I just bought D20PRO, I'll see what sort of luck I have with the imports. I've never really used GIMP and that is recommended to re-size the grid.
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Looking forward tour feedback, B0sh1. What I am looking for is something along the lines of what Bwatford did here
Go to VTT Maps
So, I started importing the maps after the holidays, the ramp up time is far more significant than I expected since I am also importing in creatures and streamlining combat within D20 PRO in addition to getting the maps converted and scaled from the AP. Luckily, I am still a few months out before I am up to bat. The most frustrating part is that there are several encounters already in book one where there is no associated map and I am not inclined nor have any more time to throw at this to also learn a map making software.
GIMP is what I use when I am in Linux. If you are using roll20 you just save it with Gimp and then upload to roll20, no resizing needed.
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I use maptool, but here is how I make the maps.
First I set the map to GM view with grid and print the sheet out to a .jpg file. This lets me get the largest map size which makes the next steps easier.
- If you don't have the ability to print right to .jpg, try printing it out to a file, e.g. xps and then convert that to a .jpg.
Once I have the .jpg file I cut out the map I want to use and save that image to a new file.
Next comes the tricky part. You need to crop down to the first full grid square on all four sides. I found programs like GIMP or the Office picture editor work great for this because you can zoom in and drag the crop over to the first line. It is a bit of a pain especially since you may end up cutting out a lot of the map some rooms will forced to be smaller then what is on the map.
Next after you have your map cropped down, you need to count the squares vertically and honorarily and multiple both numbers by 32. Once you have both numbers you need to re-size the image by pixel (I normally do this in paint because it is easier to find the re-size) and put in the new length and width.
-I chose 32 because it means the base map isn't too large and tokens can still look good if you change their size.
-If the map calls for 10x10 instead of 5x5 you need to multiply the length and width by 2.
The next step is to import the map into map tools and edit the grid, change the grid size to 32, and then align maptool's grid to the map's grid. Then I apply the VBL blocks where needed.
Something to note about this method. The maps in the Paiso PDFs may not have proper squares. So you may need to shrink your maptool grid a bit to compensate. Also as noted before since they don't take their grids to the end of the map you may end up cutting out a lot of the map.
Making the map this way only takes me about 10-20 minutes, then I make tokens for each of the monsters, this normally takes me a few hours to edit them and get them working.