Basic Question #2: Where can I get decent sized maps like in the tutorials?

[dcook22]

Hi all,

I'm wondering how to take a .pdf and copy the image into a paint program like Xorne does in his tutorial. I tried that with the Temple of Narash map from the dungeon magazine artile and when I zoom in it gets all pixelated. Can someone help me out with that?

Also, are some of you scanning maps into .pdf's? If so, what program is used to join them together? For example, Keep on the Shadowfell, how were those maps made? Were the map pieces scanned from the printed module and stitched in some type of software?

Thanks in advance for answering all these questions.

Dan

[Zoso]

Xorne also has a tutuorial on how he made the maps. Basically he has enlarged them so that the grid is 50 px. In some cases that means expanding them by 300%.

[dcook22]

Thanks for the reply Zoso. (Zeppelin fan, eh?)

I just edited my post to reflect that in my stupidity I failed to notice the map scaler tutorial. I just watched it now and it was very helpful. However, by using Adobe Acrobat to "snapshot" an image from a .pdf file, the image was so small that expanding it made it very pixelated. The image before exapansion was 10 pixels per square. I need to work on this.

Dan

[Zoso]

Big Zep fan!

If you search the net, you can find a good number of maps already created for these adventures. A good place to get some would be https://www.cartographersguild.com or at https://forums.rptools.net/.

I make my maps in photoshop and it's not too bad once you get used to it. I also prefer to make one map for an entire dungeon level with a 50 px grid. The maps are big, but at least they only have to load once for the whole session!

[Griogre]

Instead of the snap shot tool try copying the image into paint (right click copy image). You should try to avoid using snap shot if you can - with some PDFs you can't.

Also if you do have to use the snap shot then first make the PDF image larger by changing the zoom to like 200%, 400%, ect. Snap shot works off the displayed size, I believe. If it doesn't the use one of the large zooms bigger than 100% and take a screen shot and crop it.

[dcook22]

Awesome tip, thanks again Griogre. And thanks again Zoso.

Dan

[Xorn]

Griogre covered how I got my map for the scaling tutorial. I zoomed the PDF in Adobe until it completely filled my screen then got a snapshot. For book maps I scan them at very high resolution.