As discussed in Marketplace Item Types and Categories article, Maps are categorized on the Marketplace as Map Packs, Tile Sets, World Maps, Dynamically Lit Maps, and Dashboards and can be accessed from the Art Library tab of the Roll20 Tabletop or from the Customer's "My Marketplace Items" page in the case of Dynamically Lit Addons.
This article will walk you through best practices for creating Map Art.
Review the Token and Other Non-Map Art Guidelines article for guidance on creating other Art assets.
Map File Types and Dimensions
When creating any Maps for Roll20, be mindful to adhere to our Image Specifications in addition to any information found below, paying close attention to image resolution recommendations.
We recommend creating Map art at a 2-times scale to prevent image pixelation when zooming in on a Page past 100%. (Example: a battlemap that is 25 square grid cell units wide by 30 tall would have a final image dimension of 3,500px wide by 4,200px tall.)
The following table displays the recommended pixel dimensions at which to create Maps by grid type. Non-Square Grids have pixel approximations for some of their cell height and width values as the grid is mathematically drawn. Unless you're specifically creating Hex or Isometric/Diametric artwork, use the square grid dimensions.
Image Dimensions for Maps
| Grid Type | Grid Cell Pixel Dimensions | Pixel Scale for Map Art (per grid cell) |
|---|---|---|
| Square Grid | 70px wide by 70px tall | 140px wide by 140px tall |
| Vertical Hexagon Grid ⬢ | 81px wide by 94px tall | 162px wide by 188px tall |
| Horizontal Hexagon Grid ⬣ | 94px wide by 81px tall | 188px wide by 162px tall |
| Isometric Grid | ~121px wide by 70px tall | 242px wide by 140px tall |
| Diametric Grid | 140px wide by 70px tall | 280px wide by 70px tall |
Note: These image dimensions are for static art assets (not animated). Animated art for maps should try to use the smallest pixel dimensions and image resolution possible to prevent performance degradation/long upload processing times.
File Types
We recommend creating JPGs whenever possible. PNGs should only be used if transparency or translucency is required in your map. For animated map assets, create GIFs or WEBM files.
We don't recommend including an entire map graphic as an animated file. Isolate the elements on the map that will be animated as their own smaller animated art assets where the purchaser can then overlay the animated pieces over a JPG of the full-sized map. Wholly animated maps should be less than 2k resolution overall.
General Map Design Recommendations
Here are general recommendations for optimizing the performance of Maps on Roll20.
Gridded vs. Gridless Maps
You may wonder if you should include a drawn grid on your Map art. This is up to your discretion based on your art subject and map type.
If you do include a grid on your artwork, you will want to make sure that the art’s grid matches up with Roll20’s grid and that it snaps correctly into place when the image is dragged out onto the Tabletop. You will want to avoid frustrating the purchaser by forcing them to do a lot of manual custom scaling to align your artwork so the two grids match up.
We also recommend including a gridless version of each Map in your Marketplace Packs to provide a choice based on the preference of the purchasers.
Positioning Dungeon Walls
When creating rooms and doorways for top-down battlemaps, a good rule of thumb is to avoid drawing the lines of your walls and barriers to terminate right against a grid line. Instead, you want the grid line to bisect the wall so that elements of the wall can be seen from either side of a grid cell. This allows Players to get a better idea of where walls and doors are when navigating a location with Dynamic Lighting.
The following two images will show the difference in the Player's view with Dynamic Lighting Enabled. We've used one of Meditating Munky’s Modular Mansions Maps with a Token from Devin Night’s Heroic Characters 2 collection.
GOOD: In this first image, where the grid lines bisect through the walls of the map, the Player here will still see hints of the perimeter of the room as well as be able to note the locations of elements such as doors and windows.
BAD: In the second image, we shifted the map art so that the gridlines sit on the perimeter edge of the wall. With Dynamic Lighting on, you'll note that the only visible portion of the door is the far right edge of the doorknob. The Player will likely find it very difficult to find this door unless the GM manually points it out on the Tabletop. If this had been an open entranceway with no door graphic at all, the Player would not have seen any indication of its location.
Whole Maps vs. Individual Rooms. Furnished vs. Unfurnished Maps?
When building a campaign, the design of maps is subject to GM preference. Some may want to piece together their ideal map, room by room, adding props and furniture with deliberate care. Others may prefer utilizing a fully constructed map that best fits the theme of an encounter.
You may find that you see greater success creating Map Packs that cater to the visual needs of both types of GMs. We recommend including unfurnished versions of the fully assembled/furnished maps in your Pack, as well as additional art assets that allow GMs to add or block entranceways, windows, etc. in addition to whatever furnishings you may want to provide.
Catering Toward Page Defaults
The default page settings for all new games in Roll20 display a square grid measuring 25x25 units. You might want to cater some of your map artwork to be set to those exact dimensions for GMs who are in a hurry and need to quickly build a page during last-minute prep or have to assemble one mid-session.
Keep Track of your Image Dimensions
Covered in-depth in the How to Submit Products to the Marketplace article, Roll20's Bulk Uploader provides dimensions properties to assign the default height and width of all assets so that they can be resized automatically when dragged from the Art Library to the Tabletop.
If these Width and Height fields are not updated, Roll20 will resize the image to 1x1 grid units when the assets are dragged to the Tabletop, forcing the purchaser to manually resize and scale your images. Keep track of how many grid units each image asset should take up on the Tabletop so you can add those image properties when you’re uploading the art assets to your Art Pack.
Keep Map Titles, Symbols, Labels, and Legends as Separate Art Assets
To make your artwork as versatile as possible, consider avoiding incorporating these elements on your Map itself. Provide them as smaller art assets that can be placed on top of the map image, or include labeled and unlabeled variants in your Art Pack. The Purchaser might want to use their own symbols and naming conventions or ignore all those elements entirely.
Types of Map
To optimize Marketplace search results, Partners must choose the correct Map categorization during creation. You can review all Marketplace Item Types and Categories.
As a summary, the Categories for Maps are:
- Tile Sets: Art assets that are assembled by the purchaser to build a complete map
-
Map Packs: Complete maps that are ready to use
- Some include a grid, others are gridless; many packs offer both versions
- World Maps: Overland, city, world, universe maps
- Dynamically Lit Maps: Installed as Game Addons with Dynamic Lighting
- Dashboards: Map borders and play dashboards
Next, let's take a look at the specifications and use cases for each:
Tile Sets
(credit to Partner: Modular Dungeon Craft)
Tile Sets are a collection of modular images that serve as building blocks for Purchasers to construct their own maps. It is crucial when building a Tile Set that the image dimensions for your assets are correctly sized to fit the grid type you’re creating for. Otherwise, the purchaser is going to have a frustrating experience piecing your content together on the Tabletop. Without proper care taken in the creation phase of the art, the scaling and snapping of the tile images might not function correctly, resulting in modular items not lining up seamlessly when placed together. Set ample time aside before you release your Tile Set to test out your images on the Tabletop to make sure they are aligning and snapping to the grid in the way you expect them to.
For furnishing and prop image assets, you’ll want to make sure they follow the same rectangular image dimension ratio as your map graphics. That way they'll fit neatly on the grid without aspect warping.
Map Packs
(credit to Partners: Gabriel Pickard, The MAD Cartographer, NovemberRush)
Map Packs typically include fully assembled battlemaps drawn from various perspectives and may or may not feature a grid drawn on the artwork. Common variants featured within Map Packs include:
- color or style options (example: blue, green, red, full-color, parchment, black & white)
- situational options (example: day, night, summer, winter, rain, snow)
They also often include furnished and unfurnished versions as separate maps in the same Pack, as well as decoration elements to be overlayed.
World Maps
(credit to Partners: Misjay Maps, Mythic Portal Games, Deven Rue)
World Maps are overland, city, world, universe, or other maps that are not meant for use with precise Token placement. Despite the nomenclature, they don't have to incorporate an entire world and often feature a singular continent, kingdom, city, or town. Additional stylized legends, keys, labels, or icons may also be included in World Maps.
Sizing Your World Map
When setting up a World Map in their Game, the GM will likely enable the grid briefly on the Page to snap the image into place. Then in the Page Settings, the GM can adjust the Scale so that every grid cell can be any increment of the distance they want to define it as (ex. feet, miles, kilometers, fruit rollups, etc). Once that’s set they may disable the grid so that content on the Page no longer snaps to the grid, but the Ruler Tool will still be able to measure with whatever scale the GM stipulated in the Page Settings.
Dynamically Lit Maps
(credit to Partner: Meditating Munky)
Dynamically Lit Maps are installed as Game Addons with Dynamic Lighting. They feature Maps already added to Pages, aligned to the grid, and with fully-prepared Dynamic Lighting.
When to Create a Dynamically Lit Map
Not every map needs Dynamic Lighting. Outdoor battle maps that don’t involve buildings or any other line-of-sight obstructions will use Daylight Mode (if Dynamic Lighting is used at all) and will not need obstruction lines drawn on the Dynamic Lighting Layer.
Examples of maps best suited for Dynamic Lighting are interior or exterior spaces that feature walls, corridors, crowded streets, etc. If there’s potential for a Player or NPC to get lost or if a GM may want to use walls and other obstructions to set up ambushes, the map is a good candidate for Dynamic Lighting. The more complex the dungeon, the more beneficial a purchaser will find your product if you offer it with all the Dynamic Lighting work done for them in advance.
Partners often bundle Map Packs with Dynamically Lit versions of the same art.
How Many Maps Should I Include in a Dynamically Lit Map Addon?
An example of a Dynamically Lit Map Item that can get away with being a single Page (and a single battle map) would be a large sprawling dungeon. For smaller spaces, you might want to include different variations of the location on separate Pages. If you have a multi-floor location with a lot of complexity, you might want to separate the individual floorplans on their own Pages. Purchasers are going to judge the value of what they’re getting with the price you set for the Item. What will draw a Purchaser to a Dynamically Lit Map is the time saved by the product and the quality/content of the artwork.
Dynamically Lit Map Addon Elements
If you aren’t familiar with the Dynamic Lighting feature, you can read up on how it works and how to set it up over at the What Is Dynamic Lighting? help article.
Dynamic Lighting Line Colors
We use the following line weight and colors for our in-house conversions when drawing the obstruction lines for Dynamic Lighting.
- Use the “Regular” Line Weight selection
- Use Blue ■ (Hex #0000ff, RGB: 0,0,255) for walls and immovable objects like tree lines.
- Use Orange ■ (#ff9900, RGB: 255,153,0) for doors, secret doors, curtains, and other movable line-of-sight breaks that the DM may want to be able to move/remove manually.
- You can now also add Doors (including locked and secret doors) as their own Dynamic Lighting elements. Read this article for more!
- Use Pink ■ (Hex #ff00ff, RGB: 255, 0, 255) for one-way lines
- Use Cyan ■ (Hex #00FFFF, RGB: 0, 255, 255) for transparent barriers such as windows, cell bars, and portcullises.
- You can now Windows as their own Dynamic Lighting elements. Read this article for more!
The chosen colors are ones that are more accessible for a user who might be color blind.
Adding Light Sources
If your battle map art utilizes lighting elements such as braziers, open flames, and other lighting features, you should include light-emitting Tokens on the map. Either use your own artwork for the Token and set its Dynamic Lighting Token Settings to Emit Light or use the Place Light Tool on the Tabletop Toolbar to add default torch Tokens that automatically Emit Light.
Using Other Features of the Tabletop
(An example of using a Rollable Table Token for a portion of a dungeon map that can transform from Wizards of the Coast's Tomb of Annihilation adventure)
Just because you’re creating a Dynamically Lit Map Game Addon does not mean you are restricted to just Pages and the Tabletop. If other elements of the Roll20 Tabletop such as Handouts or Rollable Table Tokens can add more functionality to your maps, use them! Nearly everything you add to the Game that will be used as the template for your Dynamically Lit Map Marketplace Item will carry over to the Customer's game.
Dashboards
(credit to Partners: Martin Pedersen, Domille, and 2D Storyteller)
Dashboards create a bulletin board of your progress in a TTRPG game. This content is often seen when a Player first joins a game, so the art sets the theme and mood of whatever is being played. GMs will typically add their own art and text to the Dashboard Page that represents significant events that have occurred in their collective story between game sessions.
Sizing Dashboard Assets
Similar to how World Maps are scaled, a Dashboard covered landing Page will likely be made small enough so that a GM or Player won’t have to do too much scrolling around the Page to see its entirety. Depending on what you’re designing, expect to have your art placed on a Page that’s not much bigger than what can be seen at first glance on a browser window.