User blog:YukiHerz/Making MH-Styled Map Pictures.

Well, lets get right on this:

Things you'll need

 * A graphics editing software, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with your choice.
 * My favorite and the one i use for all my maps is PaintDotNet, a free program.
 * Other programs that could do are TheGimp(Also free if you can put up with the crappy User Interface) and Photoshop.
 * The program of choice must have layer and transparency support.
 * This tutorial asumes you know the basics of the program.
 * Patience, my friend.

Step 0: Basic Bits
A thing to know is that you'll be working with small resolutions, so it's best to turn off any feature of your preffered image editor that could cause aliasing, blurring and similar effects on your picture.

While i'll tell you to prevent jagged edges (unless that's the style you're going for), actual MH maps are filled with them.

Step 1: Drawing area layouts
This may be the simplest step, you need to draw black outlines defining the borders of each zone, remember to use natural shapes without too many straight lines, unless that's the style you're going after.

A thing to note is that the borders in most MH maps are connected pixel by pixel, as in, diagonal lines have a connecting pixel in one side to make it seamless.

Example of Layouts: http://i.imgur.com/iWiOUu7.png.

Notice how both layouts on top have seamless black outlines, while the one on the bottom doesn't.

Step 2: Connecting Zones
The change depending on the style you chooses, in the next picture you'll see distinct types of connectors.

Connectors: http://i.imgur.com/Lii1rVY.png.

On the top left, the connector doesn't follow a straight line and it's made by small squares with a single colored dot.

On the top right, the style seen in early maps, this one directly from a Portable/Freedom game, later i'll update this blog with info on the PS2 style, which are the original un-scaled maps used in Portable series.

On the bottom left, we see a style made from the same squares as the Wobbly style, but having straight lines of them.

On the bottom right, i drew 2 different arrow styles which can be used for one-side paths.

Connecting areas should be a simple task, just keep drawing the connectors between two areas, try not to make these connectors occupy too much space or they'll look cluttered.

Extra: If you have to make a connection pass by another one, remove some pixels from one connector to make it look like it's going below, Example: http://i.imgur.com/V5DyzAp.png.

Step 3: Color and Style.
First, choose a color, and then pick a darker or lighter shade of the same color, fill the zones with the colors you want them to be, and paint the connectors with the darker shade.

For connectors between areas of different color, look for a middle point and change the color to the one of the other area.

Outline Styles:
There are many styles that can be used for your zones:

Examples: http://i.imgur.com/2p9BGIl.png.

On the top left, labeled with P3rd, this style mimics the looks of MHP3rd maps, the darker outline loosely follows the shape of the black border, without any specific relation between them.

Labeled FU, the style on the top right mimics the style seen in MHFU maps, with an outline following the shape of the border closely, leaving a seamless outline of the lighter color in-between.

Labeled 4U, this mimics the style of maps seen in MH4U, with the dark outline following the border, acting as a shade to said border.

And lastly, labeled MH1, this style has no outlines, we will take care of that later.

Extra: Before filling the zones with motifs, you may also scale the picture to 2x of its current size (Using Nearest Vector scaling, so it doesn't get filtered), this will allow the zones to look less cluttered when you add the Filling Motifs.

Filling Styles(For all styles but MH1)
Motifs for your areas are the little details that go inside the Outline you just made, be it little trees, palms or simple lines indicating the course of a river.

Examples: http://i.imgur.com/Kj8PeLg.png (Ideally, the background should be the lighter shade and the motif the darker one).

It is recommended to draw these as "tiles" on a separate image, and then paste them into our maps in a separate layer, and from them copy and paste the tile to cover an entire zone.

When you're done, go to the map's layer and select: The Black Border, The Dark Outline made in the previous step, and if you're using MHFU style, the lighter outline between the black border and dark outline, along with the empty space outside zones, this should be transparent or white.

When you have this selection made, go back to the Motifs layer and press the Del/Supr button, located somewhere above the directional keys on your keyboard, this will only leave the parts of the motif inside the outlines.

Example of how it should end: http://i.imgur.com/DSNyjvL.png

MH1
In MH1, area maps didn't have motifs on them, they had patterns similar to this: http://i.imgur.com/pzp3Zcv.png, this is easy to reproduce.

To be added later: adding motifs to MH1 Styled maps.

Numbers and Base Camp Icon
This is the easiest part of all, simply draw numbers in the style you prefer, you can find examples on the MH Wikia and my own maps, i usually do this style: http://i.imgur.com/t8kJifw.png, You can just copy-paste from here if you'd like (re-size to 50% on Nearest Vector if they are too big for your map.

Last Step
Last step is, upload to wikia and write about your area.