Going Forward - Patron Feedback Requested!

Hi folks!

I'm just posting to give you, my Patrons, an opportunity to voice your opinions on a few things.

I've spoken to some of the folk in the Curse of Strahd Discord, and they had some suggestions for how to proceed with my maps going forward. If you have any other ideas (or any concerns regarding the ideas below), please share them!

To summarize:

1: I may switch from PNG to WebP format.
2: I may reduce the pixel count from 256 pixels to 128 across all maps.
3: I may adjust the environmental lighting, and provide a variant with no lighting whatsoever.
4: I may start including map sizes in the file names for convenience, unless it's deemed that the titles would then be too unwieldy.


To elaborate:

1: I may begin exporting my maps in WebP format, as this is a smaller file size than PNG. This will save on storage space, and it should save me time when it comes to exporting maps. I don't know what to do with regards Roll20, however, since it doesn't support WebP format, but it also has a 10MB upload limit for free accounts anyway, so a lot of my 70px PNG maps would need to be compressed regardless. Anybody have any thoughts for how to address that specifically?

2: The maps that are 256 pixels per square take up a lot of space and it's a level of detail that may not be necessary for VTTs anyway - lowering the pixel count to, for example 128 per square, will cut down file sizes further. I'm including images in this post that will allow you to compare the pixel counts, just so you know exactly how much information we'd be losing by dropping to 128 (and in the changeover to WebP format). In saying that, I have to export most maps that have more than 50 squares in any direction at 128 pixels per square anyway, as otherwise, Dungeondraft refuses to export the files for me. So, this would just make the full size maps more consistent.

3: The maps are very dark - this is an intentional choice on my part, but does have certain drawbacks. Primarily, if your viewing conditions aren't ideal, the maps can quite easily become illegible. The darker the map's starting point, the less useful Foundry's Day/Night cycle will prove (and since many of my Patrons appear to use Foundry, this isn't ideal). As such, I'm going to experiment with changing the environmental lighting effects - hopefully it works out, but if not, I might also supply versions of the maps that have no lighting effects whatsoever, to give you more control on the maps.


The files I've attached to this post should give you an example of the quality and size of the different file types - please feel free to check them out and let me know what you think!