Roll20 uses cookies to improve your experience on our site. Cookies enable you to enjoy certain features, social sharing functionality, and tailor message and display ads to your interests on our site and others. They also help us understand how our site is being used. By continuing to use our site, you consent to our use of cookies. Update your cookie preferences .
×
Create a free account

Using Linked Images in Roll20 Maps

July 22 (9 years ago)
Andrew C
Marketplace Creator
I know you can search for things in the library and find them off the web.  But is there a way to directly hotlink them from things like Wordpress Blogs or other sites of your own choosing?
July 22 (9 years ago)
vÍnce
Pro
Sheet Author
Not sure I follow what you would like to do Andrew.

You can insert images in chat(even via a macro if you want) using [foo](URL)
You can also use a URL for a journal portrait image and/or a handout's image.
July 22 (9 years ago)
As far as I am aware, no you can't. However if you were to save an image to your desktop, you can drag and drop the image from the desktop into the browser you would achieve thr same effect.
July 22 (9 years ago)
Scott C.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
API Scripter
Compendium Curator

Vince said:

You can also use a URL for a journal portrait image and/or a handout's image.

How does that work, I can't figure out how to point it to the url.
July 22 (9 years ago)

Edited July 22 (9 years ago)
vÍnce
Pro
Sheet Author
Just paste the URL into the "browse" field.  ;-)
  1. Choose a File
  2. File Name: (paste URL here)
July 22 (9 years ago)
Andrew C
Marketplace Creator
Jake W,
Except that a large detailed image will consume a lot of resources.  For instance I am thinking of a map as large as 420sq W by 640sq H and as a PNG a file like that could be 20-40% of the free storage on Roll20.

So I was hoping that through the Library System, you could input a direct link address and have it connect.
July 22 (9 years ago)
Andrew R.
Pro
Sheet Author
You should convert your map images to 72 dpi JPEG before uploading them.
July 23 (9 years ago)
Andrew C
Marketplace Creator
Andrew R.
They are.  I didn't say 420px W by 640px H... I mean the map, in D&D 3.5E units is 210ft wide and 320ft long.
July 25 (9 years ago)
Gold
Forum Champion

Andrew said:

Jake W,
Except that a large detailed image will consume a lot of resources.  For instance I am thinking of a map as large as 420sq W by 640sq H and as a PNG a file like that could be 20-40% of the free storage on Roll20.

So I was hoping that through the Library System, you could input a direct link address and have it connect.

At this time, the graphics objects on Roll20 map Pages come from Roll20 Marketplace, or your account's Uploads (5MB per asset on free accounts, 10MB per asset on subscriber), or the Roll20 in-game search results that includes From The Web. There is not currently a way to directly place a URL-graphic from another website, on the tabletop, if it is not appearing in From The Web search results.

How large are those maps, anyway, Andrew? (In pixels, and in megabytes).

Those sound possibly so large that you would be best-served to slice them into pieces before using in Roll20, if I'm understanding the stats you mentioned.  A map of 420 UNITS x 640 UNITS in Roll20 would be very large and should be composed of many tiles not 1 graphic alone for that size.  If your game system uses 5-foot squares that would actually be 2100 Feet x 3200 Feet.  If the map is detailed like you mentioned (meaning it can be viewed at 150% and up to 200% zoom), that could be an extremely large graphic file, dozens-of-megapixels.

For a guideline, if the singular graphic itself is larger than 10MB or larger than around 5500x5500 pixels, it will probably work better in Roll20 if it is sliced down to pieces of this size, regardless whether it were loading from Roll20's upload servers, or from an external "From The Web" image.

1 unit is 70 pixels * 70 pixels when viewed at 100% zoom-level in Roll20.

Here is a page of Roll20 best practices for Images,

https://wiki.roll20.net/Image_Best_Practices_for_R...

Here are graphics guidelines followed by the Marketplace artists,

https://wiki.roll20.net/Creating_Marketplace_Asset...
July 25 (9 years ago)

Edited July 25 (9 years ago)
Gold
Forum Champion

Andrew said:

Andrew R.
They are.  I didn't say 420px W by 640px H... I mean the map, in D&D 3.5E units is 210ft wide and 320ft long.

Note: If your game system uses 5-foot squares (units), then a map of this size should only be 42x64 units! That's a much more conceivable size for a digital tabletop.

At this amount of units, it could be 1 graphic fitting under the limits (5MB or 10MB per asset), if the amount of detail is good for 100% zoom level (that is to say, 70x70 pixels per unit).  If it's quite detailed in resolution at this size, you could slice it to 4 pieces each fitting under the limit, or downsample it to lower detail.
July 25 (9 years ago)
Andrew C
Marketplace Creator
I might have the scale out.  But it is a very large map because the plan it to have the party wander through a forest before hitting a clearing and all as a single-item because the party will potentially be attacked at any point along the path and final location.

Yeah I did get the arithmetic wrong, it is intended to be moderately large. I am generally using 600px square tiles, which equate to 30ft across (6x5ft square) and run to that as a guide scale and then at the end scale down to multiples of 420px square.  Going back to the raw image and calculating off the 'tile grid' it is 420ft by 600ft.
As a GIMP XCF it is 575MB (8400px by 12000px) and is 80.6Mb as *.png before scaling.
July 25 (9 years ago)
Gold
Forum Champion
For an image the size you described, more than 5000 or 6000 pixels on a side, it will be better sliced into sections, 4 sections should work. JPG is the recommended file format for that. With these steps you can get the sections down to a size in MB that should fit for uploading.