Hello everyone! I hope you guys have been having fun or at least are in expectation of having fun ... Anyways!
As you all are probably aware, some test runs have been occurring. This is just to get used to the Map Tools system and work out connectivity issues. And so on.
To those who attended the last test session, you asked me how my character token was different.
Basically, it's something called a
framework. A framework is a collection of macros, tokens, icons, and other things that help you play a specific campaign setting in MapTool. This framework helps you play Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition!
As a player, you can make macros for powers and actions - It takes a bit of time reading, but it's overall not to difficult. There might be a lot of trial and error involved, but it's simple once you get the hang of it. Of course, if you don't want to use this framework's functions, you aren't obligated to. You can just play "vanilla" style, so to speak.
I'll explain where to get said framework and how to adjust everything in a later post.
But first, let's talk about
tokens! (Feel feel to skip if you already made a token and are content with it.)
If you haven't made a token, click on the spoiler tag!
[SPOILER="Spoiler"]A token is your character that you can move around and do stuff with.
You need this to play.
The process for creating a token is easy, all you need is:
- A picture to represent your character
- The latest version of Map Tools and Token Tool (Download Link here)
- A mouse
Anyway. Once you've downloaded Token tool and Map Tools, go to the Token Tool folder and double click on the file named "tokentool-1.0.b28"
This will open a little window to create your token.
- Drag your image file from your computer screen to the black portion of the Token Tool window.
- Once the image is present, drag the image to the brown wood border at the center.
- You can also re-size the image using the mouse wheel or clicking on the Zoom buttons on the right. Some people want a full body picture while others prefer a face. The choice is yours.
- Do not change any of the numerical values to the right. The standard settings are fine by themselves.
- You can also change the border for aesthetic purposes. Under the top right preview screen, there's a drop down option next to the border picture. Here you can change your token's border to anything you would like. Experiment to see what fits you best!
- After you have the token of your dreams, making sure to review the token preview on the top right, either click on the top left file menu and hit Save Token or hit CTRL+S.
- Lastly, name your newly-created token image. Your character name should be good and be sure to save it in an appropriate place. Your desktop should be enough. And now you should have a new image file of your token!
[/SPOILER]
So are we done? Nope. Haha! Off to Map Tools! ^^
Open up your Map Tools folder and click on "MapToolLauncher.exe"
Be sure to have your token image somewhere easily accessible.
Now a window should pop up with Max Mem and Min Mem. These are important.
You can fill in numerical values in order to allocate how much memory (RAM) Map Tools can use. This is important, because if a low number is placed - you will lag/crash.
On our test runs, the highest I ever saw my memory usage go was about 350 MB.
I personally wrote the number 1024 (Which is about 1 GB) next to Max Mem and 512 next to Min Mem. Probably an overkill, but whatever Max Mem value you use, it's recommended to half that number for your Min Mem.
LEAVE your STACK SIZE at TWO!
Stack size is used when you have complex macros and need to be able to "stack" more lines of coding. If you increase this value without having these macros, your memory usage will be drastically increased and you might run into error messages. This value should be changed if and only if you decide to use the framework I mentioned earlier.
Of course, you don't have it right now - so just leave it alone until I tell you to.
When you have finished adjusting your memory values, click "Ok".
You will be presented with a green field. Now, drag your token image to the green field.
You will be prompted by a box, write the name of your character and check PC (Player character) - then hit "Ok".
Tada! You have a token. Right click on it and hit "Edit".
You can add your stats under Properties.
Under "Config" you can drag an image to have a portrait.
Those should be basic enough steps. At the very least you have a token.
When you finish adjusting your token, right click on it and hit "Save".
Now you can save your actual token with all it's settings onto a file. You can then drag this new token file onto MapTools whenever you want to bring it back. It will retain all your adjustments.
This is all I can write for now, I hope this helps some of you guys. I promise I'll write about the framework later.
But for now, make sure you have your token that you want to use!