Related stuff

[Topdecker]

Get excited!

You can consider this a preview of a near-future MOD - with a technical question

https://i.imgur.com/nVCaAbG.jpg

What you are looking at is a static 'starfield' image with an FG hex overlay. The 4 planets shown are tokens. I have like 20 or so planets that I made from NASA imagery, elbow-grease, and fairy-wings along with 5 starfields made manually.

You are looking at a _really_ flexible system for laying out space encounters with planetary bodies. I need to cook up some comets, debris, asteroids, and other stellar accoutrements.

Anyhow, the techie end of things is simple enough... These 'tokens' are 700k+ in size with 800x800 pixel dimensions. I've left them large since someone might want a planet to occupy a big piece of a map. The question is, beyond load times, is there a downside to doing this? I don't want to be the guy that blew-up FG.

Maybe I need to have small/med/large sizes? I dunno, just trying to get a handle on where to take it. The thought of every added planetary body adding a 700kb uncacheable download wears at me a bit, especially since many might only need to be small in size.

I also seem to remember some important technical detail about tokens in a module vs tokens in the folders - maybe all tokens get cached?

Top

[damned]

Hi Top

Check your RAM usage before and after loading up one of these images.
And also do the same from a player instance on another computer - you might need to get one of your players to assist.
If the RAM usage is not too large you should be ok.

[Topdecker]

It wasn't as bad as I had worried. Opening an image is 40mb of memory, then 2-4mb per planet.

I will probably make them in 3 sizes (200x200, 400x400, and 800x800) just to have the fine control.

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[damned]

It wasn't as bad as I had worried. Opening an image is 40mb of memory, then 2-4mb per planet.

I will probably make them in 3 sizes (200x200, 400x400, and 800x800) just to have the fine control.

Top

You can resize the tokens in game. Id pick one size and just use that and size them down (and even up) - it will reduce the overall memory usage.

[Topdecker]

I want to reduce the transfer size to the client computers - hence the plan for several sizes.

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[Talyn]

Memory is a bigger issue than file transfer. Token remain in memory whether they're being used or not. To avoid interacting with them by accident, a GM would probably be using the Layers Extension, which increases memory. FG has been known to increase memory usage on the players side roughly 400% of what the GMs machine is using if content (hi tokens!) is being shared. Which is why 99% of all the "why are my players crashing?" threads on the forums end up being us telling people to stop sharing so much.

TL;DR listen to @damned :)

[Topdecker]

Alright, Talyn, I shall listen :) 400x400 seems to be a fairly effective size:

https://i.imgur.com/f2SWhZs.png

It looks good and the images are only 220k in size. I will standardize on those dimensions unless someone brings up a good reason to do something different.

I guess that I need to have a look at the extension you mentioned.

BTW, I own a couple of token modules that have small/med/large token sets. But I am not surprised to learn it was a bad idea.

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[Topdecker]

I should also say thanks for the advice, you two! I do appreciate it!

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[Talyn]

Token modules are a fantastic idea. Provided you're not then sharing the token module. Putting tokens in the /shared/ folder is a horrible idea. :)

[Dyark]

Great job I like it

Also you can use this tool for planet, this is on I use

https://planetmaker.wthr.us/

This is the kind of planet you can create with a few clicks

22243

[Topdecker]

Great job I like it

Also you can use this tool for planet, this is on I use

https://planetmaker.wthr.us/

This is the kind of planet you can create with a few clicks

22243

Wow, those are nice! Thanks for sharing it!

Top

[Trenloe]

Also look at doing final image optimization - for FG official development I was asked to use an application called Pingo (https://css-ig.net/pingo), with the -s4 optimization parameter (best lossless mode) - this will give you some final file size improvements. It's command line, which is a little bit of a pain, but with a bit of dir redirection to a text file and editing into a .bat file you can optimise a lot of image files.

[Topdecker]

Whoa, Trenloe! Pingo is something else!

It literally reduced the file sizes by 50% with no evident change in quality. Everything went from 220kb to 110kb - and it took like 2 seconds max to convert them all. I haven't tested it with JPGs, but it is really good with PNGs.

My command line was.... pingo.exe *.png

I hate to over-complicate things :). I am really happy with the results, thanks for the pro tip!

EDIT: It isn't my favorite for JPGs - really reduces the file size but with a lot of visual artifacts

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[Trenloe]

My command line was.... pingo.exe *.png
And thanks for that pro tip - I didn't realise you could use wildcards - I think you couldn't in the old one I had, or it wasn't documented.

[Topdecker]

FYI: pinga is the GUI version of pingo.

You can get it here. (https://css-ig.net/pinga)

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[Topdecker]

Spent the day making and breaking virtual rocks.... Well, asteroids.

https://i.imgur.com/QeLypIo.jpg

Gotta say, making asteroids by hand is not among my favorite things to do. I got seven images done and that is enough :)

A few comets, nav beacons, map markers.... still on the to do list.

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[Dyark]

Very nice

[Treviron Riaxx]

Very very nice

[Topdecker]

Thanks, guys :) Been planning a sci-fi campaign since last September - that Starfinder arrived when it did was serendipity. Still gotta read the rules and try to get on-board with the setting (space Elves and star Goblins require some adaptation on my part).


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[Treviron Riaxx]

I made a major difference for me also, since its making adapting the Setting of the Stories been working on for years... way easier to implement in a rp system. Lot's of work though...

[Topdecker]

Some map markers got done today....

https://i.imgur.com/RD7ibqf.png

Disclaimer - the ships and shield around shuttle are not something that I did.

Medical staff trapped on an asteroid following a collision with an asteroid?

Plastic surgeon waiting to give a player a new identity when a bounty hunter decloaks?

Anyhow, fun stuff.

Top