The Dwimmerhorn - my new dungeon mapping project.

clithgow

Greetings all!

I'm gonna dive back into a project after many months of lurking around and enjoying Ralfs live mapping videos.

I want to put together a battlemap scaled plan of this complex:



The intent will be to import it into a VTT (Roll20) after its completed. The whole complex is about 300' (60 D&D square across) by 150'.Since I want to detail each buildings interiors up to a decent degree - probably like this:

so what I'm first worried about is the size. Do you think it will be unwieldy to be all on one map file?

The other way to go of course would be to simply map each building seperately. That would allow me to align each building nice and square to a grid too but it would take a way a little bit of immersion and force players into one map at a time (generally speaking.) Additionally, since I've not done any dungeon mapping before there would be the added benefit of it being in nice bite size project chunks.

Realizing there are lots of variables in performance from PC to PC and internet connections and how much lighting and such I set up - I just was hoping for some thoughts before I dive into one direction or the other.

Thanks in advance!

Monsen

The image of your complex doesn't work, getting an access denied error.

clithgow

Posted By: MonsenThe image of your complex doesn't work, getting an access denied error.

Thanks! I think I fixed it.

Loopysue

Why don't you do a city scale map of the complex, and then do individual building plans at dungeon scale using the Floorplan tool. Ralf showed us how to do that in his livestream videos.

clithgow

I'll probably go that route. I suppose I just liked the idea of having some PCs in one building and other in a different one all on the same map. May not be worth the effort.

Monsen

The big issue with Roll 20 is the file size limitations. Even paying users have a rather restrictive limit, which means that you might end up struggling with exporting it in a pretty resolution.
Then again, they also have a pretty crappy resolution by default (70 pixels per grid square), so no map on Roll20 following the guidelines really look nice at close zoom anyway.


For CC3+, a map of 300 by 150 foot is nothing, and shouldn't be a problem at all. That map of mine you showed as an example is 300 by 225. I used that as a battlemap in MapTool, but that can handle bigger file sizes than Roll20 allows. But exporting it at appropriate resolution for Roll 20, still let me get it small enough to fit there (Even though I personally don't think 70 pixels/grid square is good enough for me)

So, you should easily be able to map that as a single dungeon, which is probably the easiest approach, especially if you can live with your houses not having visible roofs since those kinda need to go when you want PC's exploring inside.

clithgow

Thanks Monsen! Maybe I'll give it a go. I suppose if I do have issues getting it into Roll20 all in one file I can always output the buildings in individual sections.

Say, I'm having an issue as I dive back in. I'm finding that the dungeon designer tools add room and add floor are taking a full 15 seconds from click to showing the menu for the first time. What can cause that?

Monsen

Unfortunately, I have no idea why that might be. It should take less than a second (for me, it is almost instantaneously)

The only reason I could thing about is if accessing the bitmaps used for the preview is very slow. This can be caused by a very slow drive, by your computer being out of memory so it needs to swap, or by your antivirus locking access temporarily while it scans the files on access. I would probably start by rebooting the computer, defragmenting the disk if it isn't an SSD and make sure both the system drive and the drive CC3+ is installed on do have a reasonable amount of free space, and if the issues continue, temporarily disable the antivirus (or at least on-access scans) and see if that helps.

clithgow

Posted By: MonsenUnfortunately, I have no idea why that might be. It should take less than a second (for me, it is almost instantaneously)

Other items you mentioned looked good but a re-boot took care of it for me.... I've got some optimizations I need to do on this machine. Thanks again!

clithgow

Put a new SSD drive and closed the OS drive and things are nice and snappy now.

However, I have come to the realization that I'm going to have to export each of the buildings as they're own .jpg file. I've got this much created:



Settings are 4200x2520 Pixel size, 70 pixels per inch, no anti-aliasing upon trying test exports I can't get this thing to spit out at anything less than 15MB - and I've got a 10MB limit with Roll20. Am I missing something? Or is this the file size limit issue you talked about, Monsen?

Thanks as always!

Loopysue

If you are exporting a png image that is why the MB size is so high. Use jpg instead. They come out at a fraction of the size.

I also see that you are getting a lot of wasted space around the outside of the frame. Your settings might need to be tweaked to crop to map border. If that doesn't get rid of it the map border layer may have something on it that shouldn't be there. You can find out what's on it by hiding all but the map border layer (not sheet) and picking any tool then right clicking and choosing select all. There should just be markers around the outside extent of the frame. Sometimes I have accidentally ended up with quite a lot on the map border layer by mistake while I have been mapping, but it is no trouble to use change properties at that point to put all those other things back on their correct layer.

Loopysue

As a guide, I did a set of jpg battlemaps that were 7200 x 3600 that with the compression set to 25 came out at around 6MB.

clithgow

Thanks Sue! I actually did export to .jpg, not .png. Additionally that image I posted is just a screen-grab to show what the .fcw file looks like. Where do you set the compression value? I don't see it in the jpeg options when I a save-as to rectangular section or otherwise. Map border layer looks okay, just 4 lines.

Loopysue

When you "Save as..." in that first dialog box there is an Options button. Pick the ordinary "JPEG Bitmap file" save as type, and click the Options button.

This opens the second dialog, where you can set the parameters of the export. You can see that when I exported my map I set both the height and width to the maximum length of the long side in pixels. It's just something I do to make sure there is enough space for the shorter side no matter what it is.

Look down at the bottom of the dialog and you will see several checkboxes. The one that will get rid of that white border for you (assuming that the map border markers are in exactly the right place) is the Restrict image to map border one that I have underlined. This will crop the shorter dimension to fit the box described by the map border markers on the map border layer.

The jpg quality was set to 90 - so my apologies. I thought I had set it to 75%, but apparently I didn't actually do it. It's right at the bottom there ringed in red.

[Image_15050]

Here is the file size of that very file:

clithgow

Okay I think the progressive JPEG checkbox did the trick. I hadn't checked it previously - and when I added that at 90 it knocked the file size down to 4m. Crazy. As always, thank you for your time Sue!

Loopysue

While simultaneously cropping off that white border I hope

You're welcome

If you ever end up in a mess with your settings done that way, the first thing to check is the map border layer to find out if there is anything in the wrong place.

clithgow

A progress shot of a piece I'm pretty happy with - two prisoner pits connected by a underground tunnel. I'm not 100% sold on the underground effect of the tunnel but I think it at least tells the story.



Next up...mask that cage symbol so it turns into a round grate - or find a better one, not sure yet.

Loopysue

I think you might find a better one in the CSUAC, or one of the other free third party asset packs. It's not very easy to mask symbols.

All the third party art packs are linked from the resources sticky thread at the top of the forum.

JimP

I think it would make a difference on who made this trap and cage.

Orcs or goblins are going to use what they have. Humans and elves would construct something so they match.

Shessar

Do you have the 2012 Annual? I think it is issue 67 and 70 that are the high space issues. There are fill styles for grates that can be used to draw a circular grate.

clithgow

Lastest work - Decided to add the cages & roofs from directly within Roll20 so I can hide/move them during play.

@Loopysue Interesting that you can search dundjinni from directly within Roll20 and drag those assets directly in that app.

@Shessar - Thanks for the head up on that annual - I'll check it out.

@JimP - Its an orc stronghold, but older than that...I think the rusted look of what I found works pretty good.