Here, I am assuming that all of the background you wish to make transparent has similar RGB values, i.e., is a similar "color"). To do this, choose Selections>Modify>Select Similar. This should extend the selection to all portions of the image that are similar. If it doesn't work, you will have to play with the Magic Wand Tolerance setting or select them individually. (Note that "Select Similar" uses the Magic Wand Tolerance setting.)
Now hit the Delete button and the selected areas will be replaced with transparency. Save the symbol to disk as a Paint Shop Pro (.psp) file. That's it! You now have an image that you can use repeatedly on your maps. Another good alternative, if you own a copy of Corel Draw, is to use the 2 TrueType symbol sets included in that package: the "Military" set contains symbols of tanks, planes, artillery pieces, etc., and the "Military ID" set contains NATO symbols. Once Corel Draw is installed, these symbol sets should show up as fonts in PSP7. You "write" the symbol onto the map or counter using the Text tool. Create the symbol as a Vector, so you can scale it afterwards. In the Text Entry window, select the symbol set, set the size, and then press the key for the symbol you want. You can get an image of all the symbols in the set in MS Word from the Insert>Symbol* menu item. By comparing this image to one of an ordinary alphabet font (do screen captures and print them out), you can infer which key to press for a particular symbol.
CREATING AND ADDING COUNTERS
Let's make a couple of counters. We will also add them to the demo map although, when we finally save the map for use in CB or ADC2, we will render the counters invisible at that point. The counters you create will be saved as separate files and can be imported into into CB using the Design Module or into ADC2 using its Symbol Editor.
Go to the folder where you have stored the counters and counter templates that are part of this tutorial. Select CounterTemplate50.bmp, which is 50 pixels square and the right size for a 75 pixel hex grid (if there is no stacking of counters - see below).
The template is gray, but you can easily change the color. Select the Dropper Tool and right click on the gray to make it the Background Color. Set the Foreground Style to Solid Color, click on the Style box to open up the Color Palette, and choose the color you want. Then, select PSP7's Color Replacer Tool, set its Tolerance to 0, and double click on the image. The gray color will be replaced with your selection.
You can easily draw standard NATO symbols in the square outline I have provided on the template.
As an alternative, you can erase the square (select it with the Magic Wand and then replace it with the color of the rest of the counter) and add a symbol to the counter. Load the tank symbol file included with this tutorial and place the tank image on the centre of the counter in the same way you earlier placed symbols on the map. Then, use what you learned earlier to place text on the counter (I suggest Arial, size 9, Antialiasing on, no Bold). I have included four sample counters in two colors in the package.

Counters look better if they are "Buttonized". This gives them a bit of a 3D look that is similar to the appearance of a cardboard counter on a paper map.
First, you should set the Background Style to Solid Color and the Background color to RGB=192, 192, 192 (gray). You can buttonize the Background layer (i.e. a raster layer) of the counter by selecting Effects>3D Effects>Buttonize. This opens up the Buttonize window. Set the values to:
Height = 2 pixels Width = 2 pixels Opacity = 100 Solid Edge

When you have created your counter, save it to disk as a Windows bitmap (*.bmp) file because you will want it in this format in order to import it into the CB Design Module or ADC2 Symbol Editor.
Let's add some counters to the map to see what they look like on the map. Create a new raster layer called "Counters". Place it at the top of the layer hierarchy, above the HexGrid layer. Load a counter as a separate image, hit Copy to copy it to the Clipboard, and then Edit>Paste>As New Selection to paste it on the layer where you want it.
You can add some of my sample counters as well. Save the file.
DESIGNING COUNTERS We now need to take a more detailed look at designing and creating counters. The first question is counter size. Wargame maps and counters seem to look best on a computer screen, most of the time, when they are displayed at the same size as the cardboard maps and counters they represent. A good, average screen resolution suitable for most monitors these days is 100 pixels per inch. We will use that as our standard. Many typical wargames use a hex size of ¾ inch; translated to the computer screen, that equals a hex size of 75 pixels. Most counters are square. The largest square counter that will fit into a 75-pixel hexagon without overflowing the edges is 56 x 56 pixels. That represents about 75% of the hex size. More generally, we can adopt the rule that a square counter should have a maximum size = 75% of the hex size if it is to fit comfortably inside the hex. Most wargames allow counter stacking. CyberBoard illustrates stacked counters by offsetting each such counter after the first by 3 pixels horizontally and vertically when you use the AutoStack feature. (The offset value can be changed by the scenario designer in CB’s Play module.) Assuming you do not want a stack image to overflow the hex outline, you need to take stacking into account in deciding upon counter size. You must estimate the largest number of counters a player will typically have stacked in a single hex. Then, maximum counter size can be calculated by this formula: MaxCounterSize = (HexSizeInPixels * .75) – (3 * (NumCountersInStack – 1)) For example, for a 75-pixel hex size where the stacking limit is 3 counters, maximum counter size would be (75 * .75) – (3 * (3 – 1)) = 50 x 50 pixels. That is the size of a ½ inch counter displayed on the screen at 100 pixels per inch. How do you fit all the data a counter might contain onto an image of 50 x 50 pixels? Good question. Buttonizing uses up 4 pixels in each dimension, so the usable counter real estate is reduced to 46 x 46 – not a lot, considering how much data is sometimes found on a counter. You must select a font, size, style & color for each of the data items on the counter. Legibility is critical. I have found that Arial is a clean font with good legibility at small sizes, but by all means try out others. As for size, the smallest provided by PSP, size 8, is generally the most useful. (Other designers may disagree – some have used fonts as small as size 6 successfully.) Data items can be distinguished from each other by text color, Bold characters, and position on the counter; often, you will use all 3. Color is particularly useful, as it does not increase the space consumed by the text (unlike Bolding). Things can get pretty crowded on the counter. There are several things you can do to conserve space. First, be aware that Bold text takes up slightly more room than normal text. Second, you should familiarize yourself with the effects of “kerning” and “leading”, two adjustments you can make to text in PSP’s Text Entry Window. Kerning adjustments push the characters closer together or spread them further apart horizontally; leading does the same in the vertical dimension. Kerning and leading are the keys to making decent looking counters with a lot of data on them. As always, experiment and take notes. I have found a leading value of minus 3 to be generally useful; try minus 25 as a starting point for a kerning adjustment. One alternative to a negative kerning value is to use the Arial Narrow font, which accomplishes the same thing. Arial Narrow is the rough equivalent of setting kerning = - 25 for size 8. CREATING A COUNTER TEMPLATE Let’s work through the process for our typical 50 x 50 pixel counter. The first step is to create a counter template which will be used as the starting point for each individual counter. That will both speed up the process and ensure that the counters have a consistent style. Open a new image of 50 x 50 pixels, flood fill it with a background color, then buttonize it as explained above. Create a new vector layer on top of the buttonized background. Save the image as a .psp file. Now, set the background color to your chosen text color (usually black) and the foreground color to nothing. Select the Text Tool and click on the image to open up the Text Entry Window. It is in this window that you will make all the font, size, color, kerning, leading, bolding and antialiasing adjustments described above. Set these values: font = Arial size = 8 Bold = off Alignment = Left Create as Vector = on antialiasing = on Note that the Text Entry Window allows you to set Left, Right or Center Alignment for the text: these buttons align the text with itself* so that, for example, a column of numbers can all be aligned to the left. From the Objects Menu, you can select the Align>Center in Canvas, Align>Horizontal Center in Canvas and Align>Vertical Center in Canvas commands to align the text in relation to the counter. Each of these alignment methods is highly useful. Type a column of 2-digit numbers 4 rows high and click OK to close the Window. Use Objects>Align>Center in Canvas to center the text on the counter. Zoom in to 12:1. We see immediately that the text is too long in the vertical dimension. Place the cursor over the text object until an “A” appears as the cursor, then click to reopen the Text Entry Window. Set Leading = -3, close the window, and align the text in the center of the canvas again. Now it is spaced so as to fit nicely on the counter. Hold the SHIFT key down and press the Left Arrow key to “nudge” the text towards the left edge of the counter. Check its appearance by zooming out to 1:1. Let’s do something to make the more significant data items stand out. Reopen the Text Entry Window for the left hand column, highlight one row, click the Bold button, and close the window. This will Bold that row while leaving the other numbers unchanged. In other words, you can Bold selected parts of a single text object. Now, we will place a similar column of text on the right side of the counter. This time, we want to use different colors for each item, so we create 4 separate text objects in 4 different colors. Use the Object Selection Tool to pull them into approximate positions, then select Objects>Align>Right to align them with each other. At this point, if you have zoomed in to 12:1, you can align their bottoms by eye with the text on the left. Once you have all the data arranged on a counter the way you want it, save the result as a template. Typically, you need to create a number of counters of similar appearance with only 1 or 2 data items changing from counter to counter. Each successive counter can be created quickly by duplicating the template (use Window>Duplicate), double-clicking on the relevant text object in the Layer Palette and changing the text. Then, you can use Edit>Copy Merged to copy the counter to the Clipboard, switch to CyberBoard, and Paste the image into a new “tile”. Creating counters can be tedious in the extreme. You owe it to yourself to think through the process and do everything possible to shorten the sequence of mouse clicks. I recommend adding the most often used commands, such as Center on Canvas, Copy Merged, and Select None, to the toolbar (use View>Toolbars>Customize). Simple preparation of this sort can save you many mouse clicks. (If you need to perform a certain action on each of a large number of counters (e.g., buttonizing), you should consider using PSP8 or 9, which add scripting as a new feature.) LABELS & TRANSPARENCY When it comes to creating game markers, give some thought to making use of the advantages of the computer. CyberBoard supports transparency in both “pieces” and “markers.” The default transparent “color” is cyan, RGB=0/255/255. The typical cardboard game marker is the same size as a unit and covers it completely. A more useful approach, in CyberBoard, is to create a partially transparent “counter” which allows some of the underlying image (the unit it is marking) to show through. I call this a “label.” Much of the time, a player will not have to select and move a label to determine what unit is sitting underneath. The technique is simple. Just flood fill the bottom layer with the cyan color and any areas where it shows through will display as transparent in CB. You can also use transparency to advantage when you need to use multiple labels which will sit on top of a single unit. For example, if you had 4 different status indicators, all of which might be displayed on a unit simultaneously, you could create a transparent square with an opaque border and place the 1^st label type in the upper left quarter, the 2^nd in the upper right quarter, etc. Even when all 4 labels are sitting on top of each other on the counter, the 4 indicators will all be visible. (They will, however, be misaligned unless you set the offset value to 0 when creating the scenario in CB.) Some labelling can also be done on the counter itself. The standard counter image offset in CB is 3 pixels horizontally and vertically; buttonizing requires a 2-pixel border all around. That leaves the 3^rd row of pixels available to indicate, for example, a unit’s command affiliation. If you assign distinct colors to units in different commands and draw a 1-pixel wide square 3 rows in, that color will show up in CB when the unit is buried in a stack (assuming CB’s offset value = 3). Some board games expect a player to keep track of the changing status of a unit, such as a ship, on a log sheet. You can usually substitute a screen display for the log sheet, using tracks with letters or numbers and a label to indicate the current value. A square label with a 4-pixel wide border and a transparent center will work well to highlight a given position on a track. Labels can also be used to good effect on a map. The changing status of a hex, for example from clear terrain to cratered, can be marked by dragging a label onto it. The label can indicate the current and former terrain type simultaneously by the use of transparency. Give some thought to how labelling and transparency can make things easier for the player. Take advantage of the computer. Effective use of labels can do a lot to make your gamebox both functional and attractive. COUNTER ROTATION Some games require counters to be rotated to indicate facing. This gives rise to a potential problem – the counter data may become illegible. Let me explain. Any computer graphic image can be rotated “orthogonally” (i.e., by 90 or 180 degrees) without difficulty. However, if you rotate to ANY other angle there is NO way the computer can display the image with its original clarity. Small text, in particular, becomes muddled. Rotating a unit to face a different hexside requires a 60 degree rotation, so the problem cannot be escaped. Consider creating a special “facing” arrow on a transparent background to use as an indicator. Instruct players to rotate the arrow, not the unit. The unit data will still be legible; the arrow may look a bit skewed, but no one is likely to complain. ANTIALIASING When working with any vector object, including text, the question of antialiasing must be considered. I think I can hear you asking – what the heck is “antialiasing”? Computers are good at drawing lines in an orthogonal direction – 100% vertical or 100% horizontal. When a line (any line) is drawn at some other angle, it will look jagged because it is made up of discrete pixels offset slightly from each other. “Antialiasing” is a process by which the computer applies shading to the line in such a way as to smooth out its appearance. You can examine the effects of this by creating a vector text object (upper case “S” will do) with and without antialiasing and zooming in on it to 32:1 to examine each pixel. The effect of antialiasing will be obvious. PSP always gives you the option of turning antialiasing on or off. As a general rule, turn it on. There are some exceptions though. Very small text may look better with antialiasing turned off. Or you may want a jagged appearance on the edge of an object for some specific reason. When it comes to labels (remember, I mean partially transparent markers), you must turn antialiasing OFF. Why? Because antialiasing works by varying the opacity of pixels at the edge of the line, causing them to blend with the underlying layer which, typically, is the transparent color. Once a transparent pixel becomes blended with something else its RGB value changes and CB can no longer recognize it as transparent, so it displays the pixel. The result is that your carefully antialiased label will display in CB with an ugly cyan-like border around the text or object. You have been warned. CREATING CHARTS & TABLES The quickest way to create charts and tables for on-screen viewing is to use MS Excel. It allows you to use text color and shading to differentiate individual rows, columns or values. Do a screen capture into PSP, convert the image to a bitmap, and load it into CB or ADC2 as if it were a map. For very large charts or tables, you may have to do multiple screen captures and "stitch" the images together in PSP.
MOVING ON
Lets wrap up our Operational Demo Map. Make sure you have saved your demo map in PSP7 format.
Now is the time to reduce the color depth of your map if you have decided to display the result in 256 colors. Use Colors>Decrease Color Depth>256 Colors to do that. If you are using CyberBoard version 3, there is no need to reduce the color depth to 16-bit color; CB will do that automatically when you add the image to the gamebox. Then, save the map again, this time as a Windows bitmap file. PSP7 will warn you that all of the layers are going to be merged into one and ask if you would like to continue. This is the reason for saving the original of your map in PSP7 format first - the bitmap file cannot retain the layers, vector objects, and other sophisticated elements you have been working with. Select "Yes".
Later, when you create a final, finished product of your map, you will want to toggle the visibility of the Counters layer and the Hex Grid layer to "Off" if you do not wish to display these components in CB or ADC2.
To view the demo map in CB, run the Design Module, Create a new map, hit the Edit button, click the Base Drawing Layer button, and then load the Demo Map bitmap into CB using Edit>Paste Bitmap From File.
To view the demo map in ADC2, run the ADC2 Map Editor and select File>Create New Map Board. Click on the "Use Scanned Map" button. This phrase is a misnomer - ADC2 can actually display any windows bitmap, scanned or not, by this method. Clear the check box called "Select and Position the BMP Map Sheet", click the Change button, and then load your bitmap file. Set the Zoom 3 hex size to 75 and the Orientation to "Hex Column". Hit Continue and bring up the map display in the editor.

A TACTICAL LEVEL MAP: MORE COMPLEX CLEAR TERRAIN
Now, let's work on a demo map intended for a tactical level game. That will give us the chance to explore some different, and somewhat more sophisticated, techniques. Open the Tactical.bmp file included in this package and examine it – that is what we will build now.
Undeveloped and uncultivated "clear" terrain does not usually have a uniform appearance - it is a mixture of different terrain types. We will build a clear terrain that contains randomly sized and located patches of rough terrain, using layer blending and a mask. This technique has other uses also; you could use it, for example, to create a camouflage pattern.
Create a new 800 by 600 image, as you did earlier. Flood fill the image with my Rough pattern. Then, create a new raster layer and flood fill this layer with my Clear pattern. Make sure the Clear layer is on top of the layer hierarchy and the Rough layer is on the bottom.