Howdy Gents,
I’m wondering what to do when the overall map size (95mb as a jpg) as well as the counters (over 400) and the player aid cards exceed maximum mb size of a vassal mod. I don’t want to reduce the map resolution and counter size because of the number of counters (front and back by the way) would be an enormous amount of extra work.
So, what should I do?
Thanks,
Tom
Thus spake Cundiff:
Howdy Gents,
I’m wondering what to do when the overall map size (95mb as a jpg) as
well as the counters (over 400) and the player aid cards exceed maximum
mb size of a vassal mod. I don’t want to reduce the map resolution and
counter size because of the number of counters (front and back by the
way) would be an enormous amount of extra work.So, what should I do?
What are the dimensions of the map? Is the map a scan?
Similarly for the player aid cards.
Are you saying the counters are 400 in number, or 400MB?
–
J.
Map size is 16091 x 16275 (95.7 mb) jpg
Player Aide Card 1 is 4500 x 3477 jpg
Player Aide Card 2 is 4500 x 3477 jpg
Counters number in excess of 400 (being front and back facings)
Thanks,
Tom
Thus spake Cundiff:
Map size is 16091 x 16275 (95.7 mb) jpg
Player Aide Card 1 is 4500 x 3477 jpg
Player Aide Card 2 is 4500 x 3477 jpg
And my other quesion: Are these scans?
–
J.
No, as far as I know they aren’t. I’m certain of the counters and the aids.
I’m unsure about the map. It was sent to me as a png. I had to reduce it by changing it from png to jpg.
Thus spake Cundiff:
No, as far as I know they aren’t. I’m certain of the counters and the
aids.
I’m unsure about the map. It was sent to me as a png. I had to reduce
it by changing it from png to jpg.
Ah. That may have been a mistake. Reduce it how? In size on disk? In
dimensions? Both?
–
J.
Reduce it in megabyte size, while keeping dimensions (resolution) which is necessary to match counter sizes.
Thus spake Cundiff:
Reduce it in megabyte size, while keeping dimensions (resolution) which
is necessary to match counter sizes.
Did you try using a PNG packer first, such as optipng?
–
J.
Do not know what that is. Is it a downloadable program?
Yes, you be able to find it on the web. It will help a bit, but ultimately, you are going to have to give way on either map size or map quality. Since map size is now fixed by the size of you counters, it will have to be map quality.
JPG files are smaller than an equivalent PNG file because it is a ‘lossy’ format that throws away ‘unnecessary’ data. When you converted from PNG to JPG, you would have been asked for a percentage ‘quality’ value to use. The lower the % you specify, the smaller the resulting file becomes at the expense of the image quality when it is reconstituted.
For large-scale maps where you spend a lot of time zoomed in anyway, the lack of fidelity is not necessarily a problem. For my GTS modules, I do all preparation work and changes as PNG’s at 100% quality. At the last moment before copying into the module, I convert the to JPG with a ‘90%’ quality setting. This give a large reduction is size with an amount of image degradation that is not noticeable. It’s a matter of trying different values and seeing what works for you.
My standard counter size is 75x75 with the map scaled to hexes 110 pixels across the flat side. You may have some scope to reduce the overall size of the map if it has a larger hex to counter size than that.
Rgds.
I’ll see what I can do about reducing the map quality.
Alternatively, a simple batch script could use ImageMagick to resize everything quite easily (I’m not an ImageMagick expert, so I don’t know the commands to use off the top of my head).
converted from PNG to JPG, you would have been asked for a percentage ‘quality’ value to use. The lower the % you specify, the smaller the resulting file becomes at the expense of the image quality when it is reconstituted.
THIS Worked 