Sunday 14 June 2015

Maptool goes isometric!

There are wonderful news from Maptool. Jagged has released a beta version of Maptool handling isometric play natively. Meaning not only the handling of figures, but also the management of field of view and lights. And from what I can understand, later versions should make it possible to use not only flat maps (I mean your usual maps transformed in an isometric view), but also true iso maps with iso objects.

Figures are made from  four views of the token that give the impression of change of direction. I had begun to sketch a few of them when experimenting with isometric framework on my own. So, I decided to finish some of them to let you also experiment a little.
I intended to release a bigger pack of them to begin, but, of course, everyone around me decided that it was the best week-end to ... anything else.
So, here are a few figures to begin and I'll post the following ones as soon as they become available.
And as I also intend to make new ones, so don't hesitate to ask for what you would prefer to see.

The first type of figures here are the real isometric figures, meaning that they are drawn at an angle to conform with the isometric view. As their orientation is quite evident, they don't need a base. As they are drawn at a very small size, the resulting figure is 200px wide (which is not important, Maptool rescale it to your game scale), and shouldn't be used at a too big scale.


The second type of figures are false isometric figures, meaning that they are front and back figures (normally made as cardboard figures) and placed on a base showing their orientation. They are more detailed and result as 400px wide figures (which Maptool shall rescale to your gaming scale anyway).
The use of a base with an isometric view mitigates the fact that the figures are not drawn into isometric perspective though it is still visible, particularly when used alongside true isometric figures.

The main advantage of this kind of figures is that there is a huge lot of cardboard figures files waiting out there to be transformed into isometric VTT figures.

FAN03FAN05


Later, I also intend to post tiles and parts of background to use in Tiled to make your own maps directly in isometric views, with some elevations (walls, pillars...).
And later, if the handling of objects becomes available in Maptool, I'll post isometric objects (and a tutorial to make your own in Sketchup).