You can copy the files from the PDFs, but I wouldn't call them high resolution. For that matter I wouldn't call the maps for Fantasy Ground high resolution either, at least not for the Rise of the Runelords maps. For me high resolution is sufficient to play at miniatures scale and not be blurry.
You can copy the files from the PDFs, but I wouldn't call them high resolution. For that matter I wouldn't call the maps for Fantasy Ground high resolution either, at least not for the Rise of the Runelords maps. For me high resolution is sufficient to play at miniatures scale and not be blurry.Well i use a virtual tabletop and ive infact been using your maps for Age of Ashes so thanks for the save!
When i rip the image and blow it up on the vtt, it just looks horrible but when i played in a starfinder game on Fantasy grounds using the dead suns module, the images looked far sharper than anything i can produce. Rise of the runelords is a pretty old module so i would assume there not up to todays standards.
Yeah the PDF maps are decidedly not high resolution. Some can still be usable for vtt or printing, though they'll be blurry. The 1" = 10' scale maps, however, are just painful to even try. We've been asking for years for Paizo to release the high res maps for sale (I get not for free, but obviously the high res maps exist... I see little reason not to sell them). There was a thread or two back a few years with someone from Paizo commenting, if I recall correctly. I can't recall what their answer was, just that I wasn't satisfied and that we never have been given the chance to buy the maps.
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There was a thread or two back a few years with someone from Paizo commenting, if I recall correctly. I can't recall what their answer was, just that I wasn't satisfied and that we never have been given the chance to buy the maps.
I'm pretty sure the answer was that the art is ordered at a resolution suitable for printing at the scale found in their books. Having the art be created at a higher resolution would make it much more expensive.
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There was a thread or two back a few years with someone from Paizo commenting, if I recall correctly. I can't recall what their answer was, just that I wasn't satisfied and that we never have been given the chance to buy the maps.I'm pretty sure the answer was that the art is ordered at a resolution suitable for printing at the scale found in their books. Having the art be created at a higher resolution would make it much more expensive.
Like this from 2016:
We commission maps to the specific size that they will be printed. So if a map is going to printed as a half page or a full page, it will be designed at a resolution intended for that size. If our cartographers had to make all maps full resolution at 1":5' scale, we'd have to have literally hundreds of square feet of maps in some AP volumes, and that would take the cartographers so much longer that we couldn't have all the maps in an AP done by the same person... and it would also cost us a whole lot more.
Or this from 2014:
I did *not* say that we're giving you the highest resolution we have available in the PDFs. We're not—that would make the PDFs much larger (and less usable on less powerful devices). I was just explaining that we don't generally commission the maps in our books at the resolution you desire (200 pixels per 5' square). When we commission a map, we almost always know whether it's going to be a quarter page, a half page, a full page, a Flip-Mat, or a poster map, and the files we get from the cartographers are at a suitable resolution for the assigned size (and the time and cost it takes to make those maps scales as well). The Town Square map was commissioned specifically to be a Flip-Mat, which means it would have about 4 times the resolution of a map of a similar sized area that was commissioned as a full page, and about 16 times the resolution of one that was commissioned as a quarter page. (And obviously, if the map we've commissioned is at 1 square=10' scale instead of 1 square=5' scale, it's that much further away from what you're asking.)For example, the Town Square (Swallow Tail Festival) in the AP PDF is 923 x 1292 pixels, while the Flip Map PDF is 3605 x 4505 (which looks good by the way). I should note that this map is not part of the interactive PDF (which has also generated negative comments about the Interactive PDF).
Let's look at another example, the Glassworks from Rise of the Runelords as well. When you output the image from the PDF (not interactive), it exports as 3.33" x 2.08" at 96dpi. So from what you've said, this is what the source file is created at, 96 dpi....for a 3" x 2" image, really?
Or this from 2010:
What most people don't realize, is in Adobe Reader, you can click the Map, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V into your favorite image editor. From there, you just have to blow it up to 1" Squares and Viola.I wouldn't make that assumption. I already do that, that's how I was able to print out a 24" x 36" map of the Sothis Lodge. What I'd like to see is access to the raw file that was used (assuming it's better resolution than what's in the pdf layout)The "original" maps are not that much better than what you find in the PDF. (They generally haven't been compressed with a lossy algorithm, so they're slightly less noisy, but they're usually about the same size, within a few percent.)
That's the whole point of why we can't "just do it"—when we assign a cartographer a map, he's told that it'll be half-page or full-page or whatever, and he works to that size. If he had to do every map to 1"=5' scale, it would take him a lot more time—and that time would cost us a lot more money. It would also mean that our few good, reliable cartographers wouldn't be able to do as many maps in the same time, and that would mean we'd have to find more cartographers just to execute the same number of maps we need each month... and that would probably mean that we'd have to lower our standards for maps. So... not anytime soon.
That said, our Community Use Policy allows noncommercial users to create and freely distribute their own maps of our adventure locations.
What do you all do for AP maps for in-person games? The two approaches I've used so far have not been ideal and I'm looking for some good ideas.
Thanks!
Most (all?) APs have a community created content thread where people upload their versions of the AP maps they have created. Check them out, there is some real treasure in many of these.
What do you all do for AP maps for in-person games? The two approaches I've used so far have not been ideal and I'm looking for some good ideas.
Thanks!
As the GM, I extract them from the PDF and load them into MapTool. I'll use my laptop to GM, another player will connect their laptop to the TV so everyone can see the map, and usually I or the other person with the computer will move the PC minis as described by the players.
My table is a 4'x8' whiteboard with a grid cut into it. I just draw the pertinent boundaries in dry erase.
For boss fights, I'll make a set piece out of 3d terrain and craft supplies.
For location-based adventures, like book #1 of Strange Aeons, I made a hi-res map and printed it to scale on a vinyl banner.
When people use printed maps how do you cover up what the group hasn't explored yet?
(I'm assuming paper, but it's something I've wondered about for awhile. I'd be worried I'd accidentally remove the wrong papers / something would get exposed that wasn't supposed to be / papers would accidentally get blown off of the table)
Paper and sticky tack. The hard part is layering them in such a way as to correctly guess which way the players will likely go and still obscure the shape of rooms and such.
Bump to keep the dream alive. As another example, Roll20 clearly has gorgeous full-scale maps that are obviously not recreations.
An example from Secrets of Roderic's Cove: https://imgur.com/koO8126
(I'm not sure why the interactive maps don't remove hidden doors. Sigh. That's a different issue though.)
The left side is zoomed in 800% while the right is zoomed to 214%. The one of the left is not good to use in a VTT or for anything other than enabling a hand-drawn recreation.