Making Maps in Advance (w Tokens, FoW, etc)

[LordEntrails]

Yea, 2048 pixel size recommendation is because FG opens it up fully uncompressed in the client, images of this size (depending upon number of colors and other things) can take up lots of the 3 GB process size limit (remember, memory usage is larger than file size).

Don't know PhotoShop at all, so can't add anything of value to that

Biggest things to think about if you ever go back to trying CC3/CC3+,
- it's a vector based CAD program, so you move a line's control points, not change the color of pixels
- workflow is action>object
- photoshop layers are CC sheets
- CC layers are groups

The best advice is to go over the tutorials step by step. They really don't take long and they get your into the workflow and mindset really well. I've even gone back and re-done tutorials because it had been so long since I had done a type of map or a technique.

[Bidmaron]

Trenloe advises here only 1024x1024. The issue is bandwidth as much as memory usage.

[LordEntrails]

Trenloe advises here only 1024x1024. The issue is bandwidth as much as memory usage.

Yes! Where did this wrong number get stuck in my mind?

Who has been playing with my mind!!! One of you have been messing with me psychically haven't you?

Thanks Birdmaron.

[Bidmaron]

Hey, I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast, so I will be the last to accuse anyone of tampering with my mind. Embarrassing honestly. I don't know how Trenloe does it. But I do hear AIs have fairly decent memory....

[damned]

Trenloe advises here only 1024x1024.

Are you sure?

[Zacchaeus]

The limits are 1Mb file size and 2048x2048 resolution. These aren't hard limits but recommended.

[damned]

What's your opinion from experience for what tool I should use to build my gridless battle maps quickly? Would you suggest maptools?

For using existing tile assets this app is very good: https://www.mapeditor.org/

Yep. Gathered that. That's the approach I've taken. Is there a way to do an extension without replacing entire XML and LUA files, for when you only want to change a single section or function, or no?

Merge rules can be used for any named XML objects.

Agreed. That part took me about an hour, including the time trying to figure out where it was.

Yeah. That's where it's throwing errors. When I try to have it grab the information from the character sheet to add into a calculation, it tells me the value is nil. I thought I was storing on the character the same way as profbonus. That's what I was trying to do, but evidently not. I'm not familiar with all of the functions. I'm also not super familiar with Lua or it's functions, but the syntax difference didn't take too much to get used to.

If it keeps telling you its nil your syntax is wrong and its not finding your changes/values. It is generally better (more reliable) to grab the values from the database rather than a Window reference as the database path is always the same but the window path can be different depending on where you are calling the action from and how you have written it.

I haven't looked at effects, because I had assumed they're applied to individual targets, and it seemed far to cumbersome an idea to have to apply an effect (or several) to literally every creature mid-session. I'll check them out to see if I'm wrong about that. But if not, changing the code for where the field is stored and how things are calculated seems way more manageable.

Monsters typically dont have levels so I assumed you are making this change for PCs? Apply an effect to the PCs with no expiration.

Oh. I hadn't even considered that. Thanks for the heads-up, If I don't switch to a different workflow for quick mapmaking, I'll be sure to run the numbers on my maps and make sure I don't overdo it on image filesizes or number of placeable chunks of terrain.

All the image sizes being thrown around are recommendations and not hard and fast rules. They are pretty good recommendations but they can be exceeded sometimes.

I generally keep around 100 tokens in my token folder.
I keep images of people/scenes/items etc to less than 800px in either direction and 50-70% jpg.
I keep maps to 40-70% jpg and limit their size.
If I have an important map, that is referred to often, and it would really benefit from being larger - it might be bigger than 2048 pixels but that is uncommon.

[Trenloe]

Trenloe advises here only 1024x1024. The issue is bandwidth as much as memory usage.

Err, no not at all. I don't even mention image resolution in that post, I only mention file size.

Why, oh why, is it so hard for this community to not remember the general image recommendations?

1) Image RESOLUTION should be 2048x2048 pixels or less. This directly effects the amount of RAM the image will use in FG.
2) File SIZE should be 1MB or less. This directly effects the amount of time it takes to share with players.

#1 is more important than #2 as too much memory uses causes crashes. But #2 is more obvious as it causes in game delays.

Can people who regularly post on these forums and make recommendations please remember these two details? It's really not that hard. Thanks very much.

[Bidmaron]

Sorry Trenloe

[Nylanfs]

It's not our fault we don't have infallible computer AI memory like you do.