Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

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Xaccheus
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Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by Xaccheus »

I'm just kinda confused on the rapid-fire sort of instructions that the tutorials give me; not to mention, actually creating the terrain and so forth on the map didn't seem to pop up immediately under the shortcuts, and the lack of fast-forward/rewind buttons made it impossible for me to either skip information I'd seen or re-watch anything I might need to pay attention to.


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Bone White
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Re: Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by Bone White »

One thing I would make you aware of with mapping, is that there is a bug around undoing/redoing drawings. There is a workaround if you can remember to do it (or how, my explanation may be off). Draw two very small items (even dots) and undo one of them. Then draw as normal and try to ignore/overlay the dots when you build your map. This will allow you to get undo/redo to behave as expected.

A lot of people have taken to drawing maps outside of MapTool and importing them as an image, though this greatly increases the size of the campaign file and download required when people connect to your server.

Lee
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Re: Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by Lee »

Bone White wrote:One thing I would make you aware of with mapping, is that there is a bug around undoing/redoing drawings. There is a workaround if you can remember to do it (or how, my explanation may be off). Draw two very small items (even dots) and undo one of them. Then draw as normal and try to ignore/overlay the dots when you build your map. This will allow you to get undo/redo to behave as expected.

A lot of people have taken to drawing maps outside of MapTool and importing them as an image, though this greatly increases the size of the campaign file and download required when people connect to your server.
Just to clarify, I submitted a patch fixing this issue. I believe Azhrei put together a build for testing, but I'm not sure if it made it into b89 or will make it into b90. Hopefully, it does, but if it didn't, BW's advice is a good fallback as any.

Edit: BTW, welcome to the forums and RPTools :)

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Simetradon
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Re: Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by Simetradon »

I draw all my maps using Inkscape and Gimp, and then just import it to the background layer as a single object. It seems to work fine if you remember that 5 ft squares is equal to 50 pixels.

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Bone White
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Re: Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by Bone White »

Simetradon wrote:It seems to work fine if you remember that 5 ft squares is equal to 50 pixels.
You don't have to stick to this, you can edit the pixels per cell in edit map.

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Simetradon
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Re: Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by Simetradon »

True, you can, but the 50 pixels per square keeps the maps to a manageable size where it doesn't take forever to load, and it's an easy number to remember. The vast majority of my maps are 2000 pixels square, which makes the "play area" 40 squares on a side. These seem to work well as a dungeon level, or as a single encounter.

Tielc
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Re: Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by Tielc »

Sorry to pull up an old, thread, but my search of Pixel per Square return this as the most recent thread that wasn't about bugs.

My question; is there any value in using different pixel sized squares? I mean, if I'm dragging my map elements onto the screen from the resource library, I can resize anything. I ask, because there is a lot of content for a variety of sizes. Is Maptool reducing the number of actual pixels in an object / image when it's scaled down from say a 100 pix per sq. to 50 pix per sq.? Then it would make sense, I would be loosing quality. But the opposite, scaling up a 50 pix /sq. to a 100 pix/sq. map could create some ugly items as well that way.

Tielc
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Re: Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by Tielc »

TO add to my previous question, though slightly different. When you download Maptool, there are a lot of Free Map Items. Most of these items come in different resolution varieties (ie 50, 100 & 200). Is there any value in keeping the 50 and 100 varieties when you have the 200 pix resolution images available? I mean, you can choose to drop an item on the screen and resize it as needed.

I guess in the end I am OCD, and I am trying to determine if I should keep a lot of this content in triplicate in case i need to make maps in those different sizes. Again, this leads to my first question above somewhat.

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metatheurgist
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Re: Is there a "for dummies" tutorial on Maptools?

Post by metatheurgist »

When you scale a picture down it just renders it at a smaller scale, it's still the same size in memory. As to why you might have different sizes...well sometimes some pics look better scaled in a picture editor than in MT. Massive pics are still taking lots of memory even if you only display it in 1/10th scale. Depends on what you're trying to achieve, something that looks good or something that has a small memory footprint and can be transferred to clients faster.

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