Need help with Resizing Maps and Images

[willquestion]

Hey Guys,
I'm pretty new to FG2 and I'm trying to put a few modules into FG. I'm trying to figure out the best resolution to put these maps (and even pictures) for the players. Is there a general rule people like to follow? I watched Xorne's video on resizing maps and do most people make maps with the squares 50x50 pixels? Also, would it be best to make a large map for a level and reveal it as the players go, letting them pan and zoom as they like? Or do it room by room? Also, what's the max resolution size window for players? Sorry for all the questions, but like I said, I'm new to FG2.

Thanks,
Will

[Leonal]

Map size can really affect load times for players, if you have a map of several megs for example. I've tried both 50x50 pixel/square and 32x32, the latter a bit small for detailed models, but I'd recommend it for bigger maps so you don't need to zoom out all the time to get a better view.

The max window resolution is 700x700 for default if I recall correctly, but can be changed if you want to make it bigger. (a search will give point you to the correct xml file to edit.) I run dual monitor at 2960x1050, but one of my players uses 1280x1024 so I keep it at standard.

As for how large to make the map really depends on how you'd like to organize it. One of the pros of having one map is that you don't have to move the tokens between maps if the players often go between areas.

So far I've not needed to slize a map, but I've only ran the first two acts of Red Hand of Doom where there aren't any huge maps. I'd say it depends of the size of the map concerning load times.

[richvalle]

I think its better to use big maps with everything on them and just play there. It makes it seem less like a series of rooms and more like a place if you know what I mean.

The maps I use tend to be big... 500k or more. Its usually not a problem though every now and then we'll get hit by the problem where someone disconnects, comes back in and the map is masked again for them.

The other advantage to having one big map is that you can drop all the tokens onto the map of where everything is (though there used to be about a 50 token limit which I've hit before). Then you will know where everything is, and even move things around in reaction to the party and they will still be hidden by the mask.

rv

[mr_h]

The one time I did "In Search of the Unknown" for my gaming group I did a large, basic, no details map (corridors and room outlines), and then I made seperate smaller maps for each room with more detail. The pros were that the rooms looked pretty nice, but the cons were that I had to make up about 50 small maps, take the time to detail them, move tokens to each new map, add in the npc/monster tokens (this was before FG actually saved those things).

I don't think I'd ever separate my maps like that again except in special situations where you HAD to see something in greater detail. It was just too much work.

I've never really worried about the map resolution much, just the KB size of the map. I tend to ask my players to login early so I can preload the maps if they're big.

[Tenian]

The WOTC published 4E adventure materials typically provide a small scale "overview" map and then multiple "encounter" maps.

The overview maps are nice for moving around, exploring etc. However when it comes to combat, the smaller encounter maps are much nicer. Position is very important in 4E and some of the finer details (like difficult terrain markers) are not clearly visible on the overview map.

However if you had a high quality overview map, the only limiting factor would be file size. Maps seem to work best if you keep them under 1M...under 600k for best results.

[willquestion]

What I was thinking about doing was making the map squares 50x50 and making it one big map. For instance the first floor of 'Keep on the Shadowfell'. Then compress the jpg decently well in Photoshop. I'd say 40-50 percent compression. And I was thinking the same thing of letting people connect early to download it.

I just like the idea of players exploring the area in a way where it all just expands as I unmask more of it. Also they can see where they have been and have yet to go.

Right now I'm working on taking World Works Games graphics, like that of CastleWorks and Chunky Dungeon, and making dungeon maps to use in FG2. Also, I'm converting the WOTC D&D dungeon tiles so I can possibly play 'Dungeon Delve' quests.

[Tenian]

https://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dungeon_tiles/

Makes decent dungeon tile maps. If you wanted to spend the time and rescan/color balance all the tiles you could probably do better...but in my experience they are definitely usable.

I created marker free maps for all 30 of the delves and the 90 encounters. They are uploaded in that group's file section.

[willquestion]

Thanks Tenian,
I joined the Yahoo group and I'm waiting for approval. I look forward to seeing what's on there. Thanks for telling me about it.

[Tenian]

It's the same java based mapper that WOTC used to host on their site. However it's been expanded to support a lot more tiles.

It supports DT1-DT7, DU1-DU3. Dungeon Delves is composed of DT6,DT7, DU1, DU2 and DU3. DU3 is only used in 3 delves.

[Griogre]

I have to go with the one big map over a bunch of small maps. Though as Tenian mentions 4E has gone to the big map and individual encounter maps. Like mr_h, I think it’s a big hassle to constantly keep transferring PCs to a new map each fight – and sure as hell the party will end up chasing something and you’ll end up with half the party on one map and the rest on another. That said you want to keep you maps as small, file size wise, as possible. If you use 50 pixel squares for mediums I would suggest you make them smaller on the map - like 40ish. You can zoom in the map (but not zoom it out) and making the map squares smaller than you medium tokens allows you to start at a slightly zoomed out position.

One of the big decisions you have to make on just what size you want your medium monster/player tokens. There's a trade off that extends to the size of your maps and how detailed they end up being. I personally use 32 pixel squares for medium creatures - but I use portrait style tokens - and like to show a lot of map in a pretty small map frame. It's a style I think probably works better with 4E that tends to have encounters spread out over a larger area than earlier versions. It also has the advantage you have to change the players view of the map less frequently.

Because of that I have the whole first level of the Keep in H1 in as one map that is 1105x966 pixels and the map squares are 16x16. The file size is a 463K png. To get that large a map down to that size I had to make some choices on color - or lack of. In this case I sepiaed the map and reduce the color to 4 bits. I think the map looks like parchment - and pretty nice - but some people wouldn't like the esthetics.

You might want to play around with a small map a bit. One thing you will find is that certain maps don’t “zoom” well. Part of that has to do with compression. One of the reason I use pngs is they zoom pretty well so I can get away with a map that has squares half the size of the tokens so when I zoom the map in it looks ok. (I was pressing the envelope on the H1 map though). Some graphics file types like jpgs or gifs thing may get pixilated. You need to play with this a bit though – because you may be able to make the map squares pretty close to the token size and then compress it enough to make it look good and not have to zoom.

One of the big decisions you have to make on just what size you want your medium monster/player tokens. There's a trade off that extents to the size of your maps and how detailed they end up being. I personally use 32 pixel squares for medium creatures - but I use portrait style tokens.

Because to that I have the whole first level of the Keep in H1 in as one map that is 1105x966 pixels and the map squares are 16x16. The file size is a 463K png. To get that large a map down to that size I had to make some choices on color - or lack of. In this case I sepiaed the map and reduce the color to 4 bits. I think the map looks like parchment - and pretty nice - but some people wouldn't like the estheics.

[EugeneZ]

I also use a single large map and just make sure to preload the one for the next session ahead of time.

The best trick I have found is not JPEG compression (I hate ugly JPG artifacts) but actually saving as an 8-bit PNG. You need to have a image manipulation program that gives you this option, I use Paint.NET. On some maps, particularily those that use a small amount of color, this results in VERY little image degredation while shrinking the size by OVER 66%! Just now I reduced a 3.4 MB map to 950 KB. On some maps that use gradients, however, the degredation is ntoicable. If you use gradients on your floors (like shadows) you might see HEAVY degredation. I still prefer this to the JPEG artifacts.

[Leonal]

@ EugeneZ
I've only used scans or online maps published by Wizards so far, and haven't noticed much difference between PNG and JPG in quality after scaling. However JPG using 80/100 quality setting is more often than not less than half the size of an 8-bit PNG in my experience.

But as you say, it might be different when using maps with small amount of colour.

[Griogre]

Leonarl are you talking about scaling in the game or in the art program? I think EugeneZ nailed it on color bit depth. Reducing the bit depth effects every pixel in the image. Almost always you can go to 256 colors and usually notice no differance. Reducing further can be iffy looks wise and is really dependent on the image. One reason I sepiaed that H1 map was because I though it looked bad in low color and I needed a low bit depth to keep the file size reasonable.

[Leonal]

I meant using Paint.net, I get Shadowfell keep level 1 50pixels/square(3606x5352) as 1.8mb JPG (80/100 quality) or 5.4mb 8-bit PNG.

[Griogre]

Maps over a meg are pretty big for FG and you are close to 2. You have a made a trade off that may work for you though. Because you have your squares at 50 pixels you are not going to have to zoom in in FG so you won't notice the pixilation I, and I think EugeneZ, was talking about. I personally try to keep a map under 600K and work real hard to keep a map under a meg.

Either way preload is your friend. You could probably get a pretty good reduction in file size by dropping your map square size to 40 pixels - you would probably reduce your file size by a maybe a fifth and not notice any pixilation in FG when you zoom the map slighty to fit your tokens.

[Leonal]

Yes it was an extreme example, I have a cropped version of the same map with 32pixel/square at 700kb which is far more usable.

I haven't started KotS yet, just prepared the maps. For my Red Hand adventure I changed to 32 pixel from 50 as I kept zooming out and none of the player maps are above 300kb so far.

I see your point though, I rarely zoom in beyond original size, only out to get a better overview. I guess when you zoom in is when you notice the quality difference between JPG and PNG.

[EugeneZ]

I make my own maps so I have a sharp eye for JPEG artifacts. I don't mean when you zoom or when FG2 resizes it but just general image degredation. I agree it's not a huge difference but a quality of 80 is unacceptable for me on most maps... I need 90 minimum. At 90, the JPEG filesize and an 8-bit PNG are about the same size (for most of my maps)... except the PNG is lossless and so retains perfectly the data I spent so much time creating. :D

It's a matter of taste. And I use 2MB-10MB files regularly for this reason and have no problems distributing them to my players as long as I use preload.

[Leonal]

Yes, I'm sure I'd do the same if I was creating my own maps. Wish I could find the time to do that as it looks quite fun with the right program.

For maps scanned from small originals or published maps enlarged to the prefered size, the details won't be that big of an issue I believe.

[Griogre]

Many guys who make their own maps turn up their noses at tile based mappers - rightly so because they can be cookie cutter. But for the rest of us, tile based mappers can allow non artist cartographers to put togeather something that looks pretty good very fast.

There are a number of free tilebased mappers out on the net here's a few:

D&D 3.5 archives: https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20061121t
Dungeon Forge: https://www.dungeonmapping.com/df/public_html/
Stone Sword: https://www.stonesword.com/

Tile mappers live and die on the quality of their tiles but it's hard to beat how fast you can put togeather a map. If you have some cash to drop you wouldn't go wrong with the e-Adventure Tile mapper - which uses tons of the tiles make by Skeleton Key Games: https://www.rpgobjects.com/etile/tile_frame.php

[Tenian]

Let me throw in an endorsement for:
https://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dungeon_tiles/

It features all the tiles from DT1-DT7, DU1-DU3. It's great for laying out tiles for a face to face game or for replicating LFR modules/dungeon delves in a VTT.

[Leonal]

Thanks for those links Griogre and Tenian, I'll play around with those. :)
Quite faster to whip a map up in either of those, though with limitations, than in CC3 or Dundjinni I'm sure.

[mr_h]

The tile based map things are great, nice and quick. The only problem I have with them (and pretty much every mapping program I've used) is that I have so many tiles, I can never find what I want when I need it :) I need to make a gallery with image names one of these days.