Yawning Portal map quality

[Zacchaeus]

The maps you are talking about are all drawn to a scale of 50' per square and each square is only 90px on a side. That makes it about 9px per 5' and so to scale that up to 50px per 5' we'd need to increase the maps size by a factor of about 6. After cropping the Grandfather Tree map (for example) would be about 2000x2000 which is just on the limit of the recommended resolution (2048x2048). So if it were to be exported at a higher resolution to accommodate 50px per 5' it would need to be something in the region of 12000x12000. Photoshop is limited to an export size of about 8000x8000 and even at that the map size would be about 10Mb (at a decent quality) and at the lowest it would still be over 2Mb. Well above the 1Mb recommended limits.

Of course I could have chopped the map up into tiny little bits (probably would have needed about 10 small maps instead of the one) but that would be a nightmare.

So, what you have in SKT and in any other module where the maps might not be all that brilliant is a compromise between the constraints of what FG can handle in terms of image size and resolution and usability. All of the maps are extremely serviceable for what is required

[Himajin]

Comparing the hard copy, the digital image I ended up buying from the artists's site, and the Fantasy Grounds version, the latter is very much lacking in detail and has blocky compression artifacts. I don't expect super-high resolution like the artist's version, but it would be nice to have something that isn't degraded to the point where you can't make out a lot of the features properly. The Dripping-Caves-Player map from the same module doesn't have these problems, and is the same quality as earlier 5e adventures.

I could post a small piece of a battlemap as an example, but I'm not sure if that would be allowed here.

[Himajin]

So, what you have in SKT and in any other module where the maps might not be all that brilliant is a compromise between the constraints of what FG can handle in terms of image size and resolution and usability. All of the maps are extremely serviceable for what is required

Thank you for this explanation. I can at least understand the reason for the difference in quality now. It's a shame it has to be this way, as I haven't had any problems working with the higher resolution/quality maps I introduced instead of the default ones, but I guess the same might not apply to all FG users.

[Himajin]

For reference, I halved the resolution of the artist's images, ending up with maps that are about 1000x1000 pixels for these outdoor maps after cropping out the unnecessary bits. Saved at 70% quality in Photoshop, they come to about 300kb. Each square is obviously still low resolution this way, at about 5x5 pixels each, but the map itself still looks much better than the default ones, and has no visible compression artifacts.

[Zacchaeus]

What size of an FG grid did you draw on that?

[Himajin]

What size of an FG grid did you draw on that?

For example, with the grandfather tree, I cropped the artist's image to the 21 x 22 visible squares, and reduced the resolution to 1050 x 1100 pixels. I used a 5x5 pixel grid to match the 50 feet per square scale of the map.

I also just tried it with 1890 x 1980 resolution, and a 9x9 pixel grid. This seemed to work okay in FG as well (it was 680 KB), but the even the smaller resolution was a big improvement over the battlemap in the official module for me.
It'd hard to tell what resolution the official FG map uses, but to me it appears to be an upscaled low resolution image. Perhaps that's all that WOTC provided for these this time.

In any case, I don't want this to seem like an attack on those who put all the hard work into making these FG modules. It just stood out as something that could perhaps be improved upon.

[Zacchaeus]

First off I don't see this as an attack on anyone so feel free to comment. My aim is to produce modules which are as high a quality as I can manage and any knowledge that I can garner from people who understand graphics better than I do is very welcome.

I played about with those maps a lot before settling on the ones that found there way into the module and the end result is not good, I agree. The Grandfather tree map in the module is about 2100x2100. The grid I drew on it is not the standard FG grid but is actually 10' per grid square. The reason being that if a 5' grid was drawn I didn't think it looked all that great. So again a compromise. Here's a picture of three possible variations. The one in the middle is the map from SKT; the one on the left is about 1100x1100 with a 5' grid and the one on the right is 1680x1680 with a bigger 9px grid. All are zoomed in to approximately the same area. And none of them look brilliant

[Himajin]

Thanks for taking the time to do that.
It's more the graphic fidelity that I was concerned about, as it seemed like a lot of the detail was lost even when you zoom in moderately. Just looking at the examples you posted, it does seem like the source file you are working with is of lesser quality than the one I got from the artist, and that combined with a heavy compression setting is probably why these outdoor maps looked so blurry to me.

Here are the two versions I put together from the artist's version, with the one from SKT in the middle.
I agree that the maps don't really seem to be designed to support a 10x10 grid per square, and a 5x5 compromise would have probably worked better. If I were to do it again I'd probably use the 1980x1890 resolution one on the right with a 5x5 grid per square.Attachment 18371

[damned]

The artists versions of the maps are not supplied. The images that are used are the ones that form the hardcover book output.

[Jamesr10]

Hey Zacchaeus! First of all, thanks for communicating so quickly with all of us on this stuff...

I did have one question for ya. I've been having a hard time with the hidden shrine maps because north is not up for the maps. Is there any way to rotate them so that my party and I can communicate properly? We just cannot get used to north being left.