RPTools.net

If you want well defined maps for your encounter areas you should consider Wolph42's teleport pads to jump from one map to another for your encounter maps. An image of sufficient size to show an entire geographical area will probably look pretty pixelated when you get down to an encounter area. You can find Wolphman's Bag of Tricks @ viewtopic.php?f=46&t=16066

Another option is to draw the big map using textures and background/object images. The memory usage is greatly reduced since internally MapTool only stores the image once. Dorpond is the master of this technique and has some videos of how to draw a forest using a few tree images and textures.

Yes, Wolph42's BoT is awesomeness incarnate. LOL

I've been using his teleport pads extensively in my many many leveled campaign. Works like a charm. Although there are still some large maps that I would rather have on a single level than split into several.

thank you! And while were on this topic, is anyone using the border teleports? Those i created specifically for this use, to transport players to another map when they move over a pad.

Just curious

Edit: that's actually also a tip for users that want to create large maps. By breaking them up into sections (possibly overlapping) and introducing the border teleports you can walk easily from map to map. If you want to create huge maps over an large area I can advise to use the erm darn forgot the name, well the one to copy paste a lot of tokens across a map section. This way you can build forests but also drop stones and other stamps across a large area.

I'm not using that feature yet. I might considering the scope of a few levels I need to do, but as it is I'm only using the InterPads to go from level to level (since I'm getting entire levels mapped out). My only concern (and I've brought this up in another thread (http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20927&p=217799#p217799) is that the dropdown list of maps doesn't scroll or become two or three columns. I have so many levels that it scrolls off the screen and I can't see them all to select. If I start breaking down levels into multiple maps, the list is just going to get even longer. So, it's personally not useful to me, yet.

have you considered creating your own map changer, should not be too hard, maybe 10 lines of code, probly less...

actually you could grab the code from the settings macro in the BoT,...

You mean as system macro buttons? That would be useful for sure, but alas I would have to ask someone to design that for me as I have no skills in coding.

So? It time and a bit of dedication to learn that's important. Many of the people who have made frameworks here had this as their first foray into "coding" as you call it.

If you understand the concepts of "if this, then that... otherwise something else"(ie. fundamental logic), the rest is all just time, persistence, and trial/error. Granted, I do know people, including my son (who is high functioning autistic) where logic does not always "compute", but for most people it really is not that hard... it's more [url=url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt]FUD[/url] than anything else or lack of time...


EDIT: for example, while I am a developer, I until recently, I had never programmed or compiled anything in C/C++. But I wanted the developmental version of GIMP, so I spent the time to figure out how to compile(fortunately, there were some fairly close walkthroughs, but I did have to tweak the examples a bit). Of course, I still have not "written" any c/c++ code, but at least I was able to compile after a few false starts and now have GIMP on my machine. ie, my desire for something overrode my FUD, so I took action and as able to complete my objective.

True, I have no skills because I haven't learned how. But I do realize that the time I would need to invest in learning to at this time outweighs the free time I actually have to do it. And, with many other excellent coders around who graciously spend their time helping others like me out, I don't see an immediate need for me to make the time yet.

Search for dorpond's example of an infinitely zoomable map. He created a very zoomed out map. Then zoomed in a ways and drew over the top of the existing map a more detailed area. Then zoomed in further and drew another more detailed area. And so on. He actually created a Camtasia Flash video to show it off, IIRC.

It'll be a very old post -- at least 3 years, maybe more.

Isn't that this topic?

What? You expect me to go back and read the first page of this thread??

These don't appear to be the 'droids I was referring to.

On the first page, dorpond describes what he did to make a really large map, but there's no video to go with it. That means it wasn't this thread. But I definitely remember watching the video, which is pretty amazing -- I abhor Flash and stay away from it if at all possible, so the fact that I watched it is pretty significant.

Good question!
I consider myself the master of massive maps, since most of my campaigns use them.
My maps however, span 1 to 2 miles and start to get choppy unless I reuse a lot of the same textures and images. For a fact, you will need to draw your map using textures (make map with maptool drawing tools), since a map made out of premade maps (photoshop, Dundjinni, etc) would simply take up way too much memory at that scale.
I really don't see 100 x 80 miles being possible, but please report back!
Another issue I see is navigating issues when zoomed out. The grid we be set for up close, but what do you expect to happen to that grid when zoomed way out to see the whole shire? Plus I can see it being super annoying zooming out and in. 500 turns of the mouse wheel later... Heh.
But we won't know until you try. Just remember to draw it with as few textures as you can get away with, and when using object or background images, try keeping the number of them to a minimal. In other words, place house1 - house 10, and copy them as much as possible instead of using 300 different and unique house images.
Oh, I did a city once in version 1.2, but it was only like a mile or so, not 100

It can be done depending on your specific needs and how much work you want to put in to it. Let's assume your encounter map is on a 40px scale and the background image is 10px per square (pretty bad quality but readable). So, where 2px = 1', 80 miles is 908800px. Now if you have many maps that eventually add up to that then it's just a matter of memory management. You can split up the map so each area is it's own maptool map, or better yet, put all the maps on a single map and copy the needed zoom map to current navigation map.

Some of you may know I use campaign Cartographer 3 for my maps.

I can export as png, bmp, or jpg.

I don't have to make the maps as bitmap fill textutes. I could use them as solid colors for different contours.

This is the color chart I use for surface maps on my web site.
http://crestar.drivein-jim.net/crestar/ ... rface-maps

I have read previous posts about long distance bow shots.

Has anyone tried large maps in MapTools without textures ? If so, what were your limits ?

Thanks.

As dorpond says, that's really not practical.


MapTool has no inherent limits on image sizes. If you run a 64-bit Java and allocate 30GB for the JVM, I'm sure you can create some super large maps!