The Custom Tray Creator Is Better Than Ever!

One of the best parts about our hobby is the ability to make your miniatures, well, yours.  From the way we build them, paint them, and even use them on the battlefield, there is a lot of room for our own personal touches.  In our current digital age, I am in awe at the kitbashing and customization that I lay my eyes on through social media.  Where does Battle Foam come into play here?  Well, why should the customization stop at your models?  Continue the process and make your storage or transportation solution be as bespoke as your minis!  Our Custom Tray Creator is the best place to be efficient and unique while traveling with and unloading your army.  Due to this, we wanted to improve the user experience so that creating your custom tray was a lot less intimidating and as error free as possible.

Our Custom Tray Creator (CTC) has seen quite a few updates and iterations over the years, but by far, this is the best place it has ever been in.  We had a lot of goals so that designing trays was easy for anyone.  Below, I wanted to detail the some of the capabilities our new CTC has.  We plan to keep updating over time as we gather feedback from our awesome Battle Foam Family, and as we need to, of course.  Now, on to the good stuff!

The first major change is the guided questions to help you find the right tray size for your bag. Not sure what bag you need? General Baggy will help you through! You can also let us know if have a Battle Foam bag already, or skip straight to the CTC if you are a grizzled veteran. The goal was to have a path for everyone, whether you were brand new to the hobby and Battle Foam, or if you have your own mini Battle Foam warehouse! The benefits of going through this process is not only will the right sized tray be pre-loaded for you, but...

You get a great visual guide on how much room you have in your bag! We added this feature to make the math simple for everyone, and the graphic is an easy way to get the info you need. As you finish creating a tray, just hit the "Add Tray" button, select the proper height, and watch the magic of your bag filling up! If you happen to go over, the bag will light up red, and let you know how much you are over. This graphic also calculates the quarter inch bottom on all of our foam trays!

The next big addition was the ability to search for a specific shape. This makes finding the shapes you need a breeze! Click the Search Shapes arrow, type the name of the model and get everything that matches! As you can see, my search for Abaddon gave me both his laying down and standing up shapes. If you have specific models, search for them here and save time!

The last topic I will cover are the four buttons on the bottom left of the Custom Tray Creator. Each of these buttons adds even more customization avenues while designing your tray. 

The first button, which is on the far left, lets you display a grid. The grid is in 1/4 inch increments and helps you see how much space is in between each shape.  This grid will also enable an almost magnetic feel as you move your shapes.  When you release the shape, it will snap to place in line with the grid and help your shapes line up evenly. 

The second button from the left lets you remove the borders on the shapes. Why would you do that? Maybe you want to put two shapes together to create your own custom shape? Did you build your Abaddon to have a huge scythe? Use his normal shape and attach a rectangle to accommodate! 

The fourth button, furthest right, is how you save your design. It will save as a .svg file, which you can view in a web browser.  

Why did I skip the third button from the left you might ask? Well, it is because it is a feature we have been asked about over the years...

Creating your own custom rectangles, squares, ovals, and circles! If you know the exact measurements you need to protect your army, this will be a huge time-saver! We have seen some great designs come through already from this feature!

To finish off this post, I did want to mention the new ways you can manipulate the shapes on the tray, from selecting all, copying, rotating, and so on.  I skipped reviewing this feature as it is much better understood through a video, as opposed to some pictures and a mediocre attempt on my part of explaining.  Look for that in the future along with a new program we are launching to help make shopping with us even easier!

I am going to sign-off now, but not before stating that we always appreciate your feedback.  A lot of these changes made to the Custom Tray Creator would not exist without the feedback we receive from our customers.  Please feel free to share by emailing us at info@battlefoam.com.  

Want me to cover a specific topic on our blog?  We are open to suggestions. Thank you for reading!