My Encounter maps and the Odd Asset. WIP and finished. ;)

[XCali]

Hi!!!

I have been meaning to revisit this map. It was my first attempt at some sort of battlemap. The revisit I redid the cast and core shadows, threw a few filters on it and now it is much more to my liking. (Btw, this map LITERALLY came from a photo of an archaeological dig of ancient animal bones I took years ago. Fun little titbit. )

Valley of Ancient Bones

Below is:
Night and day

The version with a small 70 x 70 pixel block for aligning a grid. (Tx for all the feedback!!)
Valley of Ancient Bones_Dusk_wBlock_byOmri.jpeg


As with most things in this thread. Free for personal use or with friends when an RPG is involved. So, enjoy!

(Optional) If you want you can point people to this thread.

If anybody use this map for one of your campaigns, pleeeeeeease let me know how it played. I am super curious. Also, I am keen to know if this works for Roll20.
Anyway, it just if you want to. But, I would really love to hear how it went.

And remember, you are welcome to discuss this map with me.
Have a wonderful week,
Omri

[XCali]

Ahoi!

Hope you all have been well?

I decided to start tackling a additional area for the Valley of Ancient Bones map for free use. This is more an overview one. But if I should add stuff to it, please let me know what. I'm scratching my head about it at the moment.


This one is completely free:
Free_Continent.jpeg


Also, here is two more Assets for use.
Hunter's Hall_Asset_.png
Irimaru_Tradeship_byXCali.png

[Phergus]

Good stuff! All potentially useful in a VTT. Your brushes could be clipped out into individual stamps and used to make campaign maps directly in VTTs.

I'm going to offer a slightly different VTT perspective from that of Tenia. Been using VTTs for both online and face-to-face gaming for 12 years or so and primarily with MapTool.

Not all games use squares. Some use hex grids. Offering non-gridded versions is important to support those gamers. As was mentioned, all of the current VTT apps that I'm aware of can overlay grids on images so baked in grids are rarely necessary. A scale on the map in some out-of-the-way location is sufficient in most cases.

Most current VTTs can support maps of any grid resolution. So producing them at multiple resolutions isn't really needed. Maps are easily resized either outside the VTT app or inside. What helps is if your map is made at, for example, 100 pixels/grid then the resulting image is 800 x 1000 pixels for a map that is 8 x 10 grid squares. If someone wants to use it at 70 pixels the math is easy. Multiply by 8 x 70 and 10 x 70 and the new image is 560x700 pixels.

Don't diminish your art by using low quality JPEG settings. Save at a high setting and don't try to push for any specific MB file size. Yes, larger files take longer to transfer to clients but the difference between 1MB and 3MB isn't worth the quality loss.

More comments in general on making maps that are usable for VTTs can be find in my blog post here: https://dqmusings.blogspot.com/2017/05/usable-maps.html

Thanks for sharing your work!

[XCali]

Good stuff! All potentially useful in a VTT. Your brushes could be clipped out into individual stamps and used to make campaign maps directly in VTTs.

I'm going to offer a slightly different VTT perspective from that of Tenia. Been using VTTs for both online and face-to-face gaming for 12 years or so and primarily with MapTool.

Not all games use squares. Some use hex grids. Offering non-gridded versions is important to support those gamers. As was mentioned, all of the current VTT apps that I'm aware of can overlay grids on images so baked in grids are rarely necessary. A scale on the map in some out-of-the-way location is sufficient in most cases.

Most current VTTs can support maps of any grid resolution. So producing them at multiple resolutions isn't really needed. Maps are easily resized either outside the VTT app or inside. What helps is if your map is made at, for example, 100 pixels/grid then the resulting image is 800 x 1000 pixels for a map that is 8 x 10 grid squares. If someone wants to use it at 70 pixels the math is easy. Multiply by 8 x 70 and 10 x 70 and the new image is 560x700 pixels.

Don't diminish your art by using low quality JPEG settings. Save at a high setting and don't try to push for any specific MB file size. Yes, larger files take longer to transfer to clients but the difference between 1MB and 3MB isn't worth the quality loss.

More comments in general on making maps that are usable for VTTs can be find in my blog post here: https://dqmusings.blogspot.com/2017/05/usable-maps.html

Thanks for sharing your work!

Thank you! All these brushes are free for use.

Your viewpoint on how to set up for VTT is very interesting.
I normally do my maps at A3, 300dpi. So, I am not too sure how that would translate to the grids, other than me adding 100px grid to a map that size. (Something in the line of 3508 x 4960 _flipped more often than not) So, I do have to lower quality a bit to get down to around the 3mb.

[Phergus]

I normally do my maps at A3, 300dpi. So, I am not too sure how that would translate to the grids, other than me adding 100px grid to a map that size. (Something in the line of 3508 x 4960 _flipped more often than not) So, I do have to lower quality a bit to get down to around the 3mb.

I wouldn't bother lowering the quality down. Let those that want/need smaller file sizes do so themselves.

Thanks again for sharing your work with us!

[aeshnidae]

I love love LOVE the building asset posted just above!

[XCali]

Misty Cove



Sample Adventure hook

#1 A deep mist envelopes the cove, one that doesn't go away. Something is going on in this mysterious little town, or is it something more sinister with its sights on Misty Cove... investigate.


#2 Your ship has struck ashore and is in need of repairs, the closest option is a light that leads to a small beach nearby a town. Head there to find supplies to fix the ship. It might take a few days, but something feels off, the towns people are afraid of something. While work is being done on the ship you take a look around in this mist covered cove.

[MapMappingMapped]

Fun! That's some cool work there. I really like the waves! The whole thing looks a bit acrylic/oil painting...

[Bogie]

Very cool, I can almost feel the waves moving.

[XCali]

While I am busy with the challenge map, this one popped out to show something.
So apart from the main map, this one I thought I'd post in this thread for something to feed a story from for you guys.

Free for personal use, and with friends when an RPG is involved.