Best export file and size for CC3+ to FG

[Procurator]

Hi all,

Anyone have some experience with best practices for exporting maps from Campaign Cartographer (including the dungeon and city extensions) to FG. Thinking in terms of file size, settings, format, ect. I used CC2 long ago and recently updated to the latest versions to begin making custom maps again. Just getting a feel for what has worked well recently regarding exporting to FG.

Thanks for your time.

[Trenloe]

Decide on the grid size you want to use - between 50 and 100 pixels per 5' square is usual. 50 if the map is large, which equates to 10 pixels per foot. So if you have a 150 x 200 foot map, export at 1500x2000 pixels.

I usually export to a PNG file as the first step, as it will be high quality (no lossy compression). But do not use this PNG in Fantasy Grounds. Load it up in your favourite graphics app and export as a JPG with quality around 60 as the first try - check the file size, you want to get it below 1MB if possible - the lower the file size, the faster it will share with your players. Experiment with the JPG quality setting until you get a small file size with a good-enough visual quality. This this JPG file in FG. It's a lot faster changing JPG quality in a graphics app than it is changing the quality and re-exporting from CC3+.

Note: the recommendation is to keep FG image dimensions below 2048x2048 pixels. You can go a little above this, but don't make a habit of it. If you have a very large map, export from CC at the pixels-per-square you want and then cut it into smaller sub-maps in your graphics app.

[LordEntrails]

There are some long discussions on this, but I don't have the links handy. If I find them I will come back and post them.

Settings depend. First, your objective is to end up with a file of less than 2048x2048 pixels and 1MB in file size and typically of jpg format (for maps).

How you get there depends. Typically you can export at 10 pixels per foot, which gives you 50 pixels per square, which is the most common resolution.

Often times people will export from CC as a PNG file, and then edit it in something like Gimp and may even run it through an image optimizer to reduce file size.

In short, I usually just export as a jpg with a quality of 70%. But sometimes I drop it as low as 40% without concern and often don't use an image optimizer if the file is only a few hundred K.

[Zacchaeus]

More info here

[Procurator]

Thanks all.

[kevdog45]

Decide on the grid size you want to use - between 50 and 100 pixels per 5' square is usual. 50 if the map is large, which equates to 10 pixels per foot. So if you have a 150 x 200 foot map, export at 1500x2000 pixels.

I usually export to a PNG file as the first step, as it will be high quality (no lossy compression). But do not use this PNG in Fantasy Grounds. Load it up in your favourite graphics app and export as a JPG with quality around 60 as the first try - check the file size, you want to get it below 1MB if possible - the lower the file size, the faster it will share with your players. Experiment with the JPG quality setting until you get a small file size with a good-enough visual quality. This this JPG file in FG. It's a lot faster changing JPG quality in a graphics app than it is changing the quality and re-exporting from CC3+.

Note: the recommendation is to keep FG image dimensions below 2048x2048 pixels. You can go a little above this, but don't make a habit of it. If you have a very large map, export from CC at the pixels-per-square you want and then cut it into smaller sub-maps in your graphics app.

I had not considered converting to jpg in gimp after saving as a rectangular png. I have GIMP 2.0 so I think I will try this. My maps are 120x120 when I make them in CC3+ so I save at 1200x1200 or 2400x2400 if I want a better picture and I don't care about a 100pixel square in the map. 1200x1200 gets messy too quickly when having to zoom in but I might be going to far over the limit when saving at 2400x2400.

[LordEntrails]

I had not considered converting to jpg in gimp after saving as a rectangular png. I have GIMP 2.0 so I think I will try this. My maps are 120x120 when I make them in CC3+ so I save at 1200x1200 or 2400x2400 if I want a better picture and I don't care about a 100pixel square in the map. 1200x1200 gets messy too quickly when having to zoom in but I might be going to far over the limit when saving at 2400x2400.

You can get away with one map at 2400x2400, but if you try to share a couple and the players open them all in the same session then they are likely to crash. Just make sure when you are done with the map you unshare it.

Though you could always do 1800x1800 (75 px/square) and then not have to worry about it.