Quality of large DD3 Map - Is this as good as it gets?

SirSixty

Hi,

just finished my first map with Dungeon Designer 3. It is a large map that I want for a siege weapon battle in the tabletop software roll20. The quality is not terrible but if you zoom in (what we will in roll20) you can see each pixel and little things like the weapons and armor on the shelfs in the courtyard are hard to identify as such. I am not sure, if I can improve the quality without going over the 10 MB max filesize of roll20. Here is the link to the picture https://www.flickr.com/photos/136875169@N07/23005028486/in/shares-03FSLJ/ (you have to download it in full size to see the problem). Its my first time using flickr as well, so I hope that works as I want it to.

And here is what I did:

- Used a battle map with a custom resolution of 300 width and 400 height, cause the map should be 300 times 400 feet wide. (Only 95% sure I used those resolution settings, I dont know where I can look that up in DD3)
- Once I finished the map I exported it as a 9,5 MB JPEG with 3000 times 4000 resolution and 99% quality (100% was just over 10MB but looks the same).

So, is this as good as it gets on a large map, or did I screw up?

WarEagle

You can ramp up the exporting resoliton to about 9500x9500 that's the maximum CC3 can handle.
Also try 75%, this normally is the sweet point for jpgs.

If you need more, you have to do multiple images and stitch them together with a 3rd party image editing tool after export. If you need really high resolution-export take a look at the GoogleMaps-Thread, the tool generates a macro for exporting multiple max-res-images from cc3.

Monsen

As WarEagle says, you can increase the resolution for the CC3 export, but if Roll20 limits your max file size, then it isn't much CC3 can do. A higher quality image will have a larger size, that is just how images work. You can get the filesize down by lowering the jpg quality setting though, often you can go down quite a few notches without any visible artifacts in your map. Try 80% quality for example, and increase the export resolution. You may also try exporting it at a higher resolution in CC3 as a png, and then use an image editor to save it as a jpg with a lower quality, as this is faster than reexporting the image from CC3 for each test.

You may also wish to consider to simply making smaller area battlemaps, as a smaller map with the same resolution will have a higher quality.

WarEagle

Oh, I just thought of software normally used for webdesign and photography. This software analyses the image and adjusts it so the human cannot see any differences, but the filesize is smaller. Mostly be removing clours and metainformation. Maybe you could try some of the online-jpg-optimizers available online. I don't have any good link by hand but there should be something.
Some years ago about 50-75% of the filesize was removable without producing visual differences.

Just tried your image with http://www.jpegmini.com/ (random googling) and it reduced the image to 3.5MB.

SirSixty

Thx for the advice, I went with 8000x6000 and 89%, looks better now.

Is it actually important to keep the same ratio than the map? I went with 8000x6000 now since I startet with 400x300 and thought maybe a "clean" factor 20 (20 times 400 = 8000) might be better for the quality.

SirSixty

Ah, just saw the second comment. Good idea too, got a small version with decent quality (3.5 MB) and a big one with decent to good quality now (9.8 MB).

good stuff.

Gloria Tyler

https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/comment/37274#Comment_37274

I also suggest this jpg compressor tool as it will help you to create stunning images, compress your jpg photos. Just a click and it will resize your photos for you.