RPTools.net

Hi,
I just watched some of your videos and got the impression that you have a *lot* of extra tokens, backgrounds and objects in the videos - are those standard ones that my version is somehow missing or did you add them? (in the latter case - where could I get them? =) )

Thx in advance!

Those are from his personal library. You can start by going here: http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/imagelib.htm

Thanks for Great Program and thanks for Great tutorial!

I'm a bit behind, but those were GREAT! I was just wondering where you got all the textures/images. I'm looking to build up my library so that I can make a map, I just need some starting images. let me know if you can help me build up my library. XD

Check out the top-level Links and External Resources forum. Lots of stuff there. And I seem to recall a thread with the title, Stamps by Category which breaks them down into categories. And on the main site's Downloads page is a link to the torrent tracker for a 2GB+ library.

So, it looks like I have time to start updating the tutorials and I have overcome the problems Vista was giving me with my screencast program(grumble... Vista... grumble...). I figure I should be able to get out 2 to 4 tutorials a month, so 6 to 9 months and it should be done.

I replaced the first two in the Basic series. I changed things a lot. The first one is now really a mini sales pitch for someone who has no idea or only a vague clue of what MapTool is. The old First was sort of an odd mixture of things that I thought could be better included in other tutorials. The second one is an overview of where to find features and tools in MapTool. The old Preferences went into great detail in all aspects of the preferences, but I thought that wasn't really needed and other things needed to be shown as well.

So, as usual take a look and please give any feedback. Thanks!

Woohoo!! Thankie, thankie, thankie, Mr. Brad!


Yep, I'll go visit the site right now.

Yes, thanks a TON Brad. You could probably redo the macro panel stuff now as I doubt it will change, but only include the basic macro syntax stuff as I doubt that will change. Don't forget the new preference for expanded vs tool tips format for [] rolls. You could probably do some really basic advanced macro stuff such as how to set do damage and set states and modify a health bar cause I highly doubt any of that stuff is going to be modified. Of course, I would suggest waiting on advanced macros and light stuff since those are both being actively worked on.

Again, I REALLY want to thank you for all the time you have spent doing these (as you can probably tell by my sig!) Keep up the good work.

My only complaint thusfar.

You spend a good chunk of time discussing the auto-numbering in the Preferences. You briefly mention/describe most other options.

And yet you skip over and don't even mention a MAJOR setting in there... one that needs explanation.

"Movement Metric". This setting is not very intuitive to begin with... the only hint you get as to it's function is the NO_DIAGONALS option. But that doesn't actually explain anything.

WTF is MANHATTAN? Hell, I'm running two games in MT, playing a third, and have done a lot of macro scripting... I know my way around pretty well and I still don't know what MANHATTAN is/means.

Some kind of coverage of this is in order...

Thanks Brad!!

Your instructional video tutorial have not only documentary value. They are a magnificent tool of marketing for Maptool. It may be that they do not substitute the (classic, academic, technical) manual user. But they have an enormous value in infinite aspects.

An interesting advice:

It would be great to have a alternative version subtitled of the videos. It would aid the internationalization a lot. For instance, my native language is not English. But I read it acceptably well. However, I do not use to listen it.

A captioned version would have a high value as such. But besides it would be able to be possible to translate the chains of subtitles to any language (virtually) and to send them to you. In this way it would be possible to create multi-language videos fastly.

It's my guess that it would multiply the video tutorial international projection . And your effort would prove to be more profitable and standard.

On the other hand, the effort/result ratio would not be excessive (i think).

DJuego

That would be a weakness in my knowledge of MapTool. I have always used hexes and I just figured that stuff would make sense to you square people . I guess not. I will look into what those settings do and put that on the update list for Feature Location.

That is an interesting idea. If people think it would actually help internationally I can look into what Camtasia studio offers for something like that. Though my version is 3 behind the current release, so I don't know how easy subtitles can be added and changed. Though this wouldn't happen in anycase, until the videos are done the normal way.

Looking at the old New Map tutorial. Can anyone think of any changes to that material? The last little part is covered in Feature Location, so that is not needed anymore, but what about the rest. Any fun new little features that I may have missed. It does need to be reshot because the UI has changed a little, but I think I can just keep the content basically the same.

This will probably be a common question as I go through the Basic series. Most of their content has not changed. Little things like using the alt key to center things when drawing shapes, have been added and I want to make sure I don't miss adding in those little useful things. The big changes have been in light, vision, and macros, but I don't want to miss the few other changes that were thrown in there for other features. So, if you can think of anything please speak up.

Yes, I do like the idea of subtitles. It's especially good if the subtitles can be separate from the video since that would allow others to add their own subtitles, possibly in a bunch of different languages.

Someone posted a link to a photoshop effect in the last week or so and the video showed a way of preserving the pixel resolution of some objects in a scene while resizing the image. That video had subtitles and below the video was a "table of contents" that showed a timestamp and the text of the subtitle at that timestamp.

If such a thing could be added without too much effort, it would be a great boon! Your video tutorials would become searchable by Google, et al, since the subtitle text would be on the page!

I have reorganized that site a bit and updated a few of the tutorials.

I have gotten rid of "Basic" and "Advanced" series. Now instead there is the "Step by Step Tutorials", for taking someone through the features of MapTool step by step. Then there is the "Beyond the Basics" for going more in depth or odds and ends.

I have tweaked the resources section a bit, making it more useful and linking to the Wiki.

Any comments and critiques on the new tutorials is appreciated as usual. I have broken things up a little differently, as you will see.

I did jump ahead and redo the Vision and Light tutorial before a couple of the other more basic videos. There were a couple changes since the first tutorial that were causing some problems for new users.