Is there a way to divide a City Map into smaller Battle Maps?
Solo4114
Newcomer
So, I've mapped out a roughly 1mi square city. It's my first city map, and I'm pretty happy with it overall. I kept the scale of 1 map unit to 1 foot. I'm using the map in an online D&D campaign that I'm running on Roll20.
With that in mind, what I was hoping to be able to do was to essentially zoom the map into the rough scale that I want to use for battle maps in Roll20 (usually 125 feet x 125 feet, but I can adjust as needed), have the CD3+ software spit out a JPG of just that zoomed in portion, and then be able to use the JPG as a battle map.
I've tried digging around in the manuals and Tome of Ultimate Mapping to see if there's a way to do this, but so far came up empty. I'm also not trying to create points on the larger map where, if you click them, you're taken to a separate map. What I don't want to have to do is recreate the area I want to use as its own separate map from the ground up. Instead, I want to use the work I've already done, just zoomed in a bunch to where you only see that portion (and the JPG actually looks good).
Is this something that can be done with the software?
Thanks in advance!
Comments
Well, if you just want to use that zoomed-in portion as it is, then all you have to do is to use pick Rectangular section JPG when you save the map, this causes CC3+ to prompt you for two opposite corners that define your export area instead of exporting the entire map, this allows you to export arbitrary (rectangular) portions of it.
Further to @Monsen's comment, you will need to be very careful about the resolution. From memory, Roll20 suggest 140ppi, despite their default grid being 70ppi, so I would go with that and see how it looks when you zoom in!
Thanks, all! This seems like it's basically what I want, at least to do individual maps here or there.
Is there some kind of automated feature where you can take the entire map and have the software break it up into uniform rectangular shapes, or do you just have to select the rectangle yourself each time? Like, if I wanted to take a 5280x5280 unit map and break it into, say, 125x125 unit smaller images, is there an automated way to do that, or are you just stuck with having to do it manually?
Not as a finished feature built into the program, but you can do this using a Macro.
The Large Exports annual contain such a macro with explanations (the end result with this macro is to combine the individual tiles into one large image, but the start of the macro exports the map as smaller tiles.)
Update. I somehow got one map to fit perfectly, but others have been less cooperative. As in, the grid that I added to CD3+ lined up perfectly with the Roll20 grid.
The next map I tried with different dimensions but the same ppi, however, does not line up and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. I used the same technique as the previous map, but it's just...off.
Are the pixel dimensions divisible by the number of grid squares? Are you using rectangular section export and making sure to just export the map itself, and not any part of the border (any part of the drawing outside the actual grid squares will mess up the calcualtion, since those parts will also be claming some of the pixels)?
I'm doing the rectangular section that I select, measuring out the grid in the number of grid spaces where the grid is set at 5 units/feet per square, just like on Roll20. I have the ppi set at 140. "Restrict image to Map Border" is checked, as is "Crop image to aspect ratio," for what that's worth. When I line up the selection, I do it with the grid lines themselves, which I have in blue so I can see them shift to yellow when I hover directly over them.
The PPI setting is a meaningless value outside of print calculation. Just completely ignore it and always just concentrate on the width/height in pixels.
The important thing to check is that both height and width is set correctly, since CC3+ will crop the value if necessary to retain the ratio. (Well, technically, all you have to do is to get one correct, and just set the other one to a really high value, since it will be capped at the max allowed by the aspect as long as the rectangular section is specified correctly.)
When doing the rectangular export, for perfect precision, I recommend turning on cursor snap so you don't have to align them perfectly manually.
To make sure the export is done correctly from CC3+, you should be able to check that the pixel dimensions are correct from the file properties in Windows (or by opening it in an image editor)
Got it. Thanks! I'll give it a shot.