Making Maps could be made easier (for me) if

Hey there, I just discovered this great looking tool and started to make my first map to try this out with my players during our next session. Some quick thoughts after the first 2h of fiddling: Making Maps could be made easier (for me) if 1) there was a way to quickly repeat tiles without copying and pasting a background across the entire image 2) there was another layer separating background and objects OR if there was a way for using tiles as the background (in the settings of the page) in addition for the option to using a background color. If I have a bunch of tiles (e.g a wooden floor) and then have objects that want to place on top of it, it is cumbersome to still have to deal with the floor when sending objects to the back, when moving objects etc. Even better: 3) If there was a layer system similar to Adobe products where you can see the arrangements of objects within a layer and choose to send objects not all the way to the back but just "one step" to the back. This might be too much but ALTERNATIVELY, it would be great to have the options of making a few more layers. 4) if (again similar to Adobe), there was a way to "turn objects off" momentarily to "access" what is behind it. For example if I lay a partly transparent image of a blood splash onto a table but the image of the blood splash is bigger than the table, there is no way to select the table anymore without either moving the blood splash or by sending first the splash to the back, then accessing the table, then sending the table to the back etc. Arranging and overleying objects quickly becomes cumbersome when only having one layer and the option to sending objects either all the way to the back or all the way to the front and nothing in between. 5) if there was a way to turn snapping off at least for the objects layer. If I think of more, I will let you know. Thanks for putting this all together. This is an exciting project!! Best Aaron

Aaron - The easiest thing for you is going to be using Photoshop/GIMP for the background and then importing and adding objects/decorations on top of that background layer. I started like you - with the roll20 map tool. It is great. But I wanted more flexibility (like you). The easiest thing is out-of-game map making. Now I make all my maps out of game with background/structures/and some decorations and then finish them in roll20. Much much easier and quicker. Upload size is 10mbs for mentor. Not sure what upload size is for non-supporters/mentors.

(Paul: Base[free] is Up to 5MB Per Asset)

Thanks for the tip Paul, this is probably a good way to do it. One reason for using the maping tool is that I haven't built a nice personal library of objects and tiles yet. It is really convenient to be able to just be able to search in the bar and drag the icons into the map. But yeah, maybe the best way is to start building my own library and then using Photoshop. I haven't actually used Photoshop much (and GIMP at all). Just used Illustrator frequently, but I recon it shouldn't be too complicated to get into it. Also another plus of using the inbuilt software is that I can move things around as we play. (e.g. the players move/destroy a chair etc.). At least for the background though, it might be best to use Photoshop and then just overley a few mobile objetcs in Roll20.

I quickly determined, when I built my 'between sessions clubhouse' page for my game that if I was using a lot of background tiles, I should layout the background tiles and objects then screenshot the map and use THAT as my background tile. It decreased my loading times and made it m uch easier to then work with tokens. In your case, laying out the background tiles, screenshotting that and using it as your background tile and then laying non-movable objects and then screenshotting again may give you the degree of control you want.

It is a lot easier to to produce a map and then upload it, but it can use a lot more uploaded resource space and that starts getting tight eventually (I have at around 1GB of assets uploaded.) I'm actually deleting a bunch now.

Yeah that is an idea too. Maybe in 10 years, Roll20 will have all the capabilities in-house :)