Making a Map
So you want to make a map in the style of the trilogy DS games for your fancase? I'll show you how to from scratch in three straightforward steps!This covers the basics and some more advanced stuff at the end. Feel free to skip the advanced stuff if you're not interested in the technicalities!
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Spoiler : The basics of map making (Indoor Maps) :
Step 1: The Base
Make a canvas that's 256 pixels wide and 192 pixels tall. This is the size of a DS screen and of the screens AAO uses. "Check button" images that attach to your evidence are 428 x 328 pixels, so if you're making this to add to evidence only and not appear on-screen, you can afford to make this a little larger.
If you want to copy and paste a base and edit this you can copy my base here:
Here are the key colours you will need for maps:
In order, these colours correspond to:
Step 2: The Layout
Using the dark brown colour above, you set your brush to 3 pixels thick (and turn off "anti-aliasing" if this is an option in your art program. If you're using paint or aseprite, you may not need to worry about this). The lines can be any shape but keep the same thickness. You can use things like the select tool and paint bucket tool to make perfect boxes if you can't free-hand straight lines. You can also hold shift in most programs and click between 2 points to draw a straight line between those 2 points. For me, my art program (FireAlpaca) has a grid mode that snaps all lines to a vertical or horizontal orientation making this easier to freestyle.
Using the lighter grey colour (second on the palette above), fill in the rooms. When filling in the rooms, you put a little pixel with the background's colours into the corners to anti-alias them. This is a small detail the official maps do.
You can then add details inside or outside your map. Solid objects use the outline colour and are silhouettes of any key shapes relevant to your scene. Details outside tend to be given more detail using the latter 3 colours shown above.
For any details like doors or other commonly used icons, my recommendation is to copy and paste those from the official maps. If you want to avoid spoilers you can copy the doors from my map above and rotate them at 90 degree increments as appropriate to get the desired angle.
Step 3: The Text
Use the outline colour for the text. The font is Arial but bolded. Font size depends on your art program as some programs scale font sizes to your canvas size. Here I used size 3 font, no anti-aliasing, and set an outline for the text of 1 px. If you can't set an outline, you can just copy the text as a new layer and make it white, copy it a few times then offset it one pixel in each direction to get the effect. If you're patient, you can manually draw that outline around the text as well.
And that's pretty much it for a basic map!
Make a canvas that's 256 pixels wide and 192 pixels tall. This is the size of a DS screen and of the screens AAO uses. "Check button" images that attach to your evidence are 428 x 328 pixels, so if you're making this to add to evidence only and not appear on-screen, you can afford to make this a little larger.
If you want to copy and paste a base and edit this you can copy my base here:
Here are the key colours you will need for maps:
In order, these colours correspond to:
- outlines, text, solid objects
- infill for rooms
- grass
- water
- rocks
Step 2: The Layout
Using the dark brown colour above, you set your brush to 3 pixels thick (and turn off "anti-aliasing" if this is an option in your art program. If you're using paint or aseprite, you may not need to worry about this). The lines can be any shape but keep the same thickness. You can use things like the select tool and paint bucket tool to make perfect boxes if you can't free-hand straight lines. You can also hold shift in most programs and click between 2 points to draw a straight line between those 2 points. For me, my art program (FireAlpaca) has a grid mode that snaps all lines to a vertical or horizontal orientation making this easier to freestyle.
Using the lighter grey colour (second on the palette above), fill in the rooms. When filling in the rooms, you put a little pixel with the background's colours into the corners to anti-alias them. This is a small detail the official maps do.
You can then add details inside or outside your map. Solid objects use the outline colour and are silhouettes of any key shapes relevant to your scene. Details outside tend to be given more detail using the latter 3 colours shown above.
For any details like doors or other commonly used icons, my recommendation is to copy and paste those from the official maps. If you want to avoid spoilers you can copy the doors from my map above and rotate them at 90 degree increments as appropriate to get the desired angle.
Step 3: The Text
Use the outline colour for the text. The font is Arial but bolded. Font size depends on your art program as some programs scale font sizes to your canvas size. Here I used size 3 font, no anti-aliasing, and set an outline for the text of 1 px. If you can't set an outline, you can just copy the text as a new layer and make it white, copy it a few times then offset it one pixel in each direction to get the effect. If you're patient, you can manually draw that outline around the text as well.
And that's pretty much it for a basic map!
Spoiler : Advanced details (Outdoor Maps) :
If you want to add more complex shapes or use the latter three colours in more depth, here is a palette including the base colours and any shadows and highlights:
Those 2 shades in the second and third row of the second column are additional colours for buildings. Say there's a block of buildings surrounded by concrete? Use that slightly darker grey to show those. The lighter grey is for things like footpaths or bridges.
More complex shapes require a little anti-aliasing. You can manually add these shadows in the corners of your lines, or you can use some tricks to shortcut this.
With your shapes, draw your base of the shape using the shadow colour. Copy your layer and colour in this copied one with the primary colour. Clip this layer, move it one pixel to the right and voila, half the image has its anti-aliasing! Erase some of the left-side and then repeat this process to the left. You'll get the aliasing I've done in the image above. Alternatively, your art program has control over fill tool tolerance or spacing, turn off anti-aliasing and set the fill to -1, make a new layer and turn on the equivalent of referencing all layers, and use the fill tool in the appropriate area. You've automatically made a shape with a 1-pixel large outline. You can then make a few copies of this smaller layer and offset it one pixel in each cardinal direction to easily make an anti-aliased effect. This also works for outlines which are of a curvy shape, as shown above.
Outside scenes use differing outline thicknesses depending on how zoomed out the maps are. Feel free to experiment with this to show scale.
Outdoor maps also use a scale. This is typically showing the distance of 5 yards in the english games but you can change this as much as you'd like.
Here's an exmaple of all colours and tips I've mentioned above culminated into an outdoor map:
Those 2 shades in the second and third row of the second column are additional colours for buildings. Say there's a block of buildings surrounded by concrete? Use that slightly darker grey to show those. The lighter grey is for things like footpaths or bridges.
More complex shapes require a little anti-aliasing. You can manually add these shadows in the corners of your lines, or you can use some tricks to shortcut this.
With your shapes, draw your base of the shape using the shadow colour. Copy your layer and colour in this copied one with the primary colour. Clip this layer, move it one pixel to the right and voila, half the image has its anti-aliasing! Erase some of the left-side and then repeat this process to the left. You'll get the aliasing I've done in the image above. Alternatively, your art program has control over fill tool tolerance or spacing, turn off anti-aliasing and set the fill to -1, make a new layer and turn on the equivalent of referencing all layers, and use the fill tool in the appropriate area. You've automatically made a shape with a 1-pixel large outline. You can then make a few copies of this smaller layer and offset it one pixel in each cardinal direction to easily make an anti-aliased effect. This also works for outlines which are of a curvy shape, as shown above.
Outside scenes use differing outline thicknesses depending on how zoomed out the maps are. Feel free to experiment with this to show scale.
Outdoor maps also use a scale. This is typically showing the distance of 5 yards in the english games but you can change this as much as you'd like.
Here's an exmaple of all colours and tips I've mentioned above culminated into an outdoor map:
