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Export
Part of Map Making Tools
Export is the last tool on the rail's Finish stage. Use it to save the map as a PNG image you can share anywhere, or (in Foundry) to turn it into a playable Foundry scene with its grid and journal.
The panel's header shows the tool's place in the order of work ("Finish · 2 of 2"). Export changes nothing on the map, so it has no bar and no Start button.
Export on the web, with its Image section. In Foundry the panel also has Foundry scene.
An export shows the map as the map controls show it (see Map Canvas). Before you export, use the map controls to choose what to include:
- the Terrain layers (Elevation, Relief shading, Water and rivers) and Biomes (Land, Sea);
- Routes and pins, Regions, Labels and Decorations (the scale bar, border and decorations from Cartography);
- Contours and the Grid;
- the Thematic layers shown, if any: the colour layer at its opacity and the trade lines (the legends are not drawn into the image; in a Foundry scene the layers are part of the players' map, not the GM overlay).
The map controls' Detail menu and its Regions and Labels menus also apply: an export shows the pins, names and political layers the detail level shows, leaves out the layers and label styles you have unticked, places names as the map does (with Avoid overlaps), and draws pins and names at the map's Symbol size (see Map Canvas).
The reference image and the land masks' outlines are working aids and are never exported, whether or not they are showing. Hidden items are never exported either, even while the Hidden view filter shows them on the map.
Note: the terrain layers are not saved with the map: every map opens with all of them on. Check them again before exporting a map you have just opened.
To export the map as it was in an earlier age, use Export this age in the History tool; to export a journey's day bands, use Export this journey in the Travel tool.
Export to PNG saves the map as a PNG image, showing the layers the map controls have switched on and leaving out the reference image and the land masks' outlines. Items are included as the map shows them, so the view filters in the map controls (Player view and GM view) decide whether GM-only items are in the image.
It first asks for the image's Scale (see Export to PNG). The file is named after the map, for example fwmb_my_world.png, and goes to your browser's downloads. While it is made, the studio shows that it is working.
Foundry only. This section isn't shown on the web.
Export to scene creates a Foundry scene from the map, with its grid. It opens the Export to scene dialogue first (see Dialogues). The export creates or updates:
- The scene: named as you choose, the size of the map times the export's Scale, with no padding, token vision off and global illumination on. Its background is the player image: every layer switched on in the map controls, with only the items visible to Everyone (items set to GM only or Hidden are left out). The grid is not drawn into the image: the scene is given the map's grid pattern and size (see Cartography), and Foundry draws it. The grid's distance and units are what one cell measures at the map's scale, in the map's unit (see New map), so Foundry's ruler measures true distances; a regional map's cells measure less than its parent's.
- The GM overlay tile (if you ask for one): a transparent image holding only the items set to GM only (such as secret routes, regions, pins and labels), placed over the whole map as a hidden, locked tile, so players don't see it.
- Journals (if you ask for them): a journal entry named after the scene, in a folder called Filroden's World Map Builder in the Journals sidebar, with a page for each pin, route and region that has a name or a description (river sources are left out). Places, routes and regions made by Generate (or a fill-in) get a page only if the map labels them at its detail level: shown, with their name drawn at that level, their label not hidden and its label style not turned off in the Labels menu (a run and a fill-in make thousands). Their pages also list their figures: population, cultures, history and the like. Pages are made whatever the item's visibility, since the journal is for the GM. The page holds the item's description as plain text, with its line breaks. The scene gets no map notes: at a map's scale they would cover it, and a scene has no easy way to hide them. Open the pages from the Journals sidebar, where Foundry's search finds a place by name.
- Grid cell data: if the map has a grid, a summary of every grid cell's biome, terrain and other properties is written onto the scene for other modules and game systems to read. It changes nothing you see or do in Foundry. See Grid Cell Data.
The images are saved as <scene name>_player.png and <scene name>_gm.png in the folder you choose.
While the export runs, the studio is locked and shows its progress (extracting the player view, the GM overlay, then building the scene). When it finishes, the map is saved (so that the links between its pins, routes and regions and their journal pages are kept) and Foundry shows the new scene. If the map has never been saved, you are asked for a name.
Exporting to a scene name that already exists updates that scene rather than creating a new one. Its background and grid are replaced, the GM overlay tile from the previous export is made again, and any map notes an earlier version of the module added for the map's journal are removed. Walls, lights, tokens and anything else you placed on the scene yourself are left alone.
Journal pages are kept as they are unless you tick Overwrite existing journal pages, which replaces the journal's pages with the map's current descriptions. Any edits made to those pages in Foundry are lost.
Note: if Foundry stores the scene's grid at a different size from the map's, the grid cell data would not line up with the scene's cells, so a warning tells you so.
Export to PNG on a regional map, with the recommended scale and the reason for it.
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Scale: the image's size, as a multiple of the map's own: 1× (the map's size in pixels) to 4×, each with the image's size ("2× (6,000 × 3,360)"). A larger scale draws everything larger, so small names can be read without zooming in, and makes a larger file. Names, pins and lines are drawn afresh at the chosen scale, so they stay sharp; the terrain is enlarged from the map's own resolution, so it is a little softer above 1×. A scale that would make an image too large to draw (more than 16,384 pixels on a side, or 150 million pixels in all) is marked too large and can't be chosen.
The scale chosen at first is the recommended one: the smallest at which the smallest name shown is at least 12 pixels tall. The line under it says why, for example "The smallest names shown are 7 px tall at 1×; 2× makes them 14 px, enough to read." With no names shown, it recommends 1×. If even the largest scale leaves the smallest names small, it says so, and a larger Symbol size in the Detail menu makes them bigger.
Click Confirm to export.
Export to scene in Foundry, with its default choices.
- Target scene name: the name of the scene to create (or update). It starts as the map's name, or "New map scene" for a map that has never been saved.
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Server export directory: the folder inside your world's folder where the map images are saved. It starts as
fwmb-exports, and is created if it doesn't exist. - Scale: the scene's images are drawn as the PNG is, at the scale you choose here, with the same choices and the same recommended one (see Export to PNG). The scene is made the size of its images, with its grid scaled alike: at 2×, a 2,000 pixel map becomes a 4,000 pixel scene with a 100 pixel grid in place of 50. Foundry then shows the map larger, with names as readable as in a 2× PNG, and each cell is still the same piece of the map and measures the same distance. A larger scale takes longer to load. Export again at the same scale to keep the walls, lights and tokens you placed where they were, since they keep their positions in the scene's pixels. A scale too large for this computer's graphics card to show as a scene background is marked too large. Players whose graphics cards take smaller images than yours may not see a very large background; choose a lower scale if they have trouble.
- Generate journals: creates the journal entry and its pages (on by default).
- Overwrite existing journal pages: on a scene exported before, updates the journal's pages with your current descriptions. This deletes any edits made to those pages in Foundry (off by default).
- Create GM secret overlay: adds the GM overlay tile (on by default).
Click Confirm to export.
- To make small names readable in a PNG or a scene, choose the recommended scale, or raise the Symbol size in the map controls' Detail menu.
- Before exporting, switch off the layers you don't want. For example, switch off Contours for a clean player map, or switch off Labels for a map your players will label themselves.
- Set the visibility of routes, pins, regions, labels and decorations to GM only to keep them off the players' map but on the GM overlay.
- Foundry can't hide a tile from a GM's own view, only from players. The module "Tile Sort" by TheRipper93 adds that.
Related: Cartography, Grid Cell Data, Map Canvas, Maps