Anyone know any super special awesome and most importantly multiplayer mapmaking apps for Hangout use? I’ve used Roll20, but in my experience it’s very laggy on that front. I’ve also played around with a couple of general-purpose whiteboard apps, which seem promising, but I’d love to hear about any favorite apps that you guys might have.
Anyone know any super special awesome and most importantly multiplayer mapmaking apps for Hangout use?
Anyone know any super special awesome and most importantly multiplayer mapmaking apps for Hangout use?
I personally use maptool (http://www.rptools.net/?page=maptool). Hope can be useful… 🙂
I’m curious, is it the construction of maps you find laggy about Roll20, and are you solely using it in hangouts, or through the website?
Yeah, it’s the drawing tool that I find laggy. It works great for other things, but the map tool is practically unusable for me. That said, I’ve only ever used it through Hangouts. Kinda hoping to keep things integrated so people don’t have to keep switching between windows, but I guess that’s not really a deal-breaker. Does it run any smoother via the website?
I probably should have specified, also, that multi-user functionality is a necessity; I’m running Dawn of Worlds as part of campaign setup, so it’s going to be a collaborative mapmaking experience.
Thanks for the rec, Emiliano Chiarello. I don’t know if I’ll use it for this game in particular (everyone needing to download and install something is a bit of a turnoff) but it looks like it would be good for producing cleaned-up versions. 🙂
google drive draw app?
James Etheridge I draw the base of my maps, floors and walls only, in http://pyromancers.com/ the online tool. Then export that image. Then I put the image in my roll20 account, running in chrome, not hangouts. From there I build the rest of the map using roll20 existing assets and whatever I upload. I use that to add all the set pieces, tokens and enemies. It can take a while to load for players if you go nuts at that stage though.
Photoshop would be the best thing to recommend (or GIMP) if you are more design skilled. There is more upfront work involved but obviously a lot more flexibility too.
When we don’t use Roll20 I just use whatever our current preferred drawing app is on our PC and share our desktop through Hangouts. One of our GM’s uses PowerPoint (because he knows it well enough to be able to draw quickly on the fly).
Maptools honestly is probably your best bet. There is a huge list of resources and tutorials and such here http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/ and it is free. It is probably what I will be switching to for map creation. This is a good overview of someone using maptools to make maps for roll20 that seems to be aimed at complete beginners Using Maptool to Create Roll20 Maps
Thanks for all the recommendations, guys! I don’t think any of the suggested tools will work for what I need, but I’m sure I’ll find other applications for them in the future!
Tim Franzke, in my last campaign we tried using Drive to keep character sheets and other documents available, but it caused some weird graphical glitches; every time someone had Drive open, it would cause all their text to flash intermittently, even in other apps like Roll20 and the chat window. Do you know if the draw app has the same problem?
Excellent article Mike Wice. Thank you for sharing that one!!