Maps
Maps provide the foundation for any virtual tabletop. While Shard Tabletop does not have a mechanism for creating maps, it does make it easy to import any image in .jpg or .png format. You can upload a map image from the Maps page or from any place that you pick a map. The image for a map is always stored as art, with the map referencing the art. This allows you to use the same art for multiple maps, useful for a battle map image used in multiple maps. It also allows you to change the art for a map while maintaining the rest of the state for the map.
Key map concepts to understand when using maps:
Maps are stored in the user account not in a campaign. Once a map is uploaded it can be used in any campaign. You can mark favorite maps in a campaign and each campaign has its own recently used list to make it easy to return to a map. Current fog state for a map is stored in the campaign allowing a single map to have different fog state for each campaign.
Maps have a scale. The scale used to allow measurements on the map and show tokens at the correct size.
Map settings dialog
The map settings dialog allows you to set the basic attributes of a map:
Name: name used to identify the map.
Type: basic type of the map: battle, building, city/town, continent, dungeon, region, or world.
Environments: environments found on the map.
Scaling: describes scale of the map. The grid size determines the width of the alignment grid displayed and used to calculate the overall map dimensions. When maps are displayed they always use a 5ft grid, but they will align with the upper left hand corner of the alignment grid.
Change Image: allows you to select different artwork or upload a new art image. Note: be careful when changing the image if you don’t want to have previous map pins misaligned. Pins are always relative to the upper left corner of the image.
Alternate Map Images: allow you pick alternate images for a map. Gamemasters can switch which image to use for the map allowing different images for progressions like a sinking ship or for different times of day or year.
After creating a new map or clicking on a map in maps page, you are taken to the map viewer. The same basic map viewer is also available in book build mode and the encounter builder. The map settings returns you to the dialog show above allowing you to change any of the settings for a map.
The tools have the following functions (left to right):
Project (square with arrow): toggle projecting the map to a second window. The second window will show the player view of the map. This second window can be moved onto a second screen to project when playing in person. Clicking on the new map will maximize the window without any borders. Note: this button will not display on mobile phones or tablets where the ability to project a second screen is unavailable.
Select (pointer arrow): place map in select mode. In select mode you can click on pins and map tokens to move and rotate them. Single click on the tokens will also bring up the menu to perform actions.
Move (four arrows): place map in move mode. In move mode clicking on the map will allow you to move the map. Note: in other modes right click drag will also allow you to move the map.
Zoom (magnifying glass): displays tools to adjust the zoom level of the map. The plus zooms in on the map and the minus zooms out on the map. Fit scales map to show all entries on the map, all shows the whole map and zoom makes the zoom level appropriate for a 5ft scale.
Grid (square): toggle display of a 5ft grid. The grid is aligned based on the map settings and will be hidden if you zoom out too far.
Pick (picture): pick a new map to display. You can choose a recently selected map, pick from the full list of maps, upload a new map, or search the web for a map.
Pins: toggle display of different pin types. The move group pin allows you to move all of the players together and can be useful for finding characters on a large scale map where the tokens are very small. Location pins identify locations on a map with labels that can include references to books, encounters or other maps. Previous Encounter pins show where finished encounters were. These can be handy to see where the campaign has been and can be used to restore the state of a previous encounter, possibly finish any tasks from the encounter.
Fog (eye): provides a menu of actions to control fog of war on the map. Undo will undo the last unfog action or the last vertex when creating a polygon. Clear all removes all fog from the map, while Reset covers the entire map with fog.
Polygon (5 point shape): allows you to unfog a polygon region. While in this mode an initial click will start a polygon. You can then click as points as you want and when you click the original point the polygon will be closed and unfogged.
Rectangle (square): allows you to select a rectangle to remove fog from the map.
Brush (brush): allows you to paint to unfog the map using a circular brush of various sizes. Note: if you start unfogging in a fog region then only areas within that region will be unfogged.
Fog Regions (overlapping rectangles): enters fog region mode. Existing regions will be highlighted on the map along with the vertices. You can drag the vertices to adjust regions or create new regions similar to using the polygon tool.
In addition to actions on tokens there are also menu actions available on the map and pins.
On the Map:
Center: move the map to center on the selected spot.
Huddle: group monsters or characters that are in combat around the selected spot. This will also add any entries not already on to the map.
Add Monster: this will bring up the monster picker dialog to add new monsters. Any monsters added will be grouped around the selected location.
Add Token: this will allow you to add a token to the map. If a token is added then the map will switch to select mode to allow you to position and rotate the token.
Unfog/Restore Fog: if you are over a fog region then you can choose to unfog or restore the fog to the region.
Delete Fog: if you are over a fog region then you can delete the fog region.
New Encounter: this will create a new encounter pinned to the selected location.
Set Encounter Location: in an encounter view this will move the pin for the encounter to the selected location on the map. Note: this will also adjust the book location for the encounter based on the current book location as well.
New Pin: creates a new pin on the map. Pins may have book references, map references and encounters.
Pin Actions will appear when you click on a pin:
Show/Hide Pin: this controls if the pin will show to players. Generally pins will be hidden, but could be shown as players discover locations or to show well known locations on a map.
Edit Encounter: show the details of the encounter.
Go to Book: change the book selection to the book, chapter and section.
Go to Map: navigate the pin to the linked map.
Edit: edit information for a pin. Note: you can delete a pin from the edit dialog.