VIDEO: Grasshopper's G40 Custom Table

@The-Captain
I used 3mm thumb nuts drilled out to fit 3mm acrylic rods. I used a number of 3d printed jigs for cutting the rods, assembly of the stands and gluing the magnets. If I remember later I’ll attached some pictures of the jigs/stands

Sorry only just saw this

So step one would be finding the right image editing program for what you’re trying to achieve. TripleA uses raster graphics images (basically png) and is not suitable for printing. Upscaling the largest relief I’ve made in tripleA and trying to print it at 600 dpi the filesize gets quite beefy. Basically an image that’s like 50mb for use in tripleA is going to climb way up by orders of magnitude into the many gigabytes. It will also tax the RAM pretty hard if you’re trying to edit an image that large (in actual dimensions) like trying to use multiple layers at once. I have a pretty high end gaming laptop and I topped out around 8000p before GIMP started giving me headaches and slowing to a crawl.

What you probably want is an image that you can manipulate as SVG rather than PNG. A vector so you can upscale the image to any dimensions that way (basically the same way font works.) I would try Inkscape or Adobe, and try to get a pull of the image as a vector graphic.

You can start the same as you would in tripleA by creating a baseline image of the basic world map, the continent contours or world warp you want and the territory or sea zone divisions, showing just the basic borderlines in 100% black at 1px width at the desired dimensions for the digital thing.

A physical print would be much larger, so imagine that on your screen you got 72p per inch, on paper that needs to be 600 dpi. You can go lower say 300 dots per inch if it’s very graphic, but a photo quality print is basically like 600p, which is pretty hefty. In a program like inkscape or illustrator etc you can translate a raster image into something that works for stuff like signage, you know, so like making a giant banner image to put on the side of a truck or hang outside a building - same sorta deal here for the scale of the image you’d want to make. Probably the size of a 6 or 8 foot banquet table, possibly larger depending, on what you’re trying to pull off.

If you have the map drawn out at scale, you can scan in sections at A3 or A4 size with a flat scanner and then reassemble the image, to pull it at the highest resolution you can before bringing that image into inkscape to create a vector of it.

ps. here are some youtube tutorial videos on inkscape just to see what sort of stuff I mean. You can probably find more just pulling at those threads. Once you have a map design you can put in tripleA to playtest it by creating a baseline from your svg, exporting the image as a bitmap or png where the borderlines are just solid black ideally at 1px width for those lines, or as close as you can get. For a map image something that’s like 2000-4000p tall and about twice as wide or larger works well for digital sculpts which are png images at 48-54px tall up to 125% currently in tripleA. The map size in tripleA is sorta limited by the unit graphics sizes and the windows in the UI. In inkscape you can make it larger, like for whatever makes sense to have the print look decent. Anyhow, just a quick example you can skip around to see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ns028ihACs&list=PL_NagE_y_IhIBNAzw3nFBiF01OKnaltmJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnqtnSTe6qM

https://youtu.be/kS2nrXuR128?t=2611

for tripleA you can use GIMP to make the relief images in png. Here’s an example of similar videos in that program

https://youtu.be/HLmOpEETjEo?t=646

@GeneralHandGrenade:

I was just going to fork over my roundels SS. Feel free to send a well equipped, well fed army capable of stemming the onslaught of fascism and imperialism at the dawn of the nuclear age.

Attack !!!

Smitty I sent you a PM

I do sell pieces cheaper than HBG plus I do have the 3 x 6  anniversary map also that I may part with.

@Young:

I’m deep into trying to get my custom card decks released right now, but I will certainly look into it.

Yeah I use your first card deck without the house roules for my games.  :-D

@siredblood:

@GeneralHandGrenade:

I couldn’t find any magnets that thin. I just redid mine yesterday and had to use thicker ones. Good job Sired.

I don’t know if they have Home Depot in Canada, but that’s where I got it, if not, you can find it here :

http://www.homedepot.com/p/MASTER-MAGNETICS-3-4-in-x-26-ft-Magnetic-Tape-with-Dispenser-96774/204752648?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cTHD%7cG%7c0%7cG-BASE-PLA-D25H-Hardware%7c&gclid=CN-u3In81tECFUi2wAodQuQIAA&gclsrc=aw.ds

It has bad reviews lol, but it works good, just don’t stick to anything. However the drop of super glue seems to work, as they have never fell off.

Thanks for the comment cyanight, all your magnetic mods are pretty amazing!

We do have Home Depot (all over the place here), but they don’t seem to carry Magnetic Tape.,… well, they do, but it’s this stuff : https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.12-x-10-magnetic-tape.1000418120.html?autoSuggest=pip which wouldn’t work as it’s a LOT thicker.

I HAVE however seen that stuff at Micheals Arts and Crafts. You’re right, it doesn’t stick well (or at all) so superglue is a must.

This pic is of IL’s map and I am making a custom table for these smaller 1 on 1 games. Will have the wing affect on end like my 2 custom gaming tables with 1 dice box and battle boards. I will post pics when I get it done. Guys in group looking to play this game.
I’ll be able to take it anywhere I want to play.

Yes IL I know about the flooring. Just ain’t around. I’m still looking.

image1(13).png
Battle Boards.png

@Der:

From the War Room in Illinois…

Fantastic… love the hats, love the look of all your customizations, and love that you got a lady in your group.

I’ll tweet those pics today.

Very nice indeed.