Improvisation and Fantasy Grounds

[GavinRuneblade]

- dpi is irrelevant when you are not printing. screens don't use dpi, they use pixels and image scaling/zoom.

At the risk of derailing, this is relevant to me for quickly making images that work. I use DPI because that is the wording my mapping software uses when saving a file. It has some correlation to final resolution, though I'm not 100% clear on it. What are the ideal resolutions for maps, because so far everything I've tried makes a map that is way too big and my players on laptops complain.

[damned]

DPI is a publishing term.
Its how many dots per inch of physical medium.
If you are printing something in good quality its 300dpi (or higher)

Lose that term when doing images for computer use.
You want dots per square.
The most common sizes are 50 and 100px squares.
100px squares are 4x the size of 50px.

[Andraax]

I use 50 pixels per 5' of map. When saving, I save as JPEG with quality of 50, and "quarter chroma" (also sometimes called subsampling).

What mapping software are you using?

[Three of Swords]

On a side note, 70 pixels/square is also popular since the #1 competitor to FG (Roll20) uses that standard. Content creators that sell art on the Roll20 store use the 70 pixel standard.

[LordEntrails]

At the risk of derailing, this is relevant to me for quickly making images that work. I use DPI because that is the wording my mapping software uses when saving a file. It has some correlation to final resolution, though I'm not 100% clear on it. What are the ideal resolutions for maps, because so far everything I've tried makes a map that is way too big and my players on laptops complain.

What's you are probably doing is saving your map at 5 inches by 7 inches and 100 DPI. Which as far as a computer is concerned is 500 x 700 pixels. If you save were to then save the map at 10" x 14" and 50 DPI you would still have the same image on a computer (500x700 pixels). So, DPI doesn't really matter, it's pixels that matter until you send it to the printer. Then if you don't want to have to scale the image in your printer settings, those two images would print differently.

But, if you let us know what mapping software you are using, someone here is probably familiar and can give you detailed instructions.

[GavinRuneblade]

What's you are probably doing is saving your map at 5 inches by 7 inches and 100 DPI. Which as far as a computer is concerned is 500 x 700 pixels. If you save were to then save the map at 10" x 14" and 50 DPI you would still have the same image on a computer (500x700 pixels). So, DPI doesn't really matter, it's pixels that matter until you send it to the printer. Then if you don't want to have to scale the image in your printer settings, those two images would print differently.

But, if you let us know what mapping software you are using, someone here is probably familiar and can give you detailed instructions.

To answer Damned and the others, I know what DPI is and that it is a printing term. As I said, I use the word because the software does. To wit, that would be hexographer/cityographer/dungeonographer.

Here is a screenshot of the save options:resolution.PNG. Though I have irfanview and photoshop and can tweak the image afterward.

In game it looks like a blurry p.o.s. and is massive from side to side/top to bottom with no ability to scroll out only zoom in.


Here are two sample maps so you can see the issue:
Elwood.png
megaron-1a.png

I have tried them in png, jpg, and gif. Not bmp or tiff though.

[Trenloe]

In game it looks like a blurry p.o.s. and is massive from side to side/top to bottom with no ability to scroll out only zoom in.


Here are two sample maps so you can see the issue:
Elwood.png
megaron-1a.png

So, looking at the image with a grid on it: it is 1200x1020 pixels, with 60x51 squares. So, each square is 20 pixels. Which when you zoom in will look blurry as there is not enough detail per square - which is what you're seeing. The issue is that with a map this size, you're soon going to hit the recommended limit of 2048x2048 (4,194,304 pixels). The usual recommendation for larger maps is 50 pixels per square. For this large map, that would result in a resolution of 3000x2550 = 7,650,000 - which is nearly twice the recommendation.

Try it at 40 pixels per square (20% over the recommendation - you'll be OK unless you have lots and lots of maps this size).

[LordEntrails]

To wit, that would be hexographer/cityographer/dungeonographer.

Here is a screenshot of the save options:resolution.PNG.

Though I would have to play with it to make sure it behaves the way I expect, you have two number to play with, DPI and Hex per inch (or square). Assuming each hex is equal to a 5 ft square (i.e. planned for a 1" printed square to be 1 square i.e. 5 ft square), then i would have thought 300 dpi / 4 sq/in = 75 pixels per square. If you wanted 50 pixel squares, then you could try setting 6 hex/inch and keep the 300 dpi.

As Trenloe mentions, battlemaps typically are not as large as what you are wanting to map. For instance, the typical 2000x2000 pixel map at 50 pixels per 5ft square yields a map of 40x40 squares >> 200 ft square. I've got one that I run at like 35 pixels/square and it does look pixelated, but that ok since I just need it for identifying houses and large obstacles I'm ok with that.

[GavinRuneblade]

Try it at 40 pixels per square (20% over the recommendation - you'll be OK unless you have lots and lots of maps this size).

I do have lots that size. Nearly everything from Princes of the Apocalypse is much larger in terms of number of squares and they are all connected so players might walk through 3 or 4 in one session and you never know ahead of time which ones. Though I believe we're done with that nonsense so should be moving to smaller maps going forward.

What is the way to change the pixels per square? I'm guessing just draw a larger square, not use an image editor to resample?

[Trenloe]

What is the way to change the pixels per square? I'm guessing just draw a larger square, not use an image editor to resample?

It completely depends on how the application you're using operates. See LordEntrails suggestion. But at this point we're just guessing how the application you're using operates...