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Post by lightning on Feb 5, 2018 1:10:27 GMT -9
As I am working on ground tiles and printing lots of them, I find the 6x6 "standard" quite a bit of waste of paper and wondering for alternatives.
I know for city and walls terrain with roads, crossings and corners the 6x6" tiles is kind of unbeatable.
But I am going for nature terrain tiles and think that 9x6", which covers the page area much better, yet still is compatible with the 6x6" system, could be a viable alternative.
I have to do some tests but I think one could even come up with a more natural connection pattern for trails and paths that are not so straight like the ones I have seen so far.
What do you think about this?
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Post by ignatious on Feb 5, 2018 3:22:10 GMT -9
I have to do some tests but I think one could even come up with a more natural connection pattern for trails and paths that are not so straight like the ones I have seen so far. What do you think about this? Yes. Very intrigued.
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Post by cowboyleland on Feb 5, 2018 5:15:10 GMT -9
I am for anything that reduces waste.
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Feb 5, 2018 10:22:05 GMT -9
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Post by kgstanley81 on Feb 5, 2018 10:58:29 GMT -9
His meadow tiles are a large mix of tiles
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Post by jeffgeorge on Feb 5, 2018 22:22:09 GMT -9
Well, the obvious trade-off is that although there is less wasted paper with 9x6, 6x6 tiles can be arranged in more ways than 9x6 tiles can. This will matter more with road tiles than open field tiles, but still, I think it would be annoying to have to work around the fact that the tiles fit together one way but not another when laying them out. If I were printing them out, I'm pretty sure I'd be cutting them down to 6x6, and maybe using the other third of the 9x6 tiles to make some 3x6 half-tiles.
Bear in mind that tiles can be printed on ordinary typing paper, since you're almost certainly going to be spray-mounting them onto foamcore, chip board, or maybe even thin MDF. So the cost of the paper is pretty trivial--on the order of a penny a page. This is less true if you're printing on more expensive stock, like 110-lb. cardstock or photo paper, which costs quite a bit more per sheet. But since you're not relying on the printed page for structural strength (that's coming from whatever backing board you choose), you can use inexpensive paper.
What costs real money printing enough tiles to lay out an outdoor field scene for miniatures play is the inkjet ink. Even buying off-brand cartridges, you're going to go through ink pretty fast on a project like this. So on tiles, I'd be a lot more concerned about using ink efficiently, rather than paper. And I'd probably plan on using some sort of spray-on clear coat to protect the tiles, since they're going to get a lot of wear and tear.
Just my opinion...
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Post by lightning on Feb 5, 2018 23:03:51 GMT -9
... What costs real money printing enough tiles to lay out an outdoor field scene for miniatures play is the inkjet ink. Even buying off-brand cartridges, you're going to go through ink pretty fast on a project like this. So on tiles, I'd be a lot more concerned about using ink efficiently, rather than paper... That is true. I have found that out too That is why I am going more towards light colors wherever I can. And I have thought I could make the 9x6 tiles with an option to just print the 6x6 part if that is important. Here are a couple of layout patterns ... for me the interesting part is that I can design a larger landscape and break it up in to printable parts. I am also thinking about providing the full images as a terrain mat. There are a couple of companies providing this service. OBS provides print on demand service for 6x6 and also for 6x9 size. So that is also an interesting route ... Just throwing out ideas!
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Feb 6, 2018 5:39:27 GMT -9
I'll be honest - even though I'm pot-committed with foam core wrapped 6"x6" tiles, I tend to mix wilderness terrain tile styles. For a base layer, I usually just tape a bunch of grass terrain tiles together, and larger pieces would mean less parts to tape together. If I go vertical, I would go back to having connectable foamcore tiles that are 6"x6", but there tends to not be a lot of elevated pieces, relative to covering the tabletop. If I had to have a huge second layer, I'd come up with some way to make an ugly support table and cover the whole thing with taped-together printed pages of grass.
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Post by squirmydad on Feb 6, 2018 9:16:59 GMT -9
Someone (maybe bravesirkevin? WWG?) was making tiles that were 6x6 and 3x6 and 3x3 so you did have more options for large or unconventional layouts. the smaller tiles could work as fillers, extenders, specialty bits. And yes, thank you jeffgeorge, it's not paper that's the issue, it's ink saturation.
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Post by wyvern on Feb 6, 2018 13:12:21 GMT -9
We should all have shares in ink manufacturing companies... SkeletonKey Games opted for 6 x 9 tiles for their outdoor wilderness terrain sets. You may find some comments among the many reviews of those on DriveThru RPG regarding how others regard such a strategy, albeit they could take a while to find. I rather like the SKG tiles overall, partly because the range of options is very large, though they're not the cheapest option (they do feature in quite a few of the OneBookShelf site sales though). The colours are in generally pastel shades, which print crisp and clear in my experience, and I've found too that they print without me feeling like I'm always running out of ink while doing so. This might be a route worth exploring further.
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Post by lightning on Feb 6, 2018 23:05:19 GMT -9
Once I get to my grass texture I can start experimenting with all that. For the issue is that for larger landscapes I want to have winding roads and rivers. And I cannot do that very nice with the 6x6 grid. So I hope I will be able to design larger landscapes and then split it up (either 6x6 or 6x9). Being on the side of lazy I rather have not so many tiles to cut out :-)
But I also agree that the ink should be light. No need to waste ink (=money). I even made my new dark earth tiles lighter!!!
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