Thread: readable text on the maps ?

jaedarph : thank you for the C8 patch, I didn't know it existed. It fixes few annoying problems, but the anti-aliasing option doesn't work :-/

But, but, but, I found a solution :-))) : I export the map with a great size (5000px for example), and after, I reduce the size of the jpeg file (with Photofiltre). The texts are readable, the line are smooth, no scales, no need to add blur effects on all the sheets (or almost), no need to add the texts with an other software ... houra !!!

Originally Posted by Noon

jaedarph : thank you for the C8 patch, I didn't know it existed. It fixes few annoying problems, but the anti-aliasing option doesn't work :-/

But, but, but, I found a solution :-))) : I export the map with a great size (5000px for example), and after, I reduce the size of the jpeg file (with Photofiltre). The texts are readable, the line are smooth, no scales, no need to add blur effects on all the sheets (or almost), no need to add the texts with an other software ... houra !!!

It might not work because anti-aliasing is turned off by default. You have to go into Tools -> Options and then check the anti-alias button to turn it on. Give it a % value of anywhere from 35% to around 50% for best results. Then do a File -> Save As and pull down the type of bitmap (BMP, JPG or PNG) you want to save as. You can set other options for export there as well.

Alternately, from the File -> Save As, click Options button, and you'll get the same thing as above. Another cool option (if you are exporting the whole map and don't want to include anything outside the map like a white polygon mask that hides things that cross the map border) is to check "restrict image to map border" as well.

I did all this, but the software crashes, systematically :-/
I think that I choose too great sizes (3000 or 4000 pixels).

Originally Posted by Noon

I did all this, but the software crashes, systematically :-/
I think that I choose too great sizes (3000 or 4000 pixels).

Yeah if you want 3000 x 4000 output and put in a high % value, the program will up those numbers (double, triple or more) and crash out. You may have to experiment with lower % values.

You can anti-alias it yourself by rendering it 200% in each dir and then blurring it slightly in Gimp and then resampling down by 50% in Gimp. Sounds from the above posts that the software is just trying to do this internally but with 2x or 4x on top of 4000px its too big for it.

Originally Posted by Redrobes

You can anti-alias it yourself by rendering it 200% in each dir and then blurring it slightly in Gimp and then resampling down by 50% in Gimp. Sounds from the above posts that the software is just trying to do this internally but with 2x or 4x on top of 4000px its too big for it.

Yeah, that's exactly what's happening at larger sizes. Thanks for the GIMP tip though - I may try that with some of my larger images.

My largest size exports have been my Castle of the Mad Archmage poster maps - I've been exporting them at 3440 x 3200. I was able to export a PNG that size with anti-alias at 60% which gave a 8600 x 8000 "temporary" image, but it took about 5 minutes to generate (17 passes). If I try anything higher, I crash CC3.

Anyhow, it's a good start, and hopefully Profantasy will continue to "tweak" it as Simon mentioned.

Heres my tut covering this stuff with more explaination:
[Award Winner] Bitmapped Images - The technical side of things explained.
interesting bits is in posts #9 and #10 for this stuff.