Battle Maps
A battle map is the playing surface. It is a background image, a grid that says how big a square is, and layers of things placed on top: tokens, scenery, walls, lights and your own drawings.
This page covers the map itself. The things you put on it have their own pages:
- Tokens — creatures on the map.
- Line of Sight & Fog — hiding and revealing.
- Drawing, Markers & Effects — annotation and spell areas.
The toolbar
Section titled “The toolbar”| Icon | Tool | What it does |
|---|---|---|
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Pencil | Draw lines and shapes |
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Highlighter | Shade an area |
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Eraser | Remove a stroke |
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Undo | Take back the last drawing |
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Move | Pan the map and drag tokens |
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Select | Select several objects at once |
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Layers | Choose which layer you are working on |
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Snap to Grid | Align movement and drawing to the grid |
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Fog of War | Reveal and hide parts of the map |
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Markers | Add and manage markers |
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Tools | Grid align, map resize and the walls generator |
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Settings | The map’s own settings |
Several tools have a second set of options. Tap the tool a second time to open them — that is how you change ink colour, switch fog between rectangle and freehand, or turn on restricted movement.
Creating a map
Section titled “Creating a map”Tap New Map from the game screen menu, or create one inside a campaign or module in the library.
A new map starts empty. Give it a name, then add a background.
Maps live in a campaign or module, like any other content. See Campaigns & Modules.
The background
Section titled “The background”A map can use an image or a video as its background.
- Tap .
- Tap Image and choose Photo Library or Browse Files.
- Pick your file.
A video background loops, which suits water, fire and weather. Everything else works the same as with an image.
You can also import a map made in another tool. .dd2vtt and .uvtt files bring their own walls,
lights and grid, so they arrive ready to play. See
Import and Export.
The grid
Section titled “The grid”The grid is what turns a picture into a playing surface. It tells the app how far a square is, which makes movement, distances, light radii and spell areas mean something.
Matching the grid to your image
Section titled “Matching the grid to your image”Most map images already have a grid drawn on them. Your job is to line the app’s grid up with it. The Grid Align tool does this for you, and is the way to do it.
- Tap and choose Grid Align.
- A 3x3 mesh appears on the map. Drag it into place and resize it until its nine cells sit exactly on nine squares of the image.
- Tap Apply.
The app works out the grid size and offset from the mesh, so the whole grid lines up at once. Using three squares rather than one spreads out any small error you make, which is what keeps the far corner of the map aligned as well as the near one.
You can still set Grid Size, Offset X and Offset Y by hand in the map’s settings if you want to nudge the result, or if the image has no grid to match.
Grid options
Section titled “Grid options”| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Grid Visible | Show or hide the grid |
| Grid Size | The size of one grid square |
| Offset X / Offset Y | Slide the grid to match the image |
| Grid Type | Square, or hex with flat or pointed tops |
| Grid Style | Full lines, or short marks at the cell corners |
| Grid Color and Opacity | How strongly the grid is drawn |
| Scale and Units | What one cell means — 5 ft by default |
Corner marks are worth knowing about: they keep the grid readable without drawing lines all over someone’s artwork.
Scale and Units feed every distance in the app. Set them to match your game — 5 ft, 1.5 m, or whatever your system uses — and movement paths, light radii and area effects follow.
holds three tools that change the map as a whole, rather than editing one thing
on it.
Grid Align
Section titled “Grid Align”Lines the grid up with the grid drawn on your background image. See Matching the grid to your image above.
Map Resize
Section titled “Map Resize”Changes the size of the map. Give it a new width and height, or a percentage to scale by.
Everything on the map is resized with it — tokens, drawings, lights and walls all keep their position relative to the background, so a map you have already walled and lit survives the change.
This is mostly a performance tool. Very large map images are the usual cause of a sluggish map on an older device, and scaling one down is the most direct fix. Reach for it before turning renderer settings off.
Walls Generator
Section titled “Walls Generator”Builds walls automatically from the Floor layer. Paint the walkable ground on the floor layer first; the generator then traces its edges and creates walls along them.
It is the fast way to get line of sight working on a map — a few minutes of painting floor instead of drawing every wall by hand. Treat the result as a starting point and tidy it up: doors in particular need to be placed yourself, since the generator only sees where the floor ends.
Layers
Section titled “Layers”Everything on a map sits on a layer. Layers decide what is drawn over what, and who can see it. Tap
to switch.
| Layer | What belongs there |
|---|---|
| Map | The background image or video |
| Floor | Walkable ground, used by the walls generator and pathfinding |
| Object | Scenery and drawings — the default layer |
| Token | Creature tokens |
| Light | Light sources |
| Wall | Walls, doors and obstacles used by line of sight |
| DM | Your own notes and drawings — never shown to players |
The DM layer is the important one. Anything you draw there is yours alone, so it is where the secret door goes, and the arrow reminding you which way the ambush comes from.
Moving around
Section titled “Moving around”- Tap .
- Drag with one finger to pan. Pinch with two to zoom.
On a trackpad or mouse, scroll to pan or zoom — the two are configured separately in Battle Map Settings.
Double-tap to point at something. Depending on your settings this shows a ripple, moves the players’ camera, or both. The camera actions are how you direct attention: a double tap can pull every player’s view to the thing you are talking about.
Showing the map to players
Section titled “Showing the map to players”The map you edit and the map your players see are the same map, drawn differently. Your hidden tokens, DM-layer drawings and notes stay on your side.
Share the map to the player-facing view, then show it either way:
- In the room — AirPlay or HDMI. See The Player Screen.
- Online — the built-in web server. See Remote Play.
Two map settings only affect your screen, not theirs:
- DM Darkness — how dark the areas your players cannot see appear to you. Turn it down when you need to see the whole map while running line of sight.
- DM Marker Style — how markers are drawn on your side.
Weather
Section titled “Weather”A map can carry a weather effect — rain, snow and similar — with an intensity you control. It is drawn over the whole map and is shown to your players too.
Saving
Section titled “Saving”Maps save their own state: token positions, fog of war, drawings and markers. Save the map and it comes back exactly as you left it.
That is separate from saving an encounter. An encounter holds combatants; a map holds the board. See Encounters & Combat.
Performance
Section titled “Performance”Large maps on older devices can feel heavy. The first thing to try is scaling the map down with Map Resize — an oversized background image is the usual culprit.
Beyond that, three settings help, all in Battle Map Settings:
- Low Power Mode throttles the renderer.
- Only Update on Drop recomputes line of sight once per move instead of continuously.
- Advanced Pathfinding can be turned off if drawn movement paths cost too much.
Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- Tokens — putting creatures on the map.
- Line of Sight & Fog — the part that takes the most setup.
- Drawing, Markers & Effects — annotating during play.