MapTools Tutorial

Message
Author
User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

MapTools Tutorial

#1 Post by Bhart »

I'm finally getting around to doing this...
Tonixx asked me back in October to post some info on how I use MapTool for my PBP games, so here it is. I'll add a bit to it each day over the next week. If anyone has questions post them here and I'll do my best to answer.

EDIT: I'm posting a separate thread for Q&A to avoid clutter. If you have any questions please post them here..
viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1275

What you need...
1. MapTool - Any of the most recent versions will do. You can download it at http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=downloads

2. TokenTool - Very useful for making monster and PC tokens easily. You can download it at the same site as MapTool.

3. Java 6 (1.6) - Java 7 does not currently work with MapTool, so make sure you get 6. Download it at http://www.java.com/en/download/manual_v6.jsp

4. The RPTools forums can be a helpful resource. http://forums.rptools.net

More tomorrow !
Last edited by Bhart on Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
dmw71
POWAH!
POWAH!
Posts: 19543
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:18 pm
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Contact:

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#2 Post by dmw71 »

Given my lack of mapping ability, I'm sure my players will greatly appreciate an improvement in this department.

Following!
-- Project --
Playtest: Untitled Project (1e)
-- DM --
Greyhawk Campaign: Sandbox (1e)
(Status: Archived)

User avatar
onlyme
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 6838
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 12:42 pm
Location: Middle of Carolinas

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#3 Post by onlyme »

dmw71 wrote:Given my lack of mapping ability, I'm sure my players will greatly appreciate an improvement in this department.

Following!

Yeah, it is pretty nifty. I am enjoying it in the T1 game...

I dont know how to copy and paste the pics, but check out his map of those rooms. Includes light circles items, rubble, etc...
Dandelion - female half-orc beautyqueen in training (The Lone City in the Wildlands) OSRIC
Halfpint - female halfling badgirl wannabe (Lab Lord- The North Marches) LL
Mark'd - charismatic human fighter (Lab Lord- The North Marches) LL


User avatar
sulldawga
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 3641
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:26 pm
Location: south of Boston, MA

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#4 Post by sulldawga »

I always wanted to learn how to use it. Thanks for helping out!

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#5 Post by Bhart »

Glad to help. Real life is in the way again. If I don't get something posted tonight I'll have it up this weekend.

User avatar
ToniXX
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 3225
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:21 pm
Location: Long Beach, CA

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#6 Post by ToniXX »

It's too bad that I'd have to roll back my version of Java in order to use this. I don't imagine you can have two versions of Java on the same computer? Thanks for the post, bhart.
"Sir, our research shows that the bird is equal to or greater than the word."

User avatar
dmw71
POWAH!
POWAH!
Posts: 19543
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:18 pm
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Contact:

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#7 Post by dmw71 »

ToniXX wrote:I don't imagine you can have two versions of Java on the same computer?
ToniXX, you absolutely can have multiple versions of Java installed on the same computer: Multiple Java versions running concurrently under Windows

While the above link has a Windows bent to it, which I'm not sure you're using, it should be applicable in other OS's as well.
Moshe wrote:"It is absolutely possible to install side-by-side several JRE/JDK versions. Moreover, you don't have to do anything special for that to happen, as Sun is creating a different folder for each (under Program Files).

There is no control panel to check which JRE works for each application. Basically, the JRE that will work would be the first in your PATH environment variable. You can change that, or the JAVA_HOME variable, or create specific cmd/bat files to launch the applications you desire, each with a different JRE in path
"
-- Project --
Playtest: Untitled Project (1e)
-- DM --
Greyhawk Campaign: Sandbox (1e)
(Status: Archived)

User avatar
Alethan
POWAH!
POWAH!
Posts: 14356
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2010 6:50 pm
Location: Midwest
Contact:

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#8 Post by Alethan »

Yep. In my old support position here at work I had to regularly run software in different versions of Java to ensure it would work properly in those versions.

Joys of software testing. We also had to run some stuff in multiple web browsers to make sure it was compliant with all of them. I was so glad when we FINALLY got to stop testing against Netscape Navigator. What a klunky, buggy piece of kludge THAT was...
Dragon foot. Bamboo pole. Little mouse. Tiny boy.

User avatar
dmw71
POWAH!
POWAH!
Posts: 19543
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:18 pm
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Contact:

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#9 Post by dmw71 »

Alethan wrote:We also had to run some stuff in multiple web browsers to make sure it was compliant with all of them. I was so glad when we FINALLY got to stop testing against Netscape Navigator. What a klunky, buggy piece of kludge THAT was...
Until two days ago, Adobe had a pretty cool feature service called BrowserLab which easily allowed for testing web content across desktop browsers. I don't really do web design any longer, but I know I used it on the few websites I did develop and it was a pretty cool tool.

Bhart, sorry to hijack this thread! :oops:
-- Project --
Playtest: Untitled Project (1e)
-- DM --
Greyhawk Campaign: Sandbox (1e)
(Status: Archived)

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#10 Post by Bhart »

dmw71 wrote:
Alethan wrote:We also had to run some stuff in multiple web browsers to make sure it was compliant with all of them. I was so glad when we FINALLY got to stop testing against Netscape Navigator. What a klunky, buggy piece of kludge THAT was...
Until two days ago, Adobe had a pretty cool feature service called BrowserLab which easily allowed for testing web content across desktop browsers. I don't really do web design any longer, but I know I used it on the few websites I did develop and it was a pretty cool tool.

Bhart, sorry to hijack this thread! :oops:
No worries.

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#11 Post by Bhart »

PART 2 Getting Set Up.

Once you have MapTool installed and running you may want to hide most of the panels that are shown by default. You don't need most of them unless you are using this app as a virtual table top for live games, but that is another tutorial. My focus here is how to use MapTool for PBP games.

So open the 'window' menu and uncheck everything but Map Explorer and Library. Or...A faster way is to click the little x in the upper right corner of each panel.
windowmenu.png
windowmenu.png (458.13 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
Map Tools comes with a very basic set of textures and tokens. So, the next thing you will want to do is add some graphic resources to your Library. In the File menu click "Add Resource to Library...". You should see the following dialog...
add resource1.png
add resource1.png (32.77 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
In this tab you can point to any directory you have on your local drive. Any PNG files in that directory will show up under a folder of the same name in your "Resource Library" panel.

The bottom tab contains resources available from RPTools. Fortunately they have a lot of good stuff and make it easy to get started with a healthy collection of tokens.
add resource2.png
add resource2.png (61.91 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
When you are done you should have a resource panel that looks something like this...
resource panel.png
resource panel.png (69.83 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
If you want to create custom tokens for your players and monsters I highly recommend using TokenTool to do this. It is a fairly simple and straight forward program to use. If anyone would needs a tutorial let me know.

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial plus Q and A

#12 Post by Bhart »

PART 3 Your First Map
Map Tool will open with a default map filled with a grass texture. This is usually not what I want, so I open the Map menu and click "New Map..." which gives me this dialog...
map properties.png
map properties.png (63.16 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
Click on the Background button to choose a background color or texture.

You'll get this dialog below, where you can pick colors or any images from your resource library to use in the background. Note that any image you pick from the resource library shown on the Texture tab will be treated like a texture and tiled (repeated) infinitely across the whole map.
choose bg.png
choose bg.png (138.83 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
For purposes of this demo I'm going to pick a medium gray and change the name to My First Map.
map prop2.png
map prop2.png (24.24 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
You'll get a blank gray area, to show the grid you can press Ctrl (Command) + G, or go to the View menu and click 'Show Grid". You should get the following...
mapstart1.png
mapstart1.png (164.98 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
NEXT...Drawing the dungeon
Last edited by Bhart on Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial

#13 Post by Bhart »

POST MOVED BELOW
Last edited by Bhart on Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:19 am, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial

#14 Post by Bhart »

I just came across a great site that could help everyone out. The site has a set of video tutorials put together by Brad Staeben. He does a much better job of explaining the details than I could do here with text and images. You can find them at...

http://www.rptoolstutorials.net

I will continue to add to this thread with some of my own comments and tips that are specific to PBP games, but I won't get into the gory details of the app since Brad does a better job of it. Not to mention you all could be waiting until 2020 for me to finish considering the rate I'm going. :D

If anyone has questions or needs help please post them in the MapTool Q&A forum. I'd be glad to answer with all the details that you require. ;)

User avatar
rredmond
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 8460
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:46 pm
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial

#15 Post by rredmond »

I think you've been fantastic and really get a lot out of your threads. I'll take your word though that Brad is pretty good too.

Thanks Bill :!:
This is a game about killing things and taking their stuff so you can become more powerful in order to kill bigger things and take even better stuff.
Alethan: I'm good with NOT pressing our luck this time.
mjulius: That's how I know I'm home.
Pulpatoon: The whole point of PbP is to take the scheduling pressure off the game. We're just chatty because we're so eager!
Scott308: ...everyone should be reminded of just how wonderful the people they play games with here can be in real life.
Leitz: Quality and quantity wise, I think US is the best I've seen.
Paladin: I can promise terror, glory, and riches...or a quick and brutal death.
Inferno: Come on! That's was Vicar's Head, a completely different doomed village!
Rex: I can move to the wait list to let someone else into the game.

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial

#16 Post by Bhart »

Thanks Ron. :lol:

PART 4: Drawing the Dungeon
There are 3 ways to make a map.

1. You can paint a complete map in another program like Campaign Cartographer, Dunjinni, etc. Then import the map image into MapTool and place it on the background layer. The basics of how to do this are covered in the following video by Brad Staeben.
http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/videos/ ... ewMap.html

2. You can add a folder full of "dungeon tiles" to your resources and assemble the map by dragging and dropping pieces onto the background layer. I will cover this later.

3. You can create the map using the drawing tools in MapTool. I find this to be the fastest method and it's the one I use most frequently. However they are not the most user friendly tools and do require some practice to get used to.

To get the basics of how the drawing tools work watch these 2 videos.
http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/videos/ ... ayers.html
http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/videos/ ... Intro.html

Note: In the drawing intro movie notice that there is a "snap to grid" button in the quick palette (the button to the left of the eraser). When drawing dungeons on a square grid I prefer to leave snap to grid toggled on. It makes drawing faster and makes things line up nicely. I always draw on the background layer unless it is something I know I want to erase or move later.

After drawing the rooms or area I will add objects like furniture, statues, pillars, etc. by dragging images from my library to the map. By doing this I can easily remove or move elements around if the PC's interact with them. The basics of how to do this are covered in this video...
http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/videos/ ... Intro.html
Last edited by Bhart on Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial

#17 Post by Bhart »

PART 5: Adding tokens to your map
Next you will want to add the PC tokens as well as monsters when needed. You may also need to create your own tokens at times. I keep a growing directory full of tokens for monsters and PCs.

This video by Brad Staeben covers how to create the tokens add them and control their various states on the map.
http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/videos/ ... Intro.html

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial

#18 Post by Bhart »

PART 6: Fog of War, Vision, and Light.
I will add my own comments on this soon.

In the mean time here is the video by Brad on vision and light. He goes into a lot of detail that may not be needed for a PBP game, but it is very informative. :)
http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/videos/ ... ight1.html

User avatar
Bhart
Ranger
Ranger
Posts: 931
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:08 am
Location: South Jersey

Re: MapTools Tutorial

#19 Post by Bhart »

Step 7: Exporting your map
When you have your map set up and you are ready to post it to Unseen Servant you need to export it to an image file. MapTool will export as a PNG file which will work fine for this website.

First resize the MapTool window to the desired size. What is showing in your window is what comes out in the PNG file.

Go to File > Export > Screenshot as...
exportmenu.png
exportmenu.png (258.3 KiB) Viewed 1193 times
You should get this dialog...
dialog.png
dialog.png (34.32 KiB) Viewed 1193 times
Make sure the options are set as shown above and set a file location that is easy to remember. I like to use my desktop.

Click Export and you are good to go!

User avatar
dmw71
POWAH!
POWAH!
Posts: 19543
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:18 pm
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Contact:

Re: MapTools Tutorial

#20 Post by dmw71 »

We very much appreciate you taking the time to detail this process, and also for finding and sharing the other videos. It's a great reference that will undoubtedly improve the game quality of those that begin using it.
-- Project --
Playtest: Untitled Project (1e)
-- DM --
Greyhawk Campaign: Sandbox (1e)
(Status: Archived)

Post Reply

Return to “Tips for the DM”