Multi-Page Printing (DD3 specifically)
The Stone Table
So I like to think that my CC-Fu is improving. I've did this interior map in about an hour, and while it's ready for use with a virtual table top like Fantasy Grounds, I want to use the map for a face-to-face game at my local hobby shop next weekend. Now LOOKING at the options, it seems like I should be able to do a multi-page print straight from CC3 at 1" = 5' scale, but I'll be darned if I can make it work! When I try it I just get 16 blank pages kicking out in succession. Can anyone help me with this? Right now I'm looking at exporting to a .jpg and then cropping pages in PaintShop, and frankly that will suck, especially since rendering an image that size is going to be horrible.
How do I do a multiple page battlemap, short of exporting 16 rectangle images?
So I like to think that my CC-Fu is improving. I've did this interior map in about an hour, and while it's ready for use with a virtual table top like Fantasy Grounds, I want to use the map for a face-to-face game at my local hobby shop next weekend. Now LOOKING at the options, it seems like I should be able to do a multi-page print straight from CC3 at 1" = 5' scale, but I'll be darned if I can make it work! When I try it I just get 16 blank pages kicking out in succession. Can anyone help me with this? Right now I'm looking at exporting to a .jpg and then cropping pages in PaintShop, and frankly that will suck, especially since rendering an image that size is going to be horrible.
How do I do a multiple page battlemap, short of exporting 16 rectangle images?
Comments
The most effective way I've found for doing this is creating an 8x10 grid that I place over each section that I want to print. Then zooming in to that area, I set the print scale to 1" = 5' and I make sure that I select all active sheets and the Active Window. This will print the all sheets that appear in the ZOOMED area only. I do this for each section.
This is different than I would do for a "square area" simply because I'd rather not print a bunch of blank pages. Oh, and make sure that you've turned on effects before you go to the print menu or you won't get any in your print out. It is important that you select the option of "All Visible Sheets as one Page" or you'll get the blank page syndrome. CC3 selects Common sheet as the default when you first go to the print menu.
Take a look at this image for a reference of what I normally do with the grid.
I'd zoom in to the area with the blue grid and make a print out of that. Then move the grid to another area and repeat. If you don't care about wasting a lot of space, then select the furthest reaches of your map. Zoom into that area. Then turn on effects. Go to the print menu and use the settings discussed above. You will have to determine how many pages horizontally and vertically your map will occupy for tiling purposes and how much of an overlap. I recommend an overlap of at least 5%. Take a look at the preview before printing to make sure your map looks like it will fit. Don't worry about symbols looking like they will print multiple times or overlapping, this is something that will only appear in the preview window.
Very important, make sure that you save your map before going to map preview. At least in my machine this function seems to crash CC3 sporadically.
I hope that helps.
And the tiling options should be 1" for Paper Distance and 5' for Drawing Distance.
Hope that helps,
Ralf
Oh, one more question, on the subject--how do I change the size of my map border after I've finished the picture? On this one I went with a 32x40 square (160x200 feet) map border, but it turns out I only needed 31x37 squares. If I adjusted the map border, I wouldn't have to do a rectangular selection save for my VTT software.
(EDIT - I figured this one out. Hid everything but the border, then used the move node a few times to adjust the border. I ended up zapping the yellow part of the border, just leaving a black line. Is it just anything on this layer blocks anything going past it or...?)
Man, one MORE question--not sure anyone can answer this one: when I saved this image as a rectangular selection PNG (normal settings) when I view it with the quick viewer in windows, it looks fine. When I open it with PSP, it's a solid black image. I can see it in PSP as a JPG just fine, and the last map I did I can see as a PNG just fine. But this image is black every time.
(EDIT - It's only THIS map that won't export properly as a PNG. I exported four other maps as PNGs and they all load fine in PSP. Any ideas as to what is causing this?)
re: black PNG when opening with PSP:
This is just an educated guess, but when I turned off the effects I had for Floor Mask (didn't even have anything on that sheet, dunno why it was there) my image no longer appeared black. I'm assuming there is some kind of hard-coded rules for that sheet, that messes with transparency settings. So don't use that sheet for effects, kids!
As far as my next print attempt, it spooled for about 20 minutes then finally started printing--didn't work though, I got a couple blank pages (expected) followed by a bunch of little dashes on the remaining pages. I'm printing it in fast draft greyscale anyway, so it's not a big deal. If I ever figure out how to print it, I'll then use 110 weight cardstock and full color.
But I just can't get the print working. The map is 31x37 squares, so it should be 4x4 pagewise, with 8.5x11 pages. Here's the settings I used:
View to Print: Everything (this will print everything out to the map border, right?
Sheet: (all visible on one page)
Common prints on all: Checked
Scaling: Scale Factor selected: Paper Distance 1 = Drawing Distance 5
Tiling: #Horizontal: 4 and #Vertical: 4 plus Overlap: 0% (I'll try the 5% if I get the 0% to work)
Options: Print White as Black (checked, was defaulted didn't change it), Portrait selected.
I'm going to try printing it with effects OFF (as that should go very fast).
Wow. It printed a little piece of the map label part, and it's HUGE. I mean gigantic. 8 pages for a little tiny chunk of it. I looks like it's printing at 5 dpi or something. Is the scaling a measure of DPI? As in 1:200 is what I should use? Trying that:
Hmm. 1:200 printed the map out on 4 pages (only barely bigger than one page, I'd say 12.5" tall)
So now I really have no idea what the scale setting should be to make each square on the map 1" on the paper. Any help?
If you look at drawing properties, you define feet in inches--what if this means, "How many inches from the drawing should go into one inch on the paper?" 5 feet is 60 inches, so lets try 1:60:
BINGO!
The Stone Table (Printed)!
That's a huge image, and I don't apologize for it, because I'm so excited! The paper:drawing scale is inches to inches! So 1:60 gets you 1" = 5'! If you look at the bottom of the image though, notice how there's two little chunks of floor missing right there--anyone know why?
http://www.eugee.net/images/cc3/thestonetable.printed.jpg
That's the actual address in the link.
And sorry, no idea why the piece of floor is missing.
That's really weird with the floor. I printed the map again with effects on (still draft greyscale) and it took much longer to spool (a few minutes) then printed out perfectly with all the effects showing, but that little patch of the floor not showing. That's really funky.
If I clear the Map Border, does that mean the "edges" of the image will be the furthest points that have entities? (Not including the grid.)
I might break this map into 4 encounter areas then--I like having it all connected for use with a VTT, but for a tabletop game I just need the battlegrid for "fight time". (Not to mention the map is 2.5x3 feet!) Hopefully I don't have that weird floor problem, too. :P Thanks again for all the help in this thread folks, I've learned a ton!
I right clicked on the link here and it worked for me in Ff 2.0.0.13.
Maybe using an underscore between table and printed in the filename will fix it ?