Rocky Mountain Bog Monster 

presents

Transparent Square Grid Map Overlay PNG Images

in 6 Common Sizes

Rocky Mountain Bog Monster's first and probably unsexiest offering is less publication and more tool for the tabletop RPG map designer.

Have you got an image that you would love to use as a battle mat for your game, but alas, it just doesn't have a grid? You could design your own in a graphics application, but it is a tedious affair that really just isn't as creatively satisfying as many other projects you might want to spend those precious hours on. And no sooner do you have the one designed, you create another image you want to use, but it's a different size and there you go again. Hours and hours down the drain, and that's just for painstakingly creating a square grid.

Rocky Mountain Bog Monster may have just the solution you need at a fair price. Included in your purchase are six (6) PNG files for transparent square grid overlays in the following print sizes, designed at 300 pixels per inch (occasionally 299.999 according to GIMP) in Indexed mode for low file sizes:

• 11" x 17" 
• 16" x 20"
• 18" x 24"
• 22" x 28"
• 24" x 36"
• And a whopping 36" x 48"

These PNG files are useful if you plan to have your final creation printed by any of the countless companies (many online) that can do large format color and black & white printing on anything from regular poster stock to dry erase posters to vinyl banners. Once you've applied the overlay to your source image and prepared the final image according to your printer's specifications, you're well on the way to having your own gorgeous creative work laid on the table ready to wow your gaming group. The best part is, apart from function, nobody really cares about the grid. The oohs and ahhs and wows are all yours to enjoy! No credit need be given to the nut on the internet who spent a great many hours producing these grids for your convenience (but we do ask that you refrain from distributing the PNG files of the grid overlays in any way shape or form as those are indeed protected by copyright...formalities and all).

Note

This product requires the use of a graphics application such GIMP (which is free and easily findable via Google, read: not included in this purchase) or one of its many name-brand competitors. Some basic knowledge of using that software is necessary to make use of these PNG files. The help files for the software and countless websites online are readily available to help the novice user make full use of these transparent PNG grid overlays.

Pro-tip

Before risking your own graphics file to perhaps irreversible oopses, Save As to a different filename or start out by making a copy of your file to begin with. It is always a good idea to have a backup of your precious source material.

Using these overlays is a matter of 10 simple steps. Using a raster graphics program such as the freely available GIMP (or name-brand software that does all that and more), you:

1. Open your image
2. Create a new layer
3. Open the PNG for the grid you want to overlay (same size or larger than the image over which it will be superimposed)
4. Select all
5. Copy
6. Go back to the image file on which you want to superimpose the grid
7. Select the new layer in the Layers list
8. Paste
9. If repositioning the grid is necessary, use the Move tool (or it's analog in the software of your choice), make sure it's set to move the active layer, and drag the transparent grid layer into the desired postion.
10. If the transparent PNG overlay you used is larger than your source file, you may need to crop the image.

Finally, Save (preferably Save As to a new filename) and Export to whatever file format you need for the printing stage and prepare the file you will send to your printer of choice according to their specfications. Support at most of them is stellar and they will probably be more than happy to assist (to some degree) with getting your image ready for print. This product is only the PNG files described above and includes no such pointers on prepping the final work for the printer as printer requirements may vary from one to the other.

Friendly pointer: if your printer requires a CMYK file for printing, Krita is free, just like GIMP is, and can do that for you. Check it out and use the help files liberally. It was easy enough even I could figure it out, and that's sayin' something.

Added Bonus

On top of the six PNG files described above, your purchase will include six (6) additional PNG files for transparent grid overlays in the same sizes as above, but at a lower resolution of 72 pixels per inch, which you may (or may not) find useful for incorporating into graphics to be displayed on televisions set into gaming tables or via online gaming services. Rocky Mountain Bog Monster makes no representation as to whether they will work in those capacities as I've not tested them that way, but they're included nonetheless, just in case, bringing you a total of a dozen transparent square grid overlays in PNG format in 6 common print sizes!

Only PNG images are included in this purchase.

No additional documentation of any sort is included.