Battle of Hastings Terrain

[ffrum]

These are game panels I made for a friend to use to field his battle of Hasting game.  These photographs are from that game that he ran at the Little Wars gaming convention in 2009.  

The gaming surface is made up of two 4'x6' laminated panels that mate to form a large playing area for the 25mm battle.  To achieve the hieght of the hill, sheets of foam were laminated and  then carved with industrial foam cutting tools to a profile as near as possible to the actual terrain at the time of the battle.

[janner]

That looks pretty fine 

If you have some photos, I would be very interested in seeing them

[Paul]

I too would like to see more pics. What scale are the figs?

[ffrum]

This was a 25mm scale game with my friends figures from a variety of companies. 

I will work to post some additional photos soon. 
 
I am somewhat challenged by the effort and time it takes to convert and reduce photos I have taken at "fine" resolution with my digital camers that range in file size at around 3.5 to 4+ megabytes. 

I must reduce these files by converting them with Corel PhotoPaint to a web-friendly format and file size for this site.  Any suggestions for streamlining that process?

Thanks for you comments.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

I must reduce these files by converting them with Corel PhotoPaint to a web-friendly format and file size for this site.  Any suggestions for streamlining that process?

try it with Irfanview (freeware):

http://irfanview.de/

it has a nice batch photo conversion feature

[Atheling]

I hope you don't mind me resurrecting this thread but I do have a very pertinent reason; I'm doing Hastings at Salute next year and I'd love to see in more depth how you went about making the terrain?

Darrell.

[ffrum]

Darrel,
Please ask more specific questions and I will be glad to respond.

The terrain was cut and sculpted from laminated sheets of 2" thick "Formular" insulation material (ugly pink) cut to size.  Formular comes in 4' x 8' sheets and is easily available.  In other projects, I also have used regular Styrofoam and chunks of foam that were large couch-sized cut offs from automobile sized blocks of a foam material use in roadway construction in wet areas to fill trenches. 

The layout and profile of the hill was approximated from various sources such as maps of the battle site, books on the battle, internet sources and topographical maps of the area.

I use four industrial level tools to make terrain from foam.  Three are hot wire tools that have cutting swaths of 12", 20" and 50".  I also have a couple industrial use hot knife handles that accommodates various blades and a channel cutting tool (with bendable/formable cutting element/wire) to cut positive or negative forms such as trenches, revetments, watercourse channels, tunnels, whatever.  These tools are use to construct faux masonry building components from foam that are covered with a stucco like material for durability in the weather.  These tools have many other uses in stage construction (which I also do as a pastime for community and school theater sets), interior detailing, sign making, modeling, display construction, etc.  Bad news, when cutting this material, the fumes are toxic.

Putty, latex paint and terrain materials and flocking are used to cover the foam once it is carved.

The slopes of the two 4'x6' panels were cut (at the same time) to match perfectly once placed together and the "crack" could be covered with irregular pieces of flocking covered felt to break up the line.

[Atheling]

Darrel,
Please ask more specific questions and I will be glad to respond.

Thanks 

The terrain was cut and sculpted from laminated sheets of 2" thick "Formular" insulation material (ugly pink) cut to size.  Formular comes in 4' x 8' sheets and is easily available.  In other projects, I also have used regular Styrofoam and chunks of foam that were large couch-sized cut offs from automobile sized blocks of a foam material use in roadway construction in wet areas to fill trenches. 

i thought that it would be mainly Pink Foam but wasn't sure if you had used any expanded polystyrene in the process(?).

The layout and profile of the hill was approximated from various sources such as maps of the battle site, books on the battle, internet sources and topographical maps of the area.

Did you use Google Maps at any point? It would be interesting to see how the terrain has changed- are there any archaeological sources available on the net? I haven't managed to find any thus far(?)

I use four industrial level tools to make terrain from foam.  Three are hot wire tools that have cutting swaths of 12", 20" and 50".  I also have a couple industrial use hot knife handles that accommodates various blades and a channel cutting tool (with bendable/formable cutting element/wire) to cut positive or negative forms such as trenches, revetments, watercourse channels, tunnels, whatever.  These tools are use to construct faux masonry building components from foam that are covered with a stucco like material for durability in the weather.  These tools have many other uses in stage construction (which I also do as a pastime for community and school theater sets), interior detailing, sign making, modeling, display construction, etc.  Bad news, when cutting this material, the fumes are toxic.

Good news is that in a month or so my move will be complete and I'll have my garage! Bad news is that I've got no industrial hot wire set. where did you buy yours from? What brand name? I'm just wondering if they're available in the UK?

Putty, latex paint and terrain materials and flocking are used to cover the foam once it is carved.

I was thinking of using fine sand (with a few bits and bobs thrown in for the sake of irregularity).

The slopes of the two 4'x6' panels were cut (at the same time) to match perfectly once placed together and the "crack" could be covered with irregular pieces of flocking covered felt to break up the line.

Well, thanks for taking the time to answer my question and I'll get back to you when I need more info- got to move first so it may be a few weeks- hope that this is OK by you?

Darrell.

[ffrum]

I have used many and various types of foam.  Formular is the easiest to work with and has some strength.  Expanded cell sometimes used for filler layers, but lacks the rigidity needed for good surfaces of terrain to accommodate wear, cracking, leaning gamers, etc..

Google maps, sure.  But, the best sources were books,  and I seem to remember some on-line, but not specifically at this time (years later).

Tools from Demand Products, in Alpharetta, Georgia.  Look on-line.  They offer "hobby" level products now also.  I  recommend the high priced tools for flexibility and durability.  Make your own decisions.

Sand is always useable, but it depends on the effect you want to achieve.

Good luck in your move.

Thanks,
Curt

[Atheling]

I have used many and various types of foam.  Formular is the easiest to work with and has some strength.  Expanded cell sometimes used for filler layers, but lacks the rigidity needed for good surfaces of terrain to accommodate wear, cracking, leaning gamers, etc..

Google maps, sure.  But, the best sources were books,  and I seem to remember some on-line, but not specifically at this time (years later).

Tools from Demand Products, in Alpharetta, Georgia.  Look on-line.  They offer "hobby" level products now also.  I  recommend the high priced tools for flexibility and durability.  Make your own decisions.

Sand is always useable, but it depends on the effect you want to achieve.

Good luck in your move.

Thanks,
Curt

Thanks Curt,

I'll hopefully be able to find a UK supplier of the tools- as you say, they will make the job a lot easier and that counts for a lot especially when there's limited time etc.

That's a no-go for a UK supplier- have you got a brand name I can search for please Curt?

Darrell.

[ffrum]

Search "Demand Products" on line.
Verify the right company with the Georgia, USA address.
Be prepared, they are costly.

[Paul]

Thanks Curt,

I'll hopefully be able to find a UK supplier of the tools- as you say, they will make the job a lot easier and that counts for a lot especially when there's limited time etc.

That's a no-go for a UK supplier- have you got a brand name I can search for please Curt?

Darrell.

Look here matey..
http://hobby.uk.com/power-tools/hot-wire-cutters.html
or make your own..

[Atheling]

Look here matey..
http://hobby.uk.com/power-tools/hot-wire-cutters.html
or make your own..

Thanks Paul 

I'm thinking of buying the whole kit.....

We shall see.

Darrell.

[katie]

"I must reduce these files by converting them with Corel PhotoPaint to a web-friendly format and file size for this site.  Any suggestions for streamlining that process?"

There is a set of free tools called "ImageMagick" which can be used for this sort of process. They're command-line tools which means they can be automated. With some batch files, they can quickly convert all the images in a directory into smaller images in another directory. I use them to produce thumbnail images for photo galleries, using a command like:

  convert input.jpg -thumbnail '100x100>' gif:thumbnails/output.gif

The "100x100>" means to make an image which will fit in a 100x100 square preserving the aspect ratio.

There are TONS of options including things like watermarking the images, scaling by percentage sizes, converting between just about every format you'll ever need and so on, remapping colours for greyscale or sepia, brightening or darkening images, altering focus and so on.

As an example usage; I wrote a PDF document that I wanted to look like some pages photocopied out of a book. The imagemagick tools turned the PDFs into images, rotated the pages slightly, added noise and turned them back into PDFs. That kind of usage is getting more advanced, but if you're into image manipulation, these are the things to have around.

And they're legitimately downloadable for free :-)


If you search for something like "imagemagick batch windows", there's tutorials about how to write the scripts which can apply the same operations to hundreds of images in one go while you go have tea.

[Atheling]

"I must reduce these files by converting them with Corel PhotoPaint to a web-friendly format and file size for this site.  Any suggestions for streamlining that process?"

There is a set of free tools called "ImageMagick" which can be used for this sort of process. They're command-line tools which means they can be automated. With some batch files, they can quickly convert all the images in a directory into smaller images in another directory. I use them to produce thumbnail images for photo galleries, using a command like:

  convert input.jpg -thumbnail '100x100>' gif:thumbnails/output.gif

The "100x100>" means to make an image which will fit in a 100x100 square preserving the aspect ratio.

There are TONS of options including things like watermarking the images, scaling by percentage sizes, converting between just about every format you'll ever need and so on, remapping colours for greyscale or sepia, brightening or darkening images, altering focus and so on.

As an example usage; I wrote a PDF document that I wanted to look like some pages photocopied out of a book. The imagemagick tools turned the PDFs into images, rotated the pages slightly, added noise and turned them back into PDFs. That kind of usage is getting more advanced, but if you're into image manipulation, these are the things to have around.

And they're legitimately downloadable for free :-)


If you search for something like "imagemagick batch windows", there's tutorials about how to write the scripts which can apply the same operations to hundreds of images in one go while you go have tea.

Thanks for that Katie, anything has to be better then Picassa!! I really cannot abide it having been used to Photoshop and then latest laptop deciding that it has compatibility issues with said software  

I'm going to downlaod Imagemagick now and see if it can do a better job than Picassa so many thanks for the hint  

I've got a Lewnovo Yoga 2 and I'm using windows 8.1- have you any idea which version I should download as there is quite a selection on their website on the Downloads page?

Darrell.