May Entry: Hotel Eighth Floor

[Midgardsormr]

Just a sketch so far at somewhat higher than final resolution. My intention is to take advantage of the PNG compression algorithm to significantly reduce the file size by using repeating elements (the individual hotel rooms), limiting my use of angles and round objects, and using a simple black-and-white style similar to the building maps from old ICE modules.

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[Baziron]

I smell heavy ShaowRunning on this. I can't wait for the finished result.

And, as a wise man once said: Have some Rep!

[Midgardsormr]

Thanks! It's inspired by an adventure I prepped for Unknown Armies that I never got a chance to run. It was shaping up to be such a good campaign, too!

I figure it will work for any contemporary game and some sci-fi. ShadowRun does seem like an ideal place to use it.

[Midgardsormr]

Here is part of the first hotel room. The other half of the window is in the outer wall layer, which I did not turn on for this export. This is a 1-bit PNG coming in at only 3.2 kb. My goal for now is to see how small I can make the entire image. Once the first room is done, I'll simply copy it several times to make the other rooms, giving the compression algorithm plenty of work to do. If I have time at the end of the challenge period, I'll see how much of a difference adding color and effects makes.

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[Midgardsormr]

All of the basic rooms are finished. There is no furniture indicated--it can be added later with tokens designed to match the map. My file size is increasing faster than I had hoped, but I think I'll still make it underneath the limit if I resize a bit.

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[Midgardsormr]

I didn't do much with it today--just added a hallway and windows in the conference room and business center. It suddenly occurred to me that I forgot to leave room for the elevators and vending machines, so they'll replace the four southernmost interior rooms.

I trimmed off most of the extra whitespace, giving myself some significant savings. I can trim it all the way down to black, but never having used a VTT, I'm not sure how valuable the margin is. Is it better to leave a bit of a border, or should I lose it?

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[dorpond]

I like your logic and approach with this one. I too am very interested how large this file size will get. The overall map size is well beyond the minimal for the contest also. Great idea!

[Midgardsormr]

Thanks!

I have added the conference room with restrooms and a small bar, business center, elevators/vending, and utility room. The utility room is absurdly large, but maybe they store tables and chairs for the conf room in there. And you've gotta have enough room for five or six PC's to hide while they wait for their quarry to go to sleep.

So that leaves the suites and the stairwell, and then I will probably start making stamps to go with it--beds, chairs, tables, desks--anything that could conceivably be moved.

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[Baziron]

Absurdly large? NO WAI! ;-)

TBH, I work in the service team at a hotel - we do have a utility room filled with different typs of tables, and chairs, and stuff. You never really know what is needed at a conference until they tell you, and that big conference room looks like you could easily seperate it, which implies movable walls (or at least, movable things that form a wall), and means even more equipment to be packed in the utility room.

And I don't even know what goes in the eastern blank space!
So rest easy, that utility room is not too big, it's merely too empty.

[Midgardsormr]

Good to know. I suppose my experiences with church support facilities skews my perception quite a bit. When a building project is over budget, it seems like utility space is one of the first things to go. We used to support an omni-gym out of a space about 20 feet X 6 feet. 100 stacks of heavy chairs is a bad thing to have on the sidelines of a basketball game, but there was nowhere else to put them because our Fearless Leaders decided that the big storage room in the original plans was a waste of money that could be spent on oak doors instead.

Granted, those doors are beautiful.

That's beside the point, though. I am getting bored with this project, so I'm going to try to finish it up quickly. Here are the suites. It's an unconventional layout because I've never been in a hotel suite before. Two bedrooms, large bathroom with a jacuzzi, mini-bar, and a sitting room with a coat closet.

And speaking of closets, I should put some in the bedrooms.

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