battlemat resolution
AKABigBlack
Newcomer
ok, so i can't seem to figure this out or let it go. if i create a small map (45'X45') the detail is great if i zoom in on it. when i create a large map (550'X360') the detail is pretty pixelated, so much as to become unusable. would the large map need to be printed as a tiled map? will this result in a file that i could use in a VTT?
here's the small map:
large map:
here's the small map:
large map:
Comments
Did you try setting the resolution to very high in Display Speed Settings?
I notice that most of the pixelation is with the imported pngs. What resolution did you use when importing them?
1. Am I correct that when you save a small map that is zoomed to extents that it looks fine, but when you save a larger map that is zoomed to extents it is pixelated?
2. What format are you saving as? JPEG, PNG, BMP?
3.Are you saving as a rectangular selection, or just the whole map.
4.If you click on Save As, then click the options button, what are the settings for everything? (A screen shot would be fine here if it would be easier for you.)
5. What size monitor are you using and have you tried setting the Display Speed Settings to a fixed bitmap quality of Very High. (This must be done every time you reopen the map and you must hit redraw afterward. There is a glitch in the software on smaller monitors like laptops where it seems to pick the wrong resolution artwork for display and printing.)
I may have more questions after I get answers to these. Sorry, but I need to know what you are doing and how you are doing it before I can figure out what is going wrong
1. when zoomed to extents, the large map appears ok, but zoomed in is where the pixelation occurs. the small map zooms fine.
2. this behavior occurs with both PNG's or JPG's.
3. saving the whole map using PDFCreator, following the instructions in the sticky thread.
4. unsure of what you're needing to see here. if we're talking PDFCreator, here it is:
5. i'm using a 17" laptop. here are the Display options:
hope this helps! please let me know if you need anything else!
Here is what I want you to try:
1. In the display speed Settings, select the Fixed Bitmap Quality. Under that, make sure that Very High is selected. Click OK.
2.Back on the main screen, click the redraw button to refresh the screen.
3. Zoom in to see how it looks. IF it looks better, try printing with your pdf printer to see how that looks.
Please let me know how it works.
here is a grab from CC itself:
here is a grab from the exported PNG:
But you have another problem and it looks like it is in your pdf printer. It almost looks like a compression or resampeling issue. I see that you use PDFCreator and I don't have that one loaded. I am going to download it and look through the settings to see what I want you to try next. My gaming group will be showing up here in an hour or two, so I won't be able to get to this until tomorrow, so check back then.
We WILL figure this out.
I use PDF creator too and if I print at A4 (which is a close paper size to letter) the maximum resolution I can get out of it is 1200dpi (that's if I click the "Properties" button beside PDF creator when you go to select which printer you use. Any higher and CC3 or PDFCreator crashes for me. This is with the fixed bitmap quality set to very high and map redrawn etc.
This recentish post describe what settings I use for the latest version of PDFCreator:
So my theory is that because the map is so large and it has to be squashed down to a A4 or letter size, to get a good close up look of part of the map, say one dungeon room at a time when using a VTT you have to zoom in by about 600% and the printer resolution of 1200 just is not enough for that sort of zoom. Smaller battlemaps are fine because you might only have to zoom into 300-400% to get a good close up.
Have tried printing with larger page sizes (A2 etc) but cannot get a high resolution without it crashing, so you end up with a larger page but low resolution so things still look pixellated at 300% for example.
Solution? I have tried tile printing with 10% overlap which does work in an annoying sort of way. I did 2 x 2 tiling with 10% overlap so I ended up with a PDF containing four pages, each at 1200dpi. Then to stitch them together I had to split them into 4 separate PDF's, then use Adobe Indesign to place them together in a big single page and save this as a new PDF. Was a bit fiddly to get everything to join up and I could see a very fine line where the pages met, but I did end up with a map where I could zoom in to over 800% and things would still look good. I'm a real caveman with Indesign, so if somebody who actually knew what they were doing had a go, they would probably have a lot more success. A bit of a pain to have to resort to using that though me thinks.
I hope that is not the only solution, it would be great to get a successful print with PDFCreator at higher resolutions than 1200. Can anybody else do better than 1200?? Or if other people out there are using different PDF printers, what is the highest resolution you can go??
Fingers crossed, Shessar, you have a clever insight or revelation!
I have a couple of questions so I better understand what you are attempting to do.
From your initial post it seems like you are trying to get the large map to "printout" for use in a VTT. Is there a particular reason you are using, or want to use, a PDF Driver (PDFCreator, CutePDF, etc.) instead of using a rectangular export to PNG/JPG/BMP?
I ask because a PDF driver can be a wonderful tool to take your map to a physical printer when you don't have CC3 available to print directly. However, it is introducing an intermediary step for exporting an image for a VTT, which has some weaknesses. If there is a technical/hardware limitation that forces you to use a PDF driver then we can look at some options for it.
However, I think for what you are attempting a rectangular PNG will work much better. However, the size can be prohibitive so it requires tweaking.
I was able finally to "compress" the file size enough (4MB) to load it to Roll20. Below is a screen capture as it looks on the Roll20 VTT. Be aware that I'm not familiar enough with Roll20 so I couldn't show specifics, but this is how it looks Zoomed in at 200%
The only thing I have found that improves the image is changing the Tools>Options>Print as alpha bitmap. Divide Resolution by number from 2 to 1.
This improves it, but doesn't make it perfect. See Images below.
Comparing the differences between my old laptop and my new laptop the questions I have now are: Is this a windows 8 thing? Is this a HD monitor thing? Is the a 32bit vs 64 bit thing?
I'm off to experiment with CC3+ to see if the same thing happens with it.
This is closely tied to system resources (memory, gpu and cpu) as CC3 has to calculate everything applying to the map (sheet effects) and then convert/export to PNG. In CC3 I had to get rid of any sheet that had no objects or was not necessary for the render (like the SOURCE ART) sheet. With CC3+ I had to make no modifications of the base map at all. Please note that I don't have all the symbols that appear in the map, so I have red X's for the missing ones, but the effect is the same - getting good resolution was still doable.
Granted, I have a hefty GPU, CPU and 8GB RAM so this might not work exactly as planned for everyone.
I was able to get to a resolution of 4000 x 3200 in CC3+ and I did not try any further. I was able to get to a resolution of 3000 x 2400 in CC3 and when I tried 4000 x 3200 the system would crash. These are full map renders on both editions of the software. I'm sure that I could achieve renders at those resolutions on a room by room basis if necessary.
I've attached a small corner of 3000 x 2400 res in CC3. The screen cap in roll20 in my first post was with CC3+ at 4000 x 3200.
Also note that all these captures where done directly with the CC software without using a pdf driver. The resulting image file is large so I had to use GIMP to downscale the image until I was able to upload it into Roll20.
Here is my png export at 3000 x 2400 at 25% antialias with divide resolution at the default 2.
I'm attaching the steps I'm taking to compare and see if we are doing the same thing. I'm using Durviks Mine map that AKABigBlack provided in his initial post.
With CC3+ the steps are as follows:
Open Map in CC3+
Toggle Effects (ON)
File>Save As>Rectangular Section PNG
Click the Options Button
Select width 3000
select height 2400
Antialias 25%
BMP 8-bit
PNG Compression Max
JPG Quality 75%
Click OK
Select a file name.
Click Save.
Pick first corner -10,-10
Opposite corner 560, 370
Export status window appears. When it finishes the image shows in the default viewer.
BTW, I'm using Win7 Pro x64. The system has the following:
8 core AMD processor
8GB of RAM
I decided to monitor memory and CPU running this at 4000 x 3200 res. None of the CPU's ever reached above 20% and memory for the whole process went from 3.74 GB to 4.10GB usage. CC3+ did 7 rendering passes.
Attached below are the relevant CC3 dialogs.
I hope this helps in troubleshooting your issues.
I'm running Windows 8.1 64 bit. 8 gigs of ram. Geforce 470M GPU, Intel I7 core.
I am going to load CC onto my husbands win 8.1 desktop tomorrow to see if I get the same results. I need to know if this is an issue with my laptop or with win 8.1. As it is right now, CC is useless to me since in gaming I connect my laptop to a 42" TV and display the png's that way. I hate the thought of going back to printing everything, but I may have to.
Also, The Print Resolution divisor I'm talking about is in Tools>Options. The last line.
Right click the fcw.exe file and compatibility tab and select Win7, if that still does not work keep going down to XP with SP3, etc.
Found the Print Resolution Divisor. I'm not sure what that is supposed to do.
I just clicked Okay on that one, mine was set to 600dpi and A4 paper, when the printer dialog came up, I clicked on the 4 tabs and say [x] Compress Images.
When I tuned off compress images, first it wanted me to purchase a license, I got a large vertical map. Said it was the trial version.
When I used it with compress images on, I got a smaller horizontal map. Trial version wordage didn't show up.
The only similarities between the two systems is:
*They both have ASUS motherboards and displays. Very different models, just the same brand.
*They both have Nvidia Geforce 2gb GPUs. Very different models, just the same brand.
*They are both running Windows 8.1 64 bit with 8 gb RAM.
*Both systems are fully up to date on both the OS and all drivers.
@AKABigBlack: What similarities do you have to my systems?
@Dkarr: Compatibility mode made no difference.
Does anyone have similar specks but not have this pixelation issue?
*nvidia geforce gt 730m, 2 GB
*17.3" HD+ LED display
*6 GB RAM running windows 8.1 64 bit
up to date on all drivers
My husbands desktop does not have an onboard display adapter. It only used the GPU for display.
I'm not sure about your laptop, but mine uses the Intel HD adapter for all 2D applications and uses the GPU for all 3D applications.
This is a major difference between the desktop and laptop. They aren't using the same display adapters, therefore it cannot be the cause of the pixelation.
This leaves our display (You and my husband both have HD+ displays. Mine is FHD.) or Windows 8.1.
I'm still trying to narrow it down, then I'll see if I can find a fix. I'm feeling more than a little stumped, but will try an older standard monitor on Husband's system to see if it makes a difference. I'll let you know when or if I find an answer.
So I tried 1200dpi, that worked.
With compress images on, document tab on pdf printer's output dialog, the pdf is slightly over 2 megs.
With compress images off, document tab on pdf printer's output dialog, the pdf is slightly over 8 megs in size.
Evidently too large to post, The 8 meg file is obviously a larger map. They look about the same to me as far as detail. I didn't notice any pixelation at 100%. I zoomed in to 1600% and noticed some degradation of the lettering and the bitmap fills; however, it looks more like jaggies rather than unable to tell what it is. This is on the 8 meg file.
On the 2 meg file, zooming in 1600%, I get ghosting of the letters. Edges of islands and continents show the same ghosting.The ghosting looks like, back in the 1950s, when an airplane was between a television and the tv station. Multiple signals arriving out of phase with each other.
If anyone wants me to put them up on my web site so you can download them, just whisper me on these forums.
I did however, pull our old XP box out of mothballs. Testing both WinXP and Win 8.1 on the same HD+ monitor I get the feeling that our problem may be a combo of the OS and the monitor. Here are my tests, side by side.
The XP image isn't ideal, but it is quite a bit better. I've added a screenshot from CC3 as a comparison.
it's interesting to see the difference in the OS's....unfortunately i don't have an option to go to another system. i hope this isn't the end of this.
I am a bit uncertain what you are trying here. I did a check of the original map, and it is 568 map units wide. Exporting the map with a 4000px wide setting leaves 7 pixels per map unit. The pile of bags in the lower right of your samples is about 4 map units wide from the outermost points, which only leaves 28pixels for the entire ting. That's less than the LO resolution image file for that symbol. Try to open that up in an image editor, and you'll see that it is pretty pixelerated too. You can tweak settings to get a slightly improved image, but at that export resolution, it will be pixelerated no matter what, that's simple math.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you are trying to do the impossible here, to squeeze out more pixels than exists in the image.
As for Dkarr's results, he exported a part of the image where the pixeleration is not as visible. I see the same in my exports, the stalagmites simply look better because their uniform color, but they are really pretty pixelerated too.
When I export battle maps for use in VTT's, I use at the very least 20 pixels per map unit, but I prefer at least the double if I can. Sometimes this means you cannot export the entire map as one image though, because it becomes to large for CC3 to handle.
My question/problem is probably only somewhat related to his. Why am I getting such poor export quality since switching to Windows 8.1? I didn't know if it is because of the OS, the display, or 32 vs 64 bit? I realize I am not using the best map to test on, but I was hoping to solve both his and my problem at the same time. The last images that I posted show that there is a difference. XP seems to blend/blur the pixils for an overall better look. Now that I've got my XP system running again, I may just use it for exporting maps.