Why You Should Use HexScape to Create Map Images

[superfrog]

Back in the good old days, VirtualScape maps looked great right out of the box. Alas, not all the shadowing plugins work on modern computers, and now VirtualScape maps look blasé.

Enter HexScape.

HexScape is a powerful tool for Online Heroscape. I've never used it to play, or even imported figures. But I did figure I could use it to make my maps looks sexy in their image previews.

Check it out.

VirtualScape: (with brightness and contrast increased)


HexScape: (with drop shadows added around the borders so you can see where the snow ends)


Hopefully that's enough to get you intrigued.

Here's the pros and cons of using HexScape for this purpose:

Pros:

• Better/less angular rendering. Check out the single-hex glacier next to the six-hex glacier. It looks much more realistic in the HexScape render.
• Glyphs render at the correct size, and you can see the terrain underneath. This is a big win. Check the glyph on the bottom of the HexScape image. You can tell that it's on grass.
• Camera navigation is very easy.
• Colors are more vibrant.
• Shadowing is supported.
• Supported on Macs.

Cons:

• Start zones. HexScape renders start zones as fenced areas, fenced with short red/blue fences. It's not bad, but it's not the transparent dots we're used to seeing.
• There is no support for power-side-up glyphs. Not a huge loss, as you often can't tell what glyph is used from the map image anyway, and most glyphs are random.
• The image comes with a table underneath. Kinda sucks, especially since it's not a uniform color table. It takes a bit of doing to remove it with GIMP.
• You need to have HexScape. Thankfully this part is easy. Just get HexScape, and download a few assets, and you're set. Make your maps in VirtualScape, and then open the .hsc file directly with HexScape.
• Requires VirtualScape, or at least the .hsc file you want.

If anybody is interested, I can provide some more information on exactly how to get started with using HexScape for this purpose. Big thanks to @Lyrgard for making HexScape, and @White Knight for helping me figure a few things out.