Progress With Fantasy Grounds so Far

[Hammerhand]

There are certainly a lot of useful videos with regard to Fantasy Grounds and Converting over older editions to 5E and Fantasy Grounds seems to be going well (but slowly) except for the maps.

I actually purchased Profantasy CC3, DD3, and CD3 which also has a long and difficult learning curve, probably a steeper curve than FG, while I am making progress on the drawing of the dungeon, landscape and towns and cities I have yet to properly format a finished map for transfer to Fantasy Grounds. The steps are many and complex and you must be very accurate with regard to the width of the battle map.

Profantasy also has many good instructional videos, but the product demands a strict adherence to a particular sequence of steps with regard to producing the maps needed. In order to have a good gaming experience, whether its on the table top or on-line, good maps and visual aids enhance the experience.

I am in the need of character portraits or perhaps I am not looking for them in right places. I purchased the Player Handbook and Monster Manual for 5e along with Player companion module. I have plenty of tokens but not portraits, which I thought might be in one of the packages. Any help would be great.

I am currently converting the following mods:

1. Champions of the North - a large campaign concerning a ominous and complex plot, starts out with 2nd level characters
2. The Corrupted Crypt of Ilmater - short mod, for 4th Level characters
3. The Wizard's Keep - another large campaign concerning a powerful former wizard, a ancient, evil elemental God and a the mysterious ruins of a cursed keep, uses first level characters
4. Remake of The Savage Frontier - one of the old Gold Box games, starts out with 2nd level characters.

I was also going to convert some the new Goodman 5e games, but that is a little further down the road. I need to resolve this map dilemma first.

[Nylanfs]

On portraits, I have never had deviant art let me down. Freak me out a bit (https://www.deviantart.com/art/Shortcake-262957239), but never let me down.

[damned]

For Portraits - for my own use - not for distribution - I have recently grabbed some of the multiple portrait images here:
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=rpg+character+portrait&espv=2&biw=1600&bih=732&site=webhp&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=-HRNVYK6GZTl8AWdsoH4BQ&ved=0CBwQsAQ
sliced em up and made sure the dimensions are square and saved as jpg.
Got a whole bunch of quite nice ones :)

For maps - I havent used CC but I too have heard it has a learning curve. It depends on how fussy/demanding you want to be with maps but I can usually output a completely satisfactory (for my needs anyway) map from one of my two favourite sources in 5-15mins:

https://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online
https://www.mapeditor.org/ combined with https://www.rpgartkits.com/#section-purchase or https://www.wyldfurr.com/index.php/product-category/maps/

Sometimes Ill do a little touch up or add a grid etc in https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

[Mask_of_winter]

Dundjinni is good for maps as well. Fairly easy to use. For character portraits yes deviantart is great. Also found a lot of good maps there. Another spot people don't think about for maps and portraits is Pinterest.

[dberkompas]

Have you tried Character Artist, also from ProFantasy?


BoomerET

[Zacchaeus]

I know you posted this some considerable time ago but I've just spotted it :)

You don't say which PHB you bought but the 5e DeLuxe one came with, I believe, over 250 portraits. Maybe that wasn't the one you bought though.

I too use ProFantasy's drawing tool and, yes, it's horribly difficult to get your head around but the results are spectacular even if, like me, you have no artistic talent. You might find post 17 from this post helpful in exporting CC maps for use in Fantasy Grounds https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?21444-Irondrake-s-Maps/page2

[Nylanfs]

CC is so hard because it's based on a CAD software suite. Which if you are a designer or engineer it just feels natural, so I like it. :)

[Dracones]

There are a ton of portraits out there for computer rpg games like Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity. I wonder how well they'd translate over to FG without any editing.

[JohnD]

Do a batch resize with Irfranview. That's what I do, when I can remember how.

[JohnD]

OP sounds like you might be chewing off too much all at once. Even a portion of just one of those will give you enough for many games. Build enough to get started and then get gaming; build as you go.

[Trenloe]

There are a ton of portraits out there for computer rpg games like Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity. I wonder how well they'd translate over to FG without any editing.
Depends on what format they're in to start off with. Fantasy grounds rulesets that are based on CoreRPG (most of the SmiteWorks provided rulesets) use a portrait size of 63x63 pixels. FG will resize the portrait to this size, but it's better to start with the correct size (especially if you have lots of portraits).

Ideally, the portraits should be in .PNG format.

Google Baldur Gate portraits and you'll come up with many, many, many, portraits you can use.

[Larac]

Also google Pillars of Eterinty they have a ton as well.

[Larac]

Dundjinni is good for maps as well. Fairly easy to use. For character portraits yes deviantart is great. Also found a lot of good maps there. Another spot people don't think about for maps and portraits is Pinterest.

Really liked DJ but my copy is borked.
They really need to do a new installer.

Tried the fixes worse than starting issue.

Sad coukd be one of the best for VTT, if they would just invest a little time.

[Mask_of_winter]

Personally, I invested the time to follow tutorials on the cartographer's guild on how to use Photoshop or Gimp to make your own maps and it was worth it.
986598669867

Coupled with using mapping objects you can do pretty much anything.

[damned]

Nice Mask!

[Zacchaeus]

Those are nice maps Mask, but you obviously have artistic talent. If you are an artist then using something like photoshop or GIMP can probably work for you. However if you don't have such talent then you need a program that does that bit for you, such as Campaign Cartographer. For example lighting, shading and textures are what make the maps you have created come alive. To see what looks natural you need to have that spark of artistry which allows you to 'know' when something is right. If you don't have that spark then trying to do what you have done in a drawing package like GIMP is a complete non starter.

[Mask_of_winter]

Those are nice maps Mask, but you obviously have artistic talent. If you are an artist then using something like photoshop or GIMP can probably work for you. However if you don't have such talent then you need a program that does that bit for you, such as Campaign Cartographer. For example lighting, shading and textures are what make the maps you have created come alive. To see what looks natural you need to have that spark of artistry which allows you to 'know' when something is right. If you don't have that spark then trying to do what you have done in a drawing package like GIMP is a complete non starter.

Me, artistic talent? You're much too kind. Everything you see on these maps is a trick. The grass? It's a seamless grass texture found on deviant art. The trees? a setting I followed from a tutorial in one map and imported tree objects created by someone else in the other. The rocky terrain and water? It's the close up of a small rock, the water texture I found and the white water is a brush so I just stamped it on there. I didn't "draw" a single thing in there. That's what I mean, I followed the tutorials on there labeled "how to make maps using photoshop/gimp if you have no artistic talent. It was easier than to try to figure out how campaign cartographer works and with a lot more flexibility.

In the end it's about finding out what works for you. I just wanted to share the approach I've taken and point out anybody can make maps like these.

[Zacchaeus]

Me, artistic talent? You're much too kind. Everything you see on these maps is a trick. The grass? It's a seamless grass texture found on deviant art. The trees? a setting I followed from a tutorial in one map and imported tree objects created by someone else in the other. The rocky terrain and water? It's the close up of a small rock, the water texture I found and the white water is a brush so I just stamped it on there. I didn't "draw" a single thing in there. That's what I mean, I followed the tutorials on there labeled "how to make maps using photoshop/gimp if you have no artistic talent. It was easier than to try to figure out how campaign cartographer works and with a lot more flexibility.

In the end it's about finding out what works for you. I just wanted to share the approach I've taken and point out anybody can make maps like these.

Ok, you've convinced me; I might give it a go. :)

[Hammerhand]

JohnD, your probably right about "biting off more than I can chew" and I am flowing your advice.

I have located the player portraits that came with my purchase and I am working on other portraits that I downloaded putting them in Jpeg format and resizing them. I just have learn how to make them available to FG.

I have decided to stick to 5E adventures initially since I have the largest database of on-line material available. Probably I will do a couple of published games before tacking the conversion on the larger campaigns.

Thanks for all the help.

[Xorn]

CC3/CD3/DD3 are really cool; I use them a lot--but yeah it's a learning curve. I've considered doing GIMP maps instead, and my primary resistance is probably just that I already have the Profantasy suite. LOL

For portraits I use Google Images + TokenTool. Just make a custom overlay that's a 200x200 square with a black line for a border. Adjust the picture you find and save the "token" to your portraits folder.