Fog of War?

[MarianDz]

Welcome "Sheogoroth" and "Bizmal"

[Hurske]

I think another thing you have to look at, is how often would It be used.

Granted, lighting is very neat, but unless your running a dungeon craw hack session only. The amount of time you would be using lighting would be minimal compared to everything else in a session.

Fantasy grounds has the the focus on running the game in a fantastic fashion, than just being something pretty to look at.

[LordEntrails]

Since we are talking about this, I've always wondered, how much effort and knowledge does it take to make a image mask so that dynamic lighting works? Or do the implementations on other platforms not account for pillars, walls, etc?

[Lexfire]

I would find adding a circle and cone tool useful for unmasking - only having square and shift draw option for unmask is limiting. Drawing a circle 20' radius or cone on a player would give more options.

[pindercarl]

Since we are talking about this, I've always wondered, how much effort and knowledge does it take to make a image mask so that dynamic lighting works? Or do the implementations on other platforms not account for pillars, walls, etc?

Line-of-sight (LOS) first requires occluders to be defined. These are typically done as line segments since the calculations for LOS require the occluders to be linear segments. (While it is possible to do per-pixel LOS calculations, this is more involved and I'm not aware of any VTT that does so.) Using an origin point and a set of occluders, a polygon of potentially visible area can be calculated. The potentially visible area can be further restricted, e.g by a maximum distance, or field of view, to determine the visible area.

The fog-of-war (FOW) is the accumulation of the LOS results. There are any number of ways this can be stored. In Maptools, the FOW simply subtracts the LOS from the FOW on token drop. From what I can tell, Maptools stores this vectors (or something equivalent). This ensures that the FOW is accurate since there is no loss of data. In the recently added "advanced FOW" for Roll20, the FOW is stored as revealed grid squares. If the LOS crosses the center point of a grid square, this grid square is marked as revealed. This is a lossy method and results in inaccuracies. If an occluder is located within a grid square and the center of the grid square is seen, then entire grid cell is revealed. For example, if a door is not on a grid line, then the area behind the door is shown. Similarly, if the player "sees" some of a cell, but not the center, then the cell is not revealed in the FOW.

As to the question about walls and pillars, it is the definition of the occluders that determines the LOS. These definitions are orthogonal to the underlying image and do need to correlate. If you add occluders to a part of the map representing the pillars, then those pillars would affect LOS. Hope that helps, or at least doesn't add to the confusion.

[Zacchaeus]

Line-of-sight (LOS) first requires occluders to be defined.

I'm glad this isn't my job

[JohnD]

Sounds like a lot of work for relatively little benefit from a GM's perspective. Mine at least. I'd rather be generating content or playing than fiddling with this.

[LordEntrails]

Thanks Carl.

So it sounds like making the occluders is like making a simplified map on top of the image. So it takes at least a measurable amount of time to define. I think sometimes that effort gets lost by some and that was part of the reason I was asking.

[pindercarl]

Thanks Carl.

So it sounds like making the occluders is like making a simplified map on top of the image. So it takes at least a measurable amount of time to define. I think sometimes that effort gets lost by some and that was part of the reason I was asking.

It was more of an overview of how LOS and FOW interoperate. The difficulty in adding the occluder data to a map comes down to the tools available. There are multiple options being developed for FGU, so hopefully we'll find solutions that work well for the end-user. Like most features, LOS and FOW are "your mileage may vary" additions to a VTT. I suspect the biggest bang-for-the-buck most users will find will be in the modules for licensed content.

[steff]

I ran two campaigns in Roll 20 for Pathfinder. I ran Reign of Winter for about 8 months or so then I ran Age of Worms for about 4 months. Now I run Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne while playing in Strange Aeons on FG and, from a DM perspective, it isn't even close. FG by a landslide.

Roll20 is MUCH more labor intensive to set up. Everything is a damn macro you have to write. You import the maps and then spend an inordinate amount of time setting them up. The LOS thing is a huge hassle because you have to draw in every wall, door, window, etc. And this is in addition to all of the monsters and such which you have to enter all of the stats for. No dragging and dropping monsters in. It does not have access to the rulesets either so anything you want in the game you have to put in there. It's almost not worth it by the time you are set up.

Once you play the game, it is pretty cool to have dynamic lighting, and they also have some graphical spell effects tool like breath weapons and fireballs but honestly, if FG wanted to be more competitive, give the gm better tools for managing the mask and it would be just as good. One thing you can do in Roll20 is you can set small mask areas. you don't have to mask the whole map and then carve out chunks. if you would do irregular shaped masks and add/subtract areas for view with different shapes, it would be just as functional. (Of course I say this as the guy that does not have to write the software but that is why I buy the ultimate license.)

If you aren't sure, try them both but I'm telling you FG blows away Roll20 in terms of ease of use and a much better GUI.

Just one mans opinion.