Intro and Question

[lemonsprig]

Hi All,

I just wanted to say hello and what a fab site this is, some of the tutorials are amazing and I know I will be using them a lot. I use photosop at the moment and have just downloaded gimp to play with. I have even installed the map prettier script (believe created by RobA) and it looks good for random stuff.

A couple of questions though as I have not found anything in the tutorials. I want to be able to create a map of basic floor tiles that I can print out at 1" = 5' (standard wizards miniture size). Basically I want to stick these onto cut to size plastic foam so i can just drop rooms and corridors down to build dungeons up. Does anyone have a tutorial on how to create and print these (particularly the printing to correct scale) Maybe someone has some pre-mades i could use while i learn? Happy to try with either PS or GIMP although more familiar with PS at the moment.

Initially I am thinking Only dungeons/building interiors but dont see any reason why forest clearings bordered by thick folliage/dense trees could be used at a later stage.

Thanks in Advance

Ian

[Midgardsormr]

There's a tutorial by Duvik that sets up a grid in Photoshop and another that builds a dungeon on that grid. I suggest that you start there.

When setting up your document, decide on your print resolution. 150 pixels/inch is probably a decent resolution for your purposes. When you make the grid, make sure the size of your squares equals that resolution. That way, you'll have, for instance, 150px squares, so when you print at 150dpi, you'll get 1-inch squares.

And a heads-up: When you present your finished maps, be prepared for people to ask for a version without the grid. Virtual Table Top (VTT) software generally makes its own grid, so many posters here like to see "clean" maps that they can use in MapTool or Viewingdale or what-have-you.

Good luck building your tiles, and have fun!

[NeonKnight]

Welcome to the guild!

[Redrobes]

My tip would be to get a sheet of A4 and print a line on it of known number of pixels (preferably an amount to give a long line) and then measure it as accurately as you can. You should do this in both directions. Take the number of pixels, divide by number of inches and thats what your printer is currently doing in DPI which will be slightly different in X & Y no doubt. Then scale your image to the desired number of inches by knowing how many pixels that would be.

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

[ravells]

My tip would be to get a sheet of A4 and print a line on it of known number of pixels (preferably an amount to give a long line) and then measure it as accurately as you can. You should do this in both directions. Take the number of pixels, divide by number of inches and thats what your printer is currently doing in DPI which will be slightly different in X & Y no doubt. Then scale your image to the desired number of inches by knowing how many pixels that would be.

That is a fantastic piece of advice Redrobes! It neve occured to me that the printer output would have a different DPI to what you set it to on the computer.