Token Sizes

[Thyfur]

Yet another question for sizes. All my Medium and Small sized creatures are set to 64 pxl, with Large being 128, and Huge at 192. I went with the 64 size, since the majority of my tokens are already that size. I resided all the rest to fit with the mediums. When I tested the Huge size creatures on a blank map, it takes up a large portion of my screen. I am using a laptop with 1280x800 resolution.

I thought about changing my default sizes for medium to 50 or even 32 pixels just to keep the size of Huge creatures down to a manageable default size on the screen. I am trying to maximize both clarity of tokens plus show as many creatures as needed all on one screen, especially when one is Huge or larger.

So keeping with this format, Medium & Small being x1, Large x2, Huge x3, and so on what seems to be the best size for playability? Is there a set standard that most token and map makers use?

[Foen]

Popular sizes are 32 or 50 pixels for medium tokens. If your guys are up against a Huge critter, you can always zoom out so that all the tokens shrink in sync.

Foen

[Sorontar]

Yeah keep the size and just zoom the map, you keep the detail on your tokens that way.

[Griogre]

For playabilty for most games small tokens are best - you get more tokens and map in the same space on the FG desktop. However, as you have seen, larger tokens look better. That is the trade off. You should just pick a size that works for you.

As Sorontar mentioned, a compromise is to keep the token size large and just zoom in a lot. However, IMO if you are going to do that all the time then why bother making big tokens? Not only are you not getting the advantage of the large token size you are also having much bigger file sizes on your tokens.

I use 32 pixel squares for medium size, but many use 50 pixels. My advice is try a different size for your next game, or try zooming in a lot. If you do try a different size just resize the tokens you are going to need instead of everything and try it a session or two and get your players feedback. You might find out your group can't stand the small tokens or that it really doesn't bother them.

[Oberoten]

One thing that I think is well, not exactly weird but just not terribly logical with the token discussions is this : Why does a large token have to have twice as long sides as a normal one? This gives 4 times as much space. And frankly I'd say that if something is 4 times bigger than me? It'd be more along the lines of 'Freaking Gigantic' which makes sense for a Dragon, but a lot less so for an Ogre.

- Obe

[Thyfur]

Thanks for all the options and advice. As the game is only in 'testing' right now I still have time to play around with it. Biggest reason for the large sizes is that it is a PA setting with plenty of (most non-functional) tech laying around, like Mechas, killer-robots, and a tank or four.

Just knocked off several dozen new portraits more fitting for the campaign (thank you Fallout 3 and Mass Effect). Working on tokens now, got the first one knocked off after throwing a fit (did not realize that the new MS Office removed the transparency, and had to install my old Photo Editor).

So my next major step is doing all that machinery. So in answer Oberoten, I completely agree with you. In fact most models I have seen for a Ogre compared to a human is about 1.5x the base. Alas many of the Mecha and some of the other vehicles are going to be freaky huge. For the largest I will end up doing to size settings. One for characters, and one for vehicles. I might have to mine all those Car Wars and O.G.R.E. sites out there for those.

So one additional question: I have the vehicles as far as Mecha and tanks go, a few cars and trucks (can easily get more), but I am severely lacking in horses, mules, mutant beasts of burden, and WAGONS! I have about 5 horse tokens (the circle, nice art 'abstract' ones), but would dearly like to fine a 'full-body' mule or two. More importantly I would like to find a covered wagon, uncovered wagon, a cart, a chariot, and other animal drawn vehicles.

[Sorontar]

Not sure if you have seen it but tokentool (https://rptools.net/doku.php?id=tokentool:intro) is damn handy for taking images stright from say google images and making tokens.

[Thyfur]

Did not see that one at all **bows to the new deity of digital stealth** Thank you a million. That will reduce all the cropping and resizing I have been doing. And it gives me the idea to be able to set up some of the more common tokens with different rings for factions or even aesthetic reasons. Also explains why the majority of my tokens I have downloaded are 64x64 :o

[Oberoten]

We need Brahmin

[Thyfur]

I hear. Looking over all the Fallout sites, I am getting the itch to play Fallout 1, again. So far, I have used several of the talking heads for Portraits :)

[Griogre]

One thing that I think is well, not exactly weird but just not terribly logical with the token discussions is this : Why does a large token have to have twice as long sides as a normal one? This gives 4 times as much space. And frankly I'd say that if something is 4 times bigger than me? It'd be more along the lines of 'Freaking Gigantic' which makes sense for a Dragon, but a lot less so for an Ogre.

- Obe
Yes, Obe, but D&D and other d20 games do it that way. This in fact is one of the reasons I use small tokens. I took a look at just how big gigantic monsters would be and realized that for me, I wanted to be able to see something on the map other than just the gigantic creature. In D&D, I'll admit I ignored *small* creatures and made them the same size as mediums because they take the same amount of space.

[Oberoten]

Yes, Obe, but D&D and other d20 games do it that way. This in fact is one of the reasons I use small tokens. I took a look at just how big gigantic monsters would be and realized that for me, I wanted to be able to see something on the map other than just the gigantic creature. In D&D, I'll admit I ignored *small* creatures and made them the same size as mediums because they take the same amount of space.

*winks* And just because all our friends decide to go jump of a cliff so should we? ;)

[Griogre]

:p :p :p Yeah, yeah - easy for you to say - you don't play D&D. ;)

Edit: Post 2666, when responding to Obe. To the sign of the beast, Coincidence? ;)

[kwixson]

Why, when I size my tokens to 63 pixels to match the size of the character portraits, do the character portraits appear about 1/2 the size of my tokens when I drag them on to a map, side by side?

[Xorn]

Tokens generated from the portraits are 30 or 32 pixels, I can't remember. The easiest fix is to keep a copy of their character tokens handy and just drop it over them in the tracker. You can also do a pretty minor modification to the ruleset to make those portrait tokens drag over at the scale you want.

Has someone made that mod into an extension, yet?

[Tenian]

That might also change the size of the portraits that show up with the portrait chat option. I can't remember if they have their own size coded in or if they are tied to one of the existing sizes. 63x63 portrait chat would be pretty uncool :)

[Griogre]

Most rulesets based on the d20 one have their various character portrait's size determined by the size of the following: portrait.png & portrait_mask.png (top left desktop), portrait_mini.png & portrait_mini_mask.png (tracker sized) and portrait_token.png & portrait_token_mask.png (map tokens). There are also portrait_target.png & portrait_target_mask.png.

These are all located in the icon folder of the ruleset. If you want to resize one make sure you resize the mask too.

[Xorn]

The portrait_chat in 4E_JPG is a separate graphic from the portrait_token. The instructions to include chat portraits initially show how to use your portrait_token in the chat window, but I posted a easy change to make your portrait tokens a different size than your portrait in chat.

On the original token size, I've just found that I like to use the same size that I used for a square on the map. Then when I first open a map, drop a token down and lock the scale. Don't have to adjust the zoom before locking them. Since I make 50 px/sq maps, I use 50 px/sq tokens. I'm a fan of 50 px/sq primarily because I often print my VTT maps for face-to-face games still, and 50 px/inch doesn't look too bad, only a little bit blurry.

[Griogre]

I second Xorn's advice, if you are going to change your map token size - change it to whatever you use for medium sized tokens. Since I never print out maps and use tokens that are 32x32 for mediums the default token size of 30x30 is good for me. I actually usually have my map sized so the grid is between 20-30 pixels square to save a bit on map size.

[Callum]

Tokens generated from the portraits are 30 or 32 pixels, I can't remember. The easiest fix is to keep a copy of their character tokens handy and just drop it over them in the tracker. You can also do a pretty minor modification to the ruleset to make those portrait tokens drag over at the scale you want.

Has someone made that mod into an extension, yet?
That would be great! Whenever I try to edit the token and mask png's (to make them match all my other 50 px tokens), Photoshop crashes. So I'd love an extension that gives this functionality.

[kwixson]

... The easiest fix is to keep a copy of their character tokens handy and just drop it over them in the tracker. ...

Did the trick! You're a champ.

[phloog]

I am fairly new at FG, and just got some of Devin Night's Hi-Res tokens.

I was able to easily get them into the right folder so that FG can find them, and in the box of tokens they look fine...but when I click on them and move them to the map, they are hugenormous.

When I right click on them, I have an option to lock or release the token SCALE...which is great, but I see no radial menu option to CHANGE that scale. So I can unlock it...but can I change it?

I have to be missing something fairly obvious, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make the various tokens a smaller size to fit the grid FG gives me.

Any quick advice?

[Griogre]

The high rez tokens are very large - I would suggest you use the lower rez tokens for FG. To make a large token fit on a smaller grid you need to zoom in the map in until the tokens fit inside the grid.

To do this you have to be the host and have the map open. Drop a token down on the map and then zoom the map in by rolling your mouse wheel to make the grid bigger such the token fits inside the square. Then lock the token scale and zoom the map back out. You'll probably see why having a high rez token is a waste in FG most of the time.

As you are new, it is worth mentioning you want *all* your tokens at the same scale or you will spend a great deal of time fiddling with them. Many people use 50 pixel squares for a medium size creature. This implies your grid will be that size or smaller. The letter tokens that come with FG2 are 30 pixels.

There is a trade off in FG between showing the detail of individual tokens and the amount of area of a map of a map in squares. The largest default map frame is 700x700 pixels (this can be changed). I would suggest you don't have medium sized tokens any bigger than 50x50. I personally use 32 pixel squares for medium sized creatures – but I don’t use top down tokens either.

[zabulus]

Also, if you are using the D20 ruleset (don't know about other rulesets), if you dragged the token onto your map from the combat tracker, you can resize it with your mousewheel when your mousepointer is on the token in the combat tracker. Note that you can only shrink your token to 0.1 of its size, so often you still have to use Griogre's way of zooming/locking/unzooming.

[phloog]

It just seemed odd/unfortunate that the Fantasy Grounds system seems to know EXACTLY how to resize the image on the combat tracker, but can't do something like resize the token to fit within one square on the grid it generates...I realize that some tokens will be larger, but it seems like FG SHOULD have more power in terms of resizing.

I guess that becomes a wishlist item for me - - ability to actually rescale tokens.

[Griogre]

The problem with FG "knowing" how to scale a token to the grid is how do you know when a token should be more than one gird in size? How do you deal with small, large and bigger sized tokens? If you allow the user to add anything as tokens like FG does, this is not a trivial question. In the d20 ruleset, for example, you have a variety of token sizes: Small, Medium, Large, Huge, etc. The is no way to tell from a graphic what size it is suppose to be other than the size of the token itself in relationship to the other tokens. I.E. you add a token of your little sister and a token of a whale – how would you propose letting FG know that graphic of your sister is suppose to be “small” and the whale is “gargantuan?” The way FG does it, is it assumes you make the small token scaled so it is tiny next to the whale.

This is why it is important to scale your tokens such that all medium sized tokens are the same size and all the other sizes of tokens are scaled appropriately. If you do this and zoom in the map so your medium token size fits in a square and lock the token size - then *all* your tokens will be the right sizes. You can change the default size in tokens tied to the tracker, but you don't *want* to have to do that for anything but a few exceptions because it is too much of a hassle.

Most art programs can rescale tokens (I recommend Paint.NET if you don’t have one – it’s a free mid weight art program that can deal with transparency). To avoid the interpolation of sizing a token larger (which often causes the tokens to look bad) most tokens are made larger rather than smaller because they look better after being scaled down.

[Tenian]

I would think you could do something similar to the *_JPG combattracker and make it so you could up/downscale (by a percentage) from the radial of a token....maybe.

[Griogre]

That would be better. But it's still a bit of a hassle unless you do it in someplace like the token box where you only have to do it once - ever. Having to do it on every map the token is ever placed on is still annoying. I have some doubts you could change the token mask dynamically, but you might be able to put in a range of masks like say 25, 50, 100, 150, ect and maybe get a different mask applied on a radial menu change - such that when the token is dropped out of the token box it uses the current selected mask.

I am a little sceptical that this enough of an improvement, because to do it right you want the token size remembered for each indiviual token - I'm not sure this ability would be justified enough to create a new data structure for tokens. But I am a minimalist at heart.

[phloog]

The beauty of being a user is that you can want something without being creative/clever enough to think of HOW to do it.

I imagine having all the current capability, but then also a right click/radial item for each token that says "zoom to" then within that "1 grid square" , "4 squares", etc. Once you click that it makes the token, regardless of original size, fit into that area on the grid...then you put it where you want it if it's not already there.

It has become a slightly moot point, as I have been able to resize the maps I typically use so that they can accomodate the hi-res tokens. Might have problems later, but today I'm golden...and I live in the moment.

[Tenian]

I wasn't thinking of a long term token box fix. I was just thinking a particular map token. It would use an up/down and scale the same way the scroll wheel does in the *_JPG trackers.

Again you'd have to adjust each token individually so it wouldn't be so great, but it would be a lot more intuitive than the current method which locking/unlocking the scale. You could probably make it so one of the modifier keys (shift/ctrl/alt) in combination with the mouse wheel adjusted the token. If that's accessible then I think it might have some merit (be handy for tokens that need to change size as well.).


I know there are functions to find out information about the grid and scale. I suppose it's possible you could make a radial that sized a token 1 square, 4 squares, 9 squares, 16 squares, 25 squares, etc. However the stuff you can do with tokens is limited so this might all be completely impossible.