Progress With Fantasy Grounds so Far

[Trenloe]

There are a ton of portraits out there for computer rpg games like Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity. I wonder how well they'd translate over to FG without any editing.

Depends on what format they're in to start off with. Fantasy grounds rulesets that are based on CoreRPG (most of the SmiteWorks provided rulesets) use a portrait size of 63x63 pixels. FG will resize the portrait to this size, but it's better to start with the correct size (especially if you have lots of portraits).

Ideally, the portraits should be in .PNG format.

Google Baldur Gate portraits and you'll come up with many, many, many, portraits you can use.

[Larac]

Also google Pillars of Eterinty they have a ton as well.

[Larac]

Dundjinni is good for maps as well. Fairly easy to use. For character portraits yes deviantart is great. Also found a lot of good maps there. Another spot people don't think about for maps and portraits is Pinterest.

Really liked DJ but my copy is borked.
They really need to do a new installer.

Tried the fixes worse than starting issue.

Sad coukd be one of the best for VTT, if they would just invest a little time.

[Mask_of_winter]

Personally, I invested the time to follow tutorials on the cartographer's guild on how to use Photoshop or Gimp to make your own maps and it was worth it.
Attachment 9865Attachment 9866Attachment 9867

Coupled with using mapping objects you can do pretty much anything.

[damned]

Nice Mask!

[Zacchaeus]

Those are nice maps Mask, but you obviously have artistic talent. If you are an artist then using something like photoshop or GIMP can probably work for you. However if you don't have such talent then you need a program that does that bit for you, such as Campaign Cartographer. For example lighting, shading and textures are what make the maps you have created come alive. To see what looks natural you need to have that spark of artistry which allows you to 'know' when something is right. If you don't have that spark then trying to do what you have done in a drawing package like GIMP is a complete non starter.

[Mask_of_winter]

Those are nice maps Mask, but you obviously have artistic talent. If you are an artist then using something like photoshop or GIMP can probably work for you. However if you don't have such talent then you need a program that does that bit for you, such as Campaign Cartographer. For example lighting, shading and textures are what make the maps you have created come alive. To see what looks natural you need to have that spark of artistry which allows you to 'know' when something is right. If you don't have that spark then trying to do what you have done in a drawing package like GIMP is a complete non starter.

Me, artistic talent? You're much too kind. Everything you see on these maps is a trick. The grass? It's a seamless grass texture found on deviant art. The trees? a setting I followed from a tutorial in one map and imported tree objects created by someone else in the other. The rocky terrain and water? It's the close up of a small rock, the water texture I found and the white water is a brush so I just stamped it on there. I didn't "draw" a single thing in there. That's what I mean, I followed the tutorials on there labeled "how to make maps using photoshop/gimp if you have no artistic talent. It was easier than to try to figure out how campaign cartographer works and with a lot more flexibility.

In the end it's about finding out what works for you. I just wanted to share the approach I've taken and point out anybody can make maps like these.

[Zacchaeus]

Me, artistic talent? You're much too kind. Everything you see on these maps is a trick. The grass? It's a seamless grass texture found on deviant art. The trees? a setting I followed from a tutorial in one map and imported tree objects created by someone else in the other. The rocky terrain and water? It's the close up of a small rock, the water texture I found and the white water is a brush so I just stamped it on there. I didn't "draw" a single thing in there. That's what I mean, I followed the tutorials on there labeled "how to make maps using photoshop/gimp if you have no artistic talent. It was easier than to try to figure out how campaign cartographer works and with a lot more flexibility.

In the end it's about finding out what works for you. I just wanted to share the approach I've taken and point out anybody can make maps like these.

Ok, you've convinced me; I might give it a go.

[Hammerhand]

JohnD, your probably right about "biting off more than I can chew" and I am flowing your advice.

I have located the player portraits that came with my purchase and I am working on other portraits that I downloaded putting them in Jpeg format and resizing them. I just have learn how to make them available to FG.

I have decided to stick to 5E adventures initially since I have the largest database of on-line material available. Probably I will do a couple of published games before tacking the conversion on the larger campaigns.

Thanks for all the help.

[Xorn]

CC3/CD3/DD3 are really cool; I use them a lot--but yeah it's a learning curve. I've considered doing GIMP maps instead, and my primary resistance is probably just that I already have the Profantasy suite. LOL

For portraits I use Google Images + TokenTool. Just make a custom overlay that's a 200x200 square with a black line for a border. Adjust the picture you find and save the "token" to your portraits folder.