Blurry Maps

[Silverkin]

So I've looked on the interwebs for some good dungeon maps. I have found good ones, however after I put down tokens on map and then play a mock battle scenario and zoom into the battle the map gets super blurry and not impressive at all.

Is there anything that can be done? Do I just gotta look for different maps? If so, which should I be looking for? From far away the map looks beautiful but it just gets super pixelated once I zoom in after placing down tokens for battle.

[Trenloe]

This is all due to image basics. Images are made up of a number of pixels. If you zoom in so that the pixel on the image is bigger than the pixel on your computer monitor, there is not enough image data available to populate the monitor view you're seeing. So image data is spread out beyond 1 pixel in the image = 1 pixel on the monitor, resulting in the blurred image you're seeing.

The only way around this (other than not zooming in so far) is to have better resolution maps. But - do not use maps in FG that are more than 2048 x 2048 pixels in size (maximum 2048 pixels in either direction) - FG will let you use maps larger than this, but they use up too much memory in Fantasy Grounds and can cause issues (it has nothing to do with how much memory your computer has).

If you have a map that covers a really large area, break it down into smaller maps - so you can get good resolution, but don't go over the above mentioned size limits.

If the maps you are downloading are low resolution, then they're not much you can do. Maybe you can try increasing the size of the smaller resolution map (within the above limits) in an image editing application and then use a sharpen mask to get rid of some of the blurring - but the image will then look a bit jagged.

In the end, if the image data isn't there in the image you have (based off size or whatever), then it isn't there and all that can be done is filling in with guesswork/averages based on the surrounding pixels, etc.. It's not like the movies where suddenly a computer finds something hidden in an image!

[madman]

so say i search on GOOGLE for encounter maps.
hit enter then go to tools then to size then to larger than 2MP and go through those for ones you like.
it weeds out the smaller stuff.

Madman..

[Silverkin]

Thanks for the detailed responses!

I'm searching for maps larger then 2 MP. Should I search for larger then 4 MP? What is too large? is 2048x2048 2.048 MP?

[madman]

4 MP is 2272x1704 according to the drop down (with these numbers being pixels first number being width second being height)

And as Trenloe says you should keep your maps to a max of 2048x2048.

The info was just to help you find higher quality images to start with.(if the image is too big you will have to chop it up with a photo editor)

Madman..

[Trenloe]

When you think image resolution you should also think how much area does the map cover? If the map is 100 x 100 feet, then you don't need lots and lots of pixels to give a good enough image at this size. 50 pixels per 5' square would give 1000 x 1000 pixels for 100 x 100 feet on the map. Less than 50 pixels per 5' square and you're going to see blurring when you zoom in and will have to limit zooming - less than 30 pixels per 5' square and you're going to get a lot of image blur.

So, if you think of 50 pixels per 5' square as the "average" (a trade off between lots of detail, and enough to allows a good size map) then you're looking at 200 feet x 200 feet as the largest single map size you should have for Fantasy Grounds use. Different pixels per 5' square counts will result in different maximum map sizes - with the upper limit recommendation always being 2048x2048.