Monsen
Monsen
About
- Username
- Monsen
- Joined
- Visits
- 723
- Last Active
- Roles
- Administrator
- Points
- 9,011
- Birthday
- May 14, 1976
- Location
- Bergen, Norway
- Website
- https://atlas.monsen.cc
- Real Name
- Remy Monsen
- Rank
- Cartographer
- Badges
- 27
Latest Images
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Printing maps from PDF?
Is there a script that does this export, but also leaves the exported tiles intact (unstitched) so they can be used as printable battlemaps?
You can just edit the tile.cmd in the annual folder. Just comment out line 56, and tiles won't be deleted afterwards. You can also skip the stitching altogether by commenting out line 50.
Just make sure to delete the tiles manually if you do this, or they will interfere with the next export.
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Distance
The new dialog is actually better in many ways, giving you additional information that often is very helpful, as well as allowing you to easily select values and copy to the keyboard since it uses edit fields. The only issue is that it is hard to read.
If you don't like the new dialog, you can edit the SS4 menu file (ss4.mnu) in the data directory, search for DIST2 and replace it with DISTANCE. The change may get reverted the next time you install an update, bit those aren't all that frequent.
Oh, and this dialog will be improved in CC4.
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Ortho tool randomly stopped working on only one map project file?
Ortho doesn't like when the snap grid is a hex grid. Right click ortho, and set the grid to any rectangular grid instead of that "user hexgrid", that should fix it.
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VTT Best Practices?
ChatGPT says it's best to have two output versions, one at 150 pixels per inch and the other for slower connections at 70 pixels per inch. Does that seem like the best approach?
ChatGPT recommended that the VTT output include one version that includes a 5-foot-per-inch grid and another version without a grid. (I gather that VTTs can add a grid but some GMs want a pre-gridded map.) These maps should be the player-facing map that doesn't have labels, and things like traps and secret doors are not shown. I'm wondering, though, if I should also have a version that does show the secret doors and passageways (but not the traps)?
Are you preparing maps so others can download and use them? If so, this makes sense, as it allows the end user to pick which map to use. If you are only using them yourself, having all these version makes no sense, just grab what you actually will use.
As I understand it, 1 inch should be 5 feet in map units. And the pixel dimensions for the file should be designed with pixels per inch times number of inches (which would be the map units divided by 5). So for example: a map that is 40 feet x 80 feet would be (on the 80 foot side): 80/5 for the number of inches (16), and multiply that by the number of pixels per inch, so at a resolution of 150px, the 40x80 map should be 1200x2400 px? Is my math correct?
Yes
I'm sure I can get it to work, but my question is less about how to do it and more about should I do it? Would the resulting file be too big for typical VTT services?
Quite possibly. Most online VTT services have strict limits on file sizes. But, the only way to find out is to export that particular map, and then compare to the allowed file sizes for the various VTT's. If it is over 10MB, it is not going to fit them all, but some may still allow it.
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Ricko's Questions
Correct aspect ratio compared to the paper size you exporting to. For example, if you have a 1000x800 map, your aspect ratio is 10:8, but a standard A-size paper is closer to 10:7. So if you just blindly type in 297 mm for both dimensions, the exported image will be 297 by 237.6 mm, which is larger than the 297x210 mm of an A4 paper. (I didn't account for margins here)
CC3+ automatically calculates the other dimension based on the aspect ratio of your map, not the paper.
Of course, if you don't mind it getting a bit large and simply resize it down to fit the paper on print, then using the largest value works, but if you want it accurately, then you have to actually make your map in the right aspect ratio from the beginning, or you need to also calculate the lesser value so CC3+ can export an image that fits within both the dimensions.
