Likely super low on the list of things that we need/could do with improving but is there any chance we could have better maps in the digital edition of the books?
When I try to use them in other VTT's (Foundry specifically) the pre-printed grid never lines up with what the VTT provides. I can get it close be editing the image and cropping out less than full squares but it's still not great.
What I'd like to see is either ungridded maps or images that are scaled and cropped correctly to be usable out of the box
I don't think it's possible. The different VTTs don't necessarily have the same scale and grid placement, so anything they do is likely to be wrong somewhere.
(Also, Owlbear Rodeo lets you adjust the image scaling and alignment, and I find it hard to believe the others don't.)
It's not about adjusting scaling - the base image is just broadly unuasable without some editing.
Lets start with the dimensions of the first map in Dragon Delves - The Redwood Grove:
It has dimensions of 4096 * 2788 which divides out to a ratio of 1.469 so not a nice even size. Unless I've missed something very obvious this image will never work on a square grid. The only share 3 common factors - 1, 2 & 4!
Here's how this looks in Foundry when the grid size is set to 120 pixels - it's still not quite the right size and within 3 squares it's already drifting off. The smaller cut out is the edge of the map image which doesn't even end neatly on a square!
This is a fundmental issue with the underlying image which is likely formatted for book printing.
'Oh it's close enough!' I hear you say. Wrong - by the time we get to the other side of the map we have this mess:
Utterly unworkable.
The quickest solution is gridless maps. The better solution would be a properly sized image.
I think the grids, at least for Descent Into Avernus, were done more for aesthetic appeal than for accuracy. I'm sure they work well for print, where exact measurements don't matter, but they don't work well for VTTs (Just out of curiosity I've tried Foundry, Roll 20 and DDB Maps, and they don't work for any of the three). The issue is that the lines on the maps are not equidistant so they are never going to line up with a grid or match token movement based on pixel based measurement (which is every 2d VTT that I'm aware of). If they made the grids consistent pixel widths it would solve the problem.
Hey,
Likely super low on the list of things that we need/could do with improving but is there any chance we could have better maps in the digital edition of the books?
When I try to use them in other VTT's (Foundry specifically) the pre-printed grid never lines up with what the VTT provides. I can get it close be editing the image and cropping out less than full squares but it's still not great.
What I'd like to see is either ungridded maps or images that are scaled and cropped correctly to be usable out of the box
Thanks.
I don't think it's possible. The different VTTs don't necessarily have the same scale and grid placement, so anything they do is likely to be wrong somewhere.
(Also, Owlbear Rodeo lets you adjust the image scaling and alignment, and I find it hard to believe the others don't.)
It's not about adjusting scaling - the base image is just broadly unuasable without some editing.
Lets start with the dimensions of the first map in Dragon Delves - The Redwood Grove:
It has dimensions of 4096 * 2788 which divides out to a ratio of 1.469 so not a nice even size. Unless I've missed something very obvious this image will never work on a square grid. The only share 3 common factors - 1, 2 & 4!
Here's how this looks in Foundry when the grid size is set to 120 pixels - it's still not quite the right size and within 3 squares it's already drifting off. The smaller cut out is the edge of the map image which doesn't even end neatly on a square!
This is a fundmental issue with the underlying image which is likely formatted for book printing.
'Oh it's close enough!' I hear you say. Wrong - by the time we get to the other side of the map we have this mess:
Utterly unworkable.
The quickest solution is gridless maps. The better solution would be a properly sized image.
Have you considered that the maps aren't intended to be transferred?
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
That feels like a cop out excuse. It's not hard to produce properly formatted map files, I'm hardly asking for the moon on a stick.
I did manage to get it close enough with a bunch of hassle but it's far from ideal.
The map feels tailored to Beyond Maps's formatting.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
I think the grids, at least for Descent Into Avernus, were done more for aesthetic appeal than for accuracy. I'm sure they work well for print, where exact measurements don't matter, but they don't work well for VTTs (Just out of curiosity I've tried Foundry, Roll 20 and DDB Maps, and they don't work for any of the three). The issue is that the lines on the maps are not equidistant so they are never going to line up with a grid or match token movement based on pixel based measurement (which is every 2d VTT that I'm aware of). If they made the grids consistent pixel widths it would solve the problem.