Big pictures and small upload

[halbaffe]

Hey,

i am playing with some mates in Germany.
I try to get them away from Maptool and want to show how cool life can be with FG.
But i have one problem. I love to show them some artwork and sometimes big maps. But i have a very small connection to the internet. It is good enough to play and to talk without lags. But if i show them a new picture, there is a big pause where i can't talk because the upload is used totally.
That's not a big problem but it is a bit uncool that the GM can't tell anything or answer questions at that moments.

So here is my suggestion: Is there a way to put the big pictures on some webspace and just show the link in FG? So the GM could put all big stuff on any webspace and link it inside of FG? And players could get it without loss of time.

[JohnD]

You can use Paint or some other program to resize your images so they aren't quite so large in terms of size.

[halbaffe]

Oh in no case i would use Paint :-) Really better take Photoshop.

But as always, size does matter.
Of course, it would be a solution to shrink all maps or to split them up. But that would also shrink the quality. And if there is another way i would like to know. And if it is not possible, could that be a feature for further versions?

[Willot]

jpg usually gives you a smaller filesize than png. reducing the quality by a small 3% makes a big difference in filesize too

[Trenloe]

To answer your question - there is no automatic HTTP link within FG to allow you to put images on a website, push the link to players and the link opens up - either in FG or outside of FG. You could "say" the HTTP link through chat and players could copy/paste into a web browser and view it that way, but it is a bit of a manual process.

What voice client are you using to talk? Some voice solutions, e.g. Skype and others, use the person who started the call as the server - so if you started the call you'd be getting most of the bandwidth through your small internet connection. If you're not using a server based solution (TeamSpeak, Mumble, Ventrillo, etc.) you may want to think about using those as then you'd only be using your own voice to upload to the internet and not everyone elses (also reduce the quality of the channel). Or, if using Skype or similar, get one of your players to start the call and take all the bandwidth.

You can also pre-share images, which pushes the info to the players before you share the image. Perhaps do this at the beginning of the game while you're not speaking.

[halbaffe]

Thanks for your answers.
We use Axon or Skype as clients. In both ways i have the same problem. And i am not the one who starts the call. Maybe we will try another one in future.

Not to be misunderstood, i love to play with FG, it is the best solution. And to wait until all players have got the new map or picture is a small price i have to pay.
I always used to make maps with bitmaps and not vector because they have more live, more ambiance. And i never liked to shrink them. And it is a pity that the only reason not to use big maps or pictures is my small upload.

[Leonal]

Try this:

1. Add your images into a module (see libary or forums on how).
2. Start your campaign.
3. Open a second client and connect to your campaign. Use "localhost" as address in most cases.
4. Mask and share all your images.
5. Close both FG instanses, go to your appdata/cache/campaignname folder.
6. Send the modulename.dat containing the images you shared to your players through email or dropbox or similar.
7. Tell your players to put the file in their appdata/cache/campaignname folder.

This used to work years ago, give it a try.

[ddavison]

I also recommend using the Save for Web & Devices option within Photoshop, since you have it. Sometimes resizing in other paint packages leaves a lot of extra info in the image and Photoshop's option does a good job of optimizing the image for faster uploads.

[halbaffe]

Thanks for all the answers.
Shrinking the pictures in Photoshop is always the first option. 8 bit RGB and saved as jpg.
I will try the hint from Leonal, if that works, it would be a possible solution. Could that be a built-in feature for the future?

My pics for my actual campaign are between 100kb and 1.3mb.
What's the size of yours on average?

[damned]

i try to keep maps in the 100-350kb range - and pics should be smaller....

[Mirloc]

Since switching from face-to-face to playing over the internet, my pictures are running in the 50kb range, and my maps in the 250kb range.

Color depth reduction is the best, but format is the most important to pay attention to. For example, this image: https://pad1.whstatic.com/images/thumb/9/90/Grinning-Zombie.jpg/550px-Grinning-Zombie.jpg saved in various formats, with NO CHANGE to color depth (excepting the GIF which was automatic) results in:

BMP: 588kb
GIF: 91kb
JPEG: 53kb
PNG: 141kb

Yeah, I convert everything to jpeg, just for size reasons. It transmits faster, and the players with older computers bring them up faster as well. I realize there's a near religious thing about the formats etc, but I'm in the business of telling stories and getting images to my players and I simply do that quicker with smaller image sizes.

[damned]

it is important to understand what purpose each image format is intended for.
jpg is the most efficient as displaying (with loss) images like photos that have lots of colour gradients.
gif and png and more efficient at displaying images that have lots of block colours - not gradients. png is royalty free and has far more colour options.
bmp is almost NEVER going to be small as it is intended as a lossless format.

jpg has the best compression options and most images have some type of gradients so it is most likely to be the smallest - but not always :)