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Coolest. Gaming Set-up. Evar.

jpargeter

First Post
As an adjunct, our gaming group recently decided to build our own battlemat - I believe our illustrious carpenter spent all of $15. for a 5'x8' piece of "shower wall board" which we scored with a box cutter in a 1" grid. Voila! a battlemat wich will readily take dry erase or wet erase markers, and would be an ideal surface for this top-down projection idea!

I'll start working on the guys immediately!
 

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Boredflak

Explorer
punkorange said:
can it unhide in a radius? like character's using a torch?

This is one of the things I like about using Photoshop. I can reveal exactly what I want.

Other Photoshop niceties:

- Really easy zooming so you can see the whole layout.
- Scrolling via the "hand tool" - much faster and more accurate than using scroll bars.
- Great spell area effects including transparency, outlining, snap-to-grid, snap-to-center.
- Auto grid creation when needed.
- Full screen mode on the projector with tool palettes and menus on the computer display.
- Text tool for player notes.
- Layers and layer sets for organizing map elements (you can even have multiple maps in one document).

Of course there are some drawbacks:

Price - At $650 it's almost as expensive as the projector. Photoshop Elements is "only" $100, but I'm not familiar with it's features. Price alone will rule this out for many folks.

Complexity - Photoshop is a professional image editing program. It's complicated. Don't think you're going to learn it easily.

Difficulty - It takes some practice to become proficient in using all of the tools and brushes. I've become very adroit and fast at editing maps in-game, but the first few game sessions were a bit tedious.
 



Kid Charlemagne

I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
A neat trick you could use in photoshop would be to cover the entire map with a black layer, and use the erase tool on that layer to reveal what the PC's can see - this wold eliminate any need to pre-prep areas to mask off...

This may be what Steel Wind was referring to, but he wasn't specific enough for me to tell...
 


Boredflak

Explorer
Kid Charlemagne said:
A neat trick you could use in photoshop would be to cover the entire map with a black layer, and use the erase tool on that layer to reveal what the PC's can see - this wold eliminate any need to pre-prep areas to mask off...

That's exactly what I do with my setup. Though I usually grab a sample of the "negative space" texture and tile it for the mask (or fog of war) layer instead of just using a solid black color. Here's a screenshot of a projected map:

mapScreenshot.jpg


The red secret door and trap symbols are on separate layers that I reveal when the players discover them.

I use a combination of the erase tool (with lots of shift-clicking to erase in straight lines) and the marquee tool to remove portions of the mask layer.
 


MarauderX

Explorer
I asked Lionheart Communications (the PR firm that released the article):

Hello –
I was hoping to get some more detailed specifications on the PocketProjector. Of most concern are the light level outputs on this small unit.
Thanks –

I got a fast reply:

lionheartpr said:
Thank you for your interest in the PocketProjector. As this product is still in development, specs have not yet been finalized. Please check the Mitsubishi website www.mitsubishi-presentations.com for more information as we get closer to our ship date in July.

Looks like July. Until then I will have to use the screen that came on my laptop.
 

frankthedm

First Post
Ed Cha said:
No offense to your players, but I can never understand that, especially those people who spend every week playing. If you spend that much time playing, why not invest in your game some more. At least buy the damn book!

I have a theory that the less people play, the more books they buy. Maybe it's because you're too busy playing to read... :)

Not everyone has the 20-30 to spend on a book. That is lot of money to some folks. Some people don't have the spare cash or have it earmarked for other things.
 

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