Create tokens larger than their base?

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Esheon
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Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by Esheon »

Apologies if this has been covered somewhere, but I searched and couldn't find anything on it.

I have quite a few .png files in my "Creatures" folder with large/extended body parts/weapons. When they're placed in MapTool and set to the correct size for a 4e campaign, they get shrunk down and appear much smaller than their compatriots in different poses. Of course, I can just upsize the token, but that also upsizes the token's base, making it take up more ground space.

Essentially, I want the base of the token to be set by the size chosen in maptool, but sections of the token image (an extended sword, a dragon's wings, etc) to extend beyond that base. The .rptok files in the default resource directory do this, so I know it's possible... I'm just wondering how. Can it be done in tokentool, or does it require some other program. I've tried using tokentool, but all I'm getting is another png file, which of course gets resized the same way.

As is usual with me, there's probably an easy and obvious solution that I'm missing.

Some examples...
NOTE: All of the example images are set to medium size in Maptool.

Some of the tokens I want to fix:
Spoiler
Image
Examples of the way I want them to work:
Spoiler
Image
EDIT: I can't spell

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CoveredInFish
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Re: Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by CoveredInFish »

You can fix these in MapTool.

Doubleclick the token and go to the tab "Config".

There is a small window called "Layout" that shows the token. You can position the token by dragging it with the mouse, you can zoom it using the mouse wheel.

Esheon
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Re: Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by Esheon »

CoveredInFish wrote:You can fix these in MapTool.

Doubleclick the token and go to the tab "Config".

There is a small window called "Layout" that shows the token. You can position the token by dragging it with the mouse, you can zoom it using the mouse wheel.
Thanks!

It took me a minute to figure out how to resize the image in the layout window (scroll the mousewheel, if anyone else was wondering), but it works great!

Now I just have to do that to about 3500 more topdowns... :P

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aliasmask
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Re: Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by aliasmask »

If you're going to resize them all the same, then you can drop them on to one map, use copy token on your base token but use the images on the other map. To make things easier, you can rename all those tokens with a macro so it begins with "image:". so you can use Wiki: getImage(). Faster than doing it one at a time, although you'll have to save them one at a time. Too bad you can't just drag'n'drop from MapTool to explorer or save externally with macros.

Looking at your examples, it doesn't seem the re-sizing will be uniform. You probably could do something based on the size of the image, but that wouldn't be perfect either when considering the center of image may not be the center you want.

Esheon
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Re: Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by Esheon »

Yeah, the resizing isn't uniform, and the image centers are different on a lot of them. I think this will be a "change it as you need it" project, rather than trying to do all at once. Since I tend to prep my maps well in advance of a session, I'll have time to resize/recenter each token as needed.

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Bhoritz
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Re: Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by Bhoritz »

IMHO, it is easier to decide of a scale for maps and tokens and prepare them with a graphic program (GIMP, Photoshop,..) before dropping them into Maptool at native size. And once done you are sure that all your stuff shall stay compatible in all new campaigns without having to check.

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aliasmask
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Re: Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by aliasmask »

Yeah, I do that too. I'll add extra transparency so the token is sized correctly and in the correct position. I make them either 200x200 or 400x400 canvases.

Esheon
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Re: Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by Esheon »

I'll have to try recentering a few in GIMP to see how it goes. I almost always use a 50-pixel square grid, so that at least is fairly uniform.

As an actual artist I'm hopeless, but I am at least able to do some basic alterations. Thanks for the suggestions :)

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Azhrei
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Re: Create tokens larger than their base?

Post by Azhrei »

aliasmask wrote:Too bad you can't just drag'n'drop from MapTool to explorer or save externally with macros.
This'll make it in there eventually. I've wanted to be able to do this myself. A lot. But a normal drag of a token moves it across the map, which means adding a modifier key to make this a special "drag off the map" operation. Not a big deal but we're already getting a bit crowded on the different modifiers + events (keystrokes, mouse clicks, etc) and I don't want to add a new one so close to (probably) revamping the UI. :?

But as I said, it'll make it in there eventually.

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