I'm trying to add some speed and immersion into my games by using the maps in Dungeon/Pathfinder PDFs to create full scale battlemaps.
I'm good with the scaling up - I've gotten them to .tiff files with the 5' squares at 1". The problem I'm having is printing the (now very large) images on my standard color laser printer.
Does anyone have a good (preferably free) solution for tiling large images over several sheets of paper while maintaining scale? Elsewhere on these boards someone suggested importing into Excel, but that seemed to deform the image a bit - it made the squares wider than they were tall. I've also been looking into .PDF solutions - I can easily output the files to .PDF, but I can't find a reliable way of tiling the print.
I have looked into the Gamer Print shop, and though they are quite reasonably priced, I think they're still too expensive for regular "everyday" maps. Perhaps for a major setpiece or some such.
Any suggestions welcome.
PosteRazor should do the trick. Hope that helps.
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PosteRazor should do the trick. Hope that helps.
I second that recommendation. It supposedly can handle BMP, DDS, Dr. Halo, GIF, ICO, IFF, JBIG, JPEG/JIF, KOALA, LBM, Kodak PhotoCD, PCX, PBM, PGM, PNG, PPM, PhotoShop PSD, Sun RAS, TARGA, TIFF, WBMP, XBM, XPM.
I personally use mostly JPEG or GIF.
Thanks Guys - that looks PERFECT.
I'll have to give it a whirl in the next day or so.
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PosteRazor should do the trick. Hope that helps.
What a great little program, Torstan! And to think for the past two years I've been doing it the hard way. No more! Thanks again.
-DM Jeff
I got pointed to it by a few people over on the Cartographer's Guild boards. They're really the ones to thank. Hope it does the trick.
PosteRazor should do the trick. Hope that helps.
Someone showed me this program and I liked it. I just need to get some tips on how to insure you get the 1 inch squares for the encounter.
Any Tips
You need to make sure that the image is of the right scale. The best way to do this is to find out how many pixels there are in a grid square. One way to do this is to open it in Gimp (free, open source graphics program - google it and it's the first hit). Click on the measuring tool. This looks like a pair of callipers. You can also select the tool using shift-m. Now click on one side of a square and drag to the other. At the bottom of the window it show you the measurement of the distance you've dragged over. The drop down menu there allows you to pick the units. Make sure its pixels. Now you know how many pixels are in a grid.
Now to print one grid to in inch, you need this number of pixels per inch. Go to Image->Scale Image and change the resolution to the number you measured. Hit okay and save.
Now in posterazor you can open it up and run through the process. When you get to Step 4 make sure you select the size in percent option and set it to 100%. This will create a poster that prints with one grid spacing to one inch.
Hope that helps.
You need to make sure that the image is of the right scale. The best way to do this is to find out how many pixels there are in a grid square. One way to do this is to open it in Gimp (free, open source graphics program - google it and it's the first hit). Click on the measuring tool. This looks like a pair of callipers. You can also select the tool using shift-m. Now click on one side of a square and drag to the other. At the bottom of the window it show you the measurement of the distance you've dragged over. The drop down menu there allows you to pick the units. Make sure its pixels. Now you know how many pixels are in a grid.
Now to print one grid to in inch, you need this number of pixels per inch. Go to Image->Scale Image and change the resolution to the number you measured. Hit okay and save.
Now in posterazor you can open it up and run through the process. When you get to Step 4 make sure you select the size in percent option and set it to 100%. This will create a poster that prints with one grid spacing to one inch.
Hope that helps.
Thanks, it work great. Now I just need to practice editing the image to cover to spots where the monsters go :)
Agreed. Clone in Gimp works too. It's the tool that looks like a stamp.Pick a large fuzzy brush. Ctrl-click whre you want to copy from and then paint the area you want to cover. Just be careful with the grid lines.
Or I could just pay Torstan to make mine for me :)
Steve Russell
Rite Publishing
I am happy to report I got PosteRazor last night and it seems to have worked like a champ. I printed out the large scaled map - now I just need to assemble it. I'm hoping to get some supplies tonight on my way home from work.
Thanks to you all for the advice!
@Quillion - well when creating maps for you results in them being published in high quality adventures I can't really complain :) (yes I do private commissions too).
As for the grids, I wouldn't bother with labelling them if you are going to print off the different areas on paper or card. As you put them all together you'll get confused with which labels apply. Best just to print with a grid and no labels I think.
I did find one small glitch with posterazor. It doesn't work on grayscale images. If you have a grayscale map you want to use, open it in a graphics program and save it as a full rgb image (in gimp this is done using Image->Mode->RGB). That should work fine.
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One more touch-up option...
in photoshop, using the selection marquis over a square, I sometimes find using Ctrl-Alt keys together to be a quick and easy way to copy/paste "squares" with no marking over "squares" with monster mark-ups. This basically covers up a square with a duplicate one on the same layer. I also use the close stamp too, but if I'm just copying squares it goes much quicker this way.
Hope that helps.
I would also suggest taking a look at the Dungeon Designer 3 program. Have a look at Profntasy's website and check the gallery out. If you buy the program (along with Campaign Cartographer 3, which you'll need to run DD3) you can download some really great tutorials.
I've made full use of this stuff and once you get used to it, it's about the quickest way I've found to make nice maps. You can also print to 1" scale easily - you don't have to mess around with measuring stuff or getting the file type correct as it's already in a useable format.
I may sound like a salesman but I'm just a big fan of these programs.
I'm trying to add some speed and immersion into my games by using the maps in Dungeon/Pathfinder PDFs to create full scale battlemaps.
I'm good with the scaling up - I've gotten them to .tiff files with the 5' squares at 1". The problem I'm having is printing the (now very large) images on my standard color laser printer.
Does anyone have a good (preferably free) solution for tiling large images over several sheets of paper while maintaining scale? Elsewhere on these boards someone suggested importing into Excel, but that seemed to deform the image a bit - it made the squares wider than they were tall. I've also been looking into .PDF solutions - I can easily output the files to .PDF, but I can't find a reliable way of tiling the print.
I have looked into the Gamer Print shop, and though they are quite reasonably priced, I think they're still too expensive for regular "everyday" maps. Perhaps for a major setpiece or some such.
Any suggestions welcome.
My solution is in this thread.
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My solution is in this thread.
That's almost exactly what I envisioned doing!
PS: This board has been giving me hell tonight. It's kept swapping which threads my posts go to.
My solution is in this thread.
Actually I had already taken a look at that thread - Good Stuff!
That is what I'm planning on doing with Interior/Dungeon type battlemaps. My printer will only handle up to Legal sized paper, but I think I can make this work with PosteRazor. I'm currently running Here There Be Monsters - I can't wait to do something like this for the Shrine to Demogorgon section :-)
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PS: This board has been giving me hell tonight. It's kept swapping which threads my posts go to.If you open multiple threads in different tabs, make certain you only have one (1) Reply active at a time, with all threads in the normal view. Otherwise it will squirrel up on you.
HTH,
Rez
Well, I was posting from work, and the computers here are slow. The browsers don't support tabs, and the other windows I had open were on other threads, but I didn't send multiple replies out at once. The systems here have never been as bad as they were that night, but I have experienced the same problem as you stated it back at home a couple times before. That's when I figured that bit out.
Oh well, I managed to get things done anyway.
Have a good one.
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You need to make sure that the image is of the right scale. The best way to do this is to find out how many pixels there are in a grid square. One way to do this is to open it in Gimp (free, open source graphics program - google it and it's the first hit). Click on the measuring tool. This looks like a pair of callipers. You can also select the tool using shift-m. Now click on one side of a square and drag to the other. At the bottom of the window it show you the measurement of the distance you've dragged over. The drop down menu there allows you to pick the units. Make sure its pixels. Now you know how many pixels are in a grid.
Now to print one grid to in inch, you need this number of pixels per inch. Go to Image->Scale Image and change the resolution to the number you measured. Hit okay and save.
Now in posterazor you can open it up and run through the process. When you get to Step 4 make sure you select the size in percent option and set it to 100%. This will create a poster that prints with one grid spacing to one inch.
Hope that helps.
Thanks, Torstan, for these instructions using GIMP. I usually use CRTL-T in Photoshop, but don't see a measure tool for pixels per inch in Photoshop (maybe there is one there that would eliminate the need for GIMP?) Anyhyow, I had an issue when I used the measuring tool. Upon clicking the right and left perameters, the guides associated with this action did not seem to align correctly with the place I clicked. What could be the issue? It seemed like the targeting was off, up and to the left. Thanks for any ideas you might have.
It should just be a matter of clicking and dragging. You can hold down ctrl when you do to make it snap to 30 degree angles. Also, once you have clicked and dragged once, you can go back and move the anchors at either end to make sure they really do line up properly.
I'm afraid I don't have photoshop so I can't help with that question.
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Arg.. Photoshop Elements v6 at home does not have subsets beneath the eyedropper. I use the full PS7 at work, but alas, still cannot find a measure tool on the Elements version at home.
GIMP seems easy enough, though. And any process will be better than the hours I've been putting in trying to eye-ball those 1" squares...
Thanks...
Equally in Gimp if you drag out a rectangular selection box over the grid it shows you in the info bar at the bottom what the dimensions of the box are. You can tweak the size of the box to get it bang on so that you know the size precisely.
RE: Dungeon Designer 3...
I forgot to mention that it will also print across multiple pages. Worth the money if you're in the USA. I'm in Australia so I get smashed every time I have to buy something because of the xchange rate.