Realm Works - Working With Maps

Today I show the various features available when working with maps within Realm Works.

Realm Works - Forgotten Realm (Faerun) Interactive Map

I've been slowly chipping away at this project for a number of week now. But I finally completed entering all of the location date from the Storm King's Thunder into Realm Works as an interactive map.

Now I can click all over the realm to find out more information about the area!

This is achieved using the Smart Image functionality within Realm Works.

CC3+ / DD3 - How To Create Basic Dungeon Maps

This video runs through how to make a simple underground dungeon map using Campaign Cartographer 3+ (with Dungeon Designer 3).

If you would like to know more about CC3+ then click HERE.

After watching this video you should be capable of creating and outputting a simple map for use at your virtual table top.

Once you have created your map, check out this video to see MapTool in action.

Upgrading the Projector Setup

I finally got sick of the huge mirror cutting my game room in half. It worked well to bounce the projector image onto the table, it certainly made a large output, but it made the room feel cramped.

Here's what the old mirror looked like. It was ugly and made the room feel cramped!

The projector was mounted to the roof, aimed at the huge mirror which beamed the image onto the table. It created a massive image which spanned 2x trestle tables which was great but ultimately the picture was weak and the keystone correction was completely off.

So i set about trying to replace the huge mirror with something more suitable that would be mounted to the roof.

I went down to our local scrap-yard and scored a huge win. A huge piece of First Surface Mirror just sitting there begging to be brought home. It was a full body length piece! I couldn't believe my luck when the lady at the front only charged me $7 for the whole thing!

I purchased a glass cutter to get it to a better size and mounted it to some wood with liquid nails. Added a hinge and mounted into to the roof.

The result have been a significant improvement. The image in clearer and brighter. The image beams straight down to there is very little shadowing beneath the models now and the keystone correction is now perfect.

Testing the positioning for the mirror. 

Mirror installed, playing around with the angle.

Happy with the position and angle and gave the mirror a clean.

The town of Red Larch beaming to the table. 

Temple of the Crushing Wave with Fog of War. 

I had to remove the original lights to make room to mount the mirror. I went with this spider like light system allowing me to install a light behind each side of the table. Also in the process of getting a dimmer switch installed to allow greater visibility of the table while still enabling light. 

A shot of my game room in all it's messy glory. You can see the table projection working and the extra monitor above my DM station. I use this to display monsters, npcs and handouts from Realm Works to my players. 

A closer shot of the setup as the players see it.

The view from my DM station. 

Overall both myself and my players are much happier with this setup. Well worth the investment.

Adding A Projector To The Table

I recently moved from playing a homebrew campaign over to planning Prices of the Apocalypse. This presented a real challenge for me. The module contains numerous very large dungeons. Many of which have very unique designs that I wouldn't be able to replicate with my current module dungeon setup. I could of course build each dungeon. But the number of dungeons required and time the players are expected to spend in each dungeon means our game would take years.

I therefore started investigating alternatives for getting the digital maps represented on the table.

Obviously printing was my first thought. It's a viable solution and something that I have done previously. Simply print the map off and play on that. But ink gets expensive and printing a new map every session gets tiresome. Storage of those maps becomes a pain.

So I started looking into a VTT solution.

I've seen some great projects online where people have built tables and built TV's into them. I really wanted a BIG solution though and big TVs are expensive.

So I started looking at projectors. I picked up a second hand one from an office sale and have managed to get a "workable" solution. I'm far from happy yet but it is playable.

I tried aiming the projector directly onto the table and using keystone correction to correct the image. That didn't work and I wasn't happy with the size of the image on the table. The distance from the projector to the table was simply too short for the throw distance of the projector.

As such I stole a mirror from the missus and developed the overly dangerous configuration you see above. This resulted in a much more acceptable output. With this I have displayed some usable images to the tables.

The outstanding problem is the shadows thrown by models on the tables. I really need to find a way to direct the image from above the table instead of the side. We have plans to try out the head of an overhead projector to see if that can increase the size of the image while also directing the output from directly above the table.

Here's some more examples of the current output. The possibilities are exciting.

Eventually I plan on using Realm Works to control the pictures which will give me the ability to restrict Line of Sight for specific parts of the map.