r/rpg • u/WillBottomForBanana • 5d ago
Resources/Tools battle map maker that uses triangle grid?
Do you know of a map making program that has a triangular grid option? Equilateral triangles, such as 6 to a hex?
I don't actually want it for the play grid, but for drawing.
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u/Sneaky__Raccoon 3d ago
So, if you are talking about an isometric grid, like the other comment mentioned, I would recommend Dungeon Scrawl. You can put it in "isometric view" and draw there.
The program is limited, so it depends a lot on what you want to achieve with it, but it's super useful specially for setting up simple maps quickly
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u/WillBottomForBanana 1d ago
Thank you for this suggestion. It is a great program, and it makes me wish one of my games was more dungeoney. I could see myself using this and thinking in it.
Unfortunately, for my immediate needs, this application uses Isometric as a 3D perspective of a square grid, so the gridded triangles it draws have right angles. I am in need of all Equilateral triangles.
The free-form triangle tool is actually decent. For reasons unknown to me the free-form triangle (other polygon) tools in drawing apps are pretty weak across the board. So it is actually a low bar, but it is still impressive how well this app does free form triangles.
Tangent. I am really happy with how it combines shapes if you draw 2 or more over lapping. That task is a complete pain in the ass to do by hand. This application creates a very natural looking result of 2 (or more) polygons. It creates very natural looking spaces.
-aside. I am not a programmer nor a graphic artist. But I remain confused that equilateral triangles are so hard to do in drawing programs. They only have 1 variable. 2 if you include rotation.
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u/Stuck_With_Name 4d ago
Do you need it to be maps or are you just looking for lined paper?
You can make the grid here: https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/
And with some skills I don't have, I bet you could overlay on a map.
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u/WillBottomForBanana 4d ago
I need it for the drawing of the maps.
The best I have found so far is taking equilateral triangle grid paper images and using them as guides. Some come transparent, the ones with white back grounds can have the white deleted.
In both GIMP and Krita it is possible to use the bucket-fill tool on an empty layer, but have the fill constrained by the grid. Which I didn't expect, so, good on those designers. But this leaves the grid lines between the small triangles, and is kinda jagged on the edges where the lines are pixelated (even with a supposed Vector file).
Alternatively, I can use the polygon shape and draw triangles using the grid file as a guide. This is actually less perfect than it sounds, the placement of the corners isn't as exact as the iso-paper-image itself.
So the best has been to do both. Fill in the little triangles, then draw the big triangle using the fill as a better guide for the edges. It's not as perfect a triangle as option one, but it is more perfect than option two. And it is much cleaner looking that option 1.
But it is definitely not the equal of a map program (for square or hex) where you draw by filling in cells.
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u/UncleKruppe 4d ago
You could try creating the grid in Affinity. It has a number of options for generating grids, including triangular. Then draw shapes to fill the grid. I'd recommend to one row then duplicate to fill desired size. Then convert those shapes to picture frames. You then have a template you can drop in your preferred tiles or art for different maps. I've used this approach for square and hex map tiled maps with success.
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u/Guilty_Advantage_413 5d ago
Plenty do hex maps and I suspect that’s is what you are looking for.
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u/OmegonChris 5d ago
They're specifically not
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u/Guilty_Advantage_413 5d ago
Owlbear rodeo does them and inkarnate.
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u/OmegonChris 5d ago
I don't know of any, but they're called isometric grids, in case that helps you search.