Xorn
January 24th, 2008, 11:00
I know the community standard is 50 pixels, but I just found it didn't really match up for me. Since FG2 automatically sized the portraits at 30 pixels, and does the "current turn" highlight to accent a 30 pixel token, I just didn't bother changing it. Plus I use MapX for my maps, which defaulted to 32 pixel grids, anyway. Now with a locked token scale that really doesn't matter, but it came down to image quality for me, really. Because I often found myself zoomed in up to 4x closer on the map, I was finding that the tokens were very, very pixelated up close, and experimented with increasing the token size then scaling them down.
I have been using 128 pixel tokens and locking the token scale to the grid. The pro of this is that when zoomed in close to the map, tokens retain their sharp quality and look great. The downside is that the "current turn" highlight is barely visible on these tokens, and that I have to replace each players portrait as they enter the grid, and if I use any of the letter tokens, they are microscopic. I decided to do a quick comparison of the tokens side by side, which also demonstrates clearly what I'm talking about. I'll finish my talk about it after the shots, but here they are:
268
269
270
271
272
Incidentally, if that map looks familiar... well I won't mention where it's from, but I created it from memory using Dungeon Tiles Mapper. I'd love to hear if anyone recognizes it. Anyway... by the time you're looking at the 8x8 battlegrid the difference is there, but not huge, and at a 16x16 grid you can't even tell the difference anymore. Because I'm usually between 8-16 squares across on the grid, I think I might just go back to 30 pixel tokens as my default. Only downside is I have a whole lot of 128 pixel monster tokens made now. Still, I think I'd rather have the "current turn" highlight show up better without having to use a custom ruleset.
Anyway, just wanted to share how I finally settled on 30 pixels.
I have been using 128 pixel tokens and locking the token scale to the grid. The pro of this is that when zoomed in close to the map, tokens retain their sharp quality and look great. The downside is that the "current turn" highlight is barely visible on these tokens, and that I have to replace each players portrait as they enter the grid, and if I use any of the letter tokens, they are microscopic. I decided to do a quick comparison of the tokens side by side, which also demonstrates clearly what I'm talking about. I'll finish my talk about it after the shots, but here they are:
268
269
270
271
272
Incidentally, if that map looks familiar... well I won't mention where it's from, but I created it from memory using Dungeon Tiles Mapper. I'd love to hear if anyone recognizes it. Anyway... by the time you're looking at the 8x8 battlegrid the difference is there, but not huge, and at a 16x16 grid you can't even tell the difference anymore. Because I'm usually between 8-16 squares across on the grid, I think I might just go back to 30 pixel tokens as my default. Only downside is I have a whole lot of 128 pixel monster tokens made now. Still, I think I'd rather have the "current turn" highlight show up better without having to use a custom ruleset.
Anyway, just wanted to share how I finally settled on 30 pixels.