STAR TREK 2d20
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  1. #31
    The Art subscription is a good deal I think, given everything it adds. It does let you use/browse all the official map art packs. So what you could do is get it for a year (or month) and try making maps with it. Then, go through and see what art packs you actual used. Once you have a list, decide if it is better to permanently purchases just those art packs or if you need to keep the art subscription. For me, there where 6 art packages I used a lot of, and almost none of the others. However, keep in mind the art subscription changes each month. They are always adding more at no additional cost to the people that have the art subscription.

    For those who do not want the art subscription or want to add to it, you can import images from outside FGU to use. I think someone above already pointed out the Forgotten Adventures packs, so those are one example of an outside resource you can get/buy and then pull into fantasy grounds. You do that by either putting the assets into your campaign/image folder or, you can do it at the higher level of Fantasy Grounds/images. If you do it at the campaign level it is just for the campaign you put it into. If you do it at the Fantasy Grounds level, it applies to all your campaigns. A warning though, if you use an image and then move its location, the map you used it on losses track of it. For example, starting out you just put everything in the image folder. Later, you noticed that at over 1,000 images you want to split this out into subfolders. So you add the sub folder and organize all your images. When you pull the maps back up, the images will show as red ? marks because the art asset is "gone". So I personally recommend storing images like these at the Fantasy Grounds level for generics (trees, rocks, walls, barrels, tables, chairs, etc) and at the campaign level for things like maps and handouts. Set your folders/organization ahead of time, and you can avoid the red ?.

    If you don't want to do any of that and just want to get one art package to try the tools out with, I would suggest the Fantasy Grounds 2019 Art Package for $15. Lots of pieces in that art package for doing outside maps, and by far the best buy out of the list. It does not have interior map assets like chairs, chests, wood floors, etc. though. Something like 90% of my outside maps use just that art package.

    Also, if you want help figuring out how to use the fantasy ground map tools, watch the twitch streams from Joshua. They go back about 2 years now, and they are very helpful in understanding how things are meant to work. He build his art packages for use in Fantasy Grounds and helps with the tool development, so he is the best source for seeing how they picture things working. Keep in mind the tools have been updated/changed a lot, so some of the issues he talks about in the first streams have been fixed and are no longer a problem.

    Here are two to check out to help get started:
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/7214478...hA6N-_Ph8xVK1w
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/7012958...hA6N-_Ph8xVK1w

  2. #32
    The vast majority of my maps come from Patreon. There's a lot of work for a DM to do and this is one of those tasks that is easily, and cheaply, outsourced. If you look around you'll find any number of people on Patreon making maps and, when it comes to personal use, you can subscribe for a month and get access to the entire back catalog. That's often an awful lot of content for a $1 sub. There are some that I continue to support each month (Venatus comes to mind) because I love his work so much.

    In addition to that most of the map makers will release asset packs allowing you to customize maps or make your own and a lot of them are getting wise to Dungeondraft. They release a DungeonDraft asset pack and you can make your own maps based on their assets very quickly and very cheaply. You then just need to import it to FGU and add LoS.

    I'm sorry but the inbuilt map maker just doesn't seem to work as well and is far too costly.
    www.accidentaldm.com - The diary of a Newbie DM

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