question about token scaling

[Captcorajus]

Hey all,

Newbie here, and I'm at the "playing around" with the system stage to see what I can do.

I saw the video on making your own token using D&D mini pics. Very cool.

I created a few PNG files, at 100 pixels high for man sized. I was wondering how you scale for larger creatures.... like dragons and such.

Thanks,

Dave

[primarch]

Hey all,

Newbie here, and I'm at the "playing around" with the system stage to see what I can do.

I saw the video on making your own token using D&D mini pics. Very cool.

I created a few PNG files, at 100 pixels high for man sized. I was wondering how you scale for larger creatures.... like dragons and such.

Thanks,

Dave

Hi!

I second this question. I was wondering the same things.

Perhaps, if the Xorn is so kind, he may tell us the pixel sizes all the way up the size ladder to gargantuan. :)

Primarch

[Leonal]

For d&d 3.5 and I'd refer to the creature sizes: p314 Monster Manual or in the d20 srd (near the bottom) https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm

So if a medium (5ft) sized creature is 100 pixels then a colossal (30ft+) would be 600 or more..(which is rather huge in FG)

[icedcrow]

For large I go 150x150.
I expound from there. Then the tool scales it down for me while playing.

Actually for my maps, 100x100 pure without scaling is just about covering 2x2 squares.

[Captcorajus]

Well, this seem a little more tricky than that.

Lets say I'm using a colossal token... but the mini pic of the colossad dragon for example. The rules say that the fig takes up a space of 30x30ft (6x6 squares on the map).

The pic is a front view, even though we are looking "overhead".

I am still looking at the demo version, so I can't play around with this functionality yet, I was just trying to get an idea how it might work.

[Tenian]

The problem with nice large detailed tokens for players is simply screen real estate.

Using the size chart in 4E:
Small/Med = 1 x 1
Large = 2 x 2
Huge = 3 x 3
Gargantuan = 4 x 4

If you use 50px x 50px for a medium then it becomes:

Small/Med = 50 x 50
Large = 100 x 100
Huge = 150 x 150
Gargantuan = 200 x 200

If you use 100px x 100px for a medium then it becomes:

Small/Med = 100 x 100
Large = 200 x 200
Huge = 300 x 300
Gargantuan = 400 x 400

Even if you alter the ruleset to display 1024 x 768 (which most people without sub-laptops should be able to display). As you imagine 400 x 400 is consuming a significant amount of the map. Keep in mind players (and especially GMs) tend to have other windows open aside from the map.

It is entirely possible to scale the tokens and the maps on the fly, but if you end up downscaling the tokens every encounter....you have to question the logic of having them so large (which increases transfer time) to begin with.

Maps follow the same pattern. You could make really nice detailed maps which would look great if you printed them out at one inch scale. But if in FGII all you do is zoom out, then your detail will be lost on the players. You'd probably be better off saving them as smaller files.

[Leonal]

At the moment I use 70 pixels for medium, 140 for large and so on. It works for well for my game, with lowest monitor resolution among my players being 1280x1024.

You should try out with different map/token scales and see what fits you and your players best.

[Griogre]

Personally, I use 32 pixels for med & small, 64 pixes for large 96 for huge and 128 for gargantuan. This is smaller than many - though the default letter tokens are 30 pixels. I do this because I like to show more map in a smaller area and because I like to keep the size of my maps small.

I agree with Leonal, try different sizes to find what works for you. The trade off is simple - nice looking tokens vs. showing more map in the same area and having smaller map sizes.

Tenian's analysis is dead on, the only thing he didn't mention is that the size of the group is also very important. With only two players you only transfer two copies of the map and things on it, with 6 (like in most of my games) it takes 6 copies of everything. Considering, most non commerical up bandwidth is only 25% to 33% of the total bandwidth available to the host you can see that the hosts up bandwidth can be pretty small especially if he is also using voice or some other software.

[Phystus]

Tenian has hit the crux of the problem: screen space. Even 200x200 for one creature implies a battle map several times that size. If your players tend to favor archery, gunplay, or ranged magic, it will have to be a LOT bigger. Eventually the map becomes too big to display without resizing the window and zooming out, at which point you lose all that nice detail the big token size gave you.

FWIW, I use 30 pixels per 5' space.

~P