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Ways to improve the map making user experience.

1408144986

Edited 1408145478
This topic sort of bridges the gap between "Suggestions" and "Bug Reports" because I can't guarantee all of the existing problems I'd like to suggest improvements for are actually intended application behaviors. I assume most or all of these are just Roll20 quirks because they have persisted for the fairly long time I've been using Roll20 and occur on more than 1 browser (Chrome, Firefox, Waterfox), across multiple versions of those as well. If any of these issues and annoyances have a solution already, let me know. I might just be missing something Clicking a map tile brings up token actions. Double clicking the tile brings up the token information box. This is not ideal. There's no way I'm aware of to define a tile as part of the background terrain (as opposed to background objects), which allows it possibly end up in front of objects. God forbid you accidentally select your grouped background tiles and choose "To Front". (I guess that's a bad example because you can just select the same group and hit "To Back", but generally map tile Z-axis ordering can be a pain because you can't precisely order stuff; you can only throw it to the front or back.) If there was a way to distinguish things like tiled grass textures from the buildings, roads, and other background objects, it'd make things easier. Tiling a large map area is tedious. I do not know of any ways to, for example, fill a 40x40 square grid with 4x4 square grass tiles without doing it manually or copying/pasting sections. On that note, copying and pasting is imprecise. (Tile placement in general is imprecise. If I drag a tile from the browser on the right to the map, a ghosted instance of the tile appears on my cursor as I drag. However, when I release, the tile is not dropped where the ghosted image was.) Copying works fine, actually, but pasting seems to drop whatever you copied onto the location of your last click. This is fine, except it totally ignores grid snapping. If I copy a group of tiles and paste them, I inevitably have to click and slightly drag each of them to get them to pixel-perfect match to the grid. If you fill a map area with tiles, it renders box selecting groups of things useless. So, for example, if I fill my map with grass tiles, anything placed on the map layer in the future can't be group selected because clicking-and-dragging simply grabs whatever grass tile I'm hovering over as I start. I suppose I can place things on a different layer and then move them to the map when they're placed, but perhaps there is a better way. I am unsure if you can deselect a selected tile/object (without clicking another tile or object) once the workable map area is full. Clicking into the gray Out-of-bounds area around the map does not deselect things. I am uncertain of what the "Is Drawing" option does. This is just a general fact and not necessarily relevant here. Does dropping/pasting stuff in the out-of-bounds gray area around the map make that thing hang around forever, unreachable? For example, if I select 6 tiles worth of things, click near the border of the map, and then paste, several squares worth of stuff will render completely out of bounds. Is the client smart enough to remove that thing from memory? EDIT 1: Grouping, for example, all of your background terrain tiles makes the client hang for several seconds when you select that group. I have more things to mention, but that's all I can come up with right now.
1408149361

Edited 1408149372
Gid
Roll20 Team
A map tile should be placed on the Map Layer. You're presently on the Token Layer. Graphics placed on the Map Layer removes the token elements from them. This might dramatically change some of your bullet points.
1408152133
Gauss
Forum Champion
To deselect an object hit the "Esc" key. "Is Drawing" treats an image as a drawing. This will turn off snap to grid for that object and it will be cleared if you "Clear Drawings" for that layer. "Is Drawing" brings up an interesting option you can use for selecting things. If you set your background tiles to "Is Drawing" you can then use Alt+drag and release to select the other images that are not background tiles (non-drawing objects). You can also use Ctrl+drag and release to select only drawing objects. Yes, things can wind up going 'out of bounds'. For objects on the bottom or right side you can increase the size of the canvas in your page settings to get them. For objects on the top or left side you can use Ctrl+A to select the entire layer and then move everything until you can get the hidden object. Regarding grouping, you really should not permanently group tiles unless you plan on moving them around a lot. You can always temporarily group them (drag to select a group or shift+click each object you want in the temporary group).
What about autofilling a large area with tiles though? That is a thing I would love.
1408214327
Gauss
Forum Champion
To fill a large area with tiles I use copy/paste. I have done a 200x200 area in a few minutes by pasting about 20x20 worth of tiles at a time.
Kristin C. said: A map tile should be placed on the Map Layer. You're presently on the Token Layer. Graphics placed on the Map Layer removes the token elements from them. This might dramatically change some of your bullet points. I was on the Map Layer. I'm very experienced with Roll20 and I know the differences between the layers (GM, Map, Token). I understand you probably deal with maddeningly silly problems and people who insist they know things they don't all day, but I swear about this one. Here's screen caps with tile deselected and tile selected. Note the status of the current layer. Every tile on the layer displays token actions and double clicking any of them brings up the edit token window. I can even set values to cause the token bubble to show up, like so: I purposely highlighted the layer menu to show the selection. I went and created an entirely new campaign in a different browser and the same thing happens. So, there's an issue of some sort.
Gauss said: To deselect an object hit the "Esc" key. "Is Drawing" treats an image as a drawing. This will turn off snap to grid for that object and it will be cleared if you "Clear Drawings" for that layer. "Is Drawing" brings up an interesting option you can use for selecting things. If you set your background tiles to "Is Drawing" you can then use Alt+drag and release to select the other images that are not background tiles (non-drawing objects). You can also use Ctrl+drag and release to select only drawing objects. There things are pretty handy. Thank you.
1408342347

Edited 1408342366
Gauss
Forum Champion
If you need additional help please let me know.
1408465656

Edited 1408478938
20x20 blocks? Well that takes awhile for us that have to use alternative mouse pointer controls. edit: One of my group has to use optical tracking systems due to injuries.
1408468796
Paul S.
Sheet Author
API Scripter
I started on roll20 making all my maps in the roll20 system. It worked and it was fine. But if you want real flexibility and control, make the switch to GIMP or Photoshop. Once you make the switch and learn a few tricks (cartographer's guild tutorials), I think all the items you've listed above will be solved for you. You can create great backgrounds quickly and easily with much more selection (just do a google search for "photoshop seamless ____ pattern" where the ____ is filled in with item of choice (grass, rock, sand, trees, etc...). Do google searches for decorations like trees and rocks and furniture. I tend to find many good items searching for .png extensions (google - bed.png - for example). These usually come up with the background already set to transparent so you can add them quickly and easily to a map. I've created a folder with nothing but map decorations and it is several gigabytes. I spent three hours mining google for the images. Now I can make pretty much any map I want. Once the background is made you can import it into roll20 and load it with decorations (furniture, chests, more trees if you'd like).
For preplanned things prepping is the only way to go. For impromptu situations then you have problems.