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Blacky
January 6th, 2014, 11:09
Alert, total module newbie inside.

I'm building an image module, the goal is to give a one file pack containing various illustrations for a type of game. And if I understood this right, to be able to force player to load it as a whole, meaning it's always there accessible without further transmission delay due to remote loading. However, beside the image, I would like to add a text window of some kind, to provide context and explanations.

And, I have absolutely no idea how to do that. If possible, I don't want this window to creep its way inside regular windows (meaning story or note) because its content are fully out-of-game.

Any pointers appreciated…

damned
January 6th, 2014, 12:01
I would create a story (I know, I know) entry with description of image and how to use followed by link to image....
If the image also has text for players to use you can add that too as a Chat Frame entry...
5793

Blacky
January 6th, 2014, 12:54
I'd prefer to avoid that.

The module would have lot of images, at least 100 maybe 150 or more. I don't want to write for each one, just have one text somewhere to explain several things (beside as a .txt hidden in the .mod).

It's photos of the Caribbean, beaches, jungle, mountains, etc. meant as a pre-made pack for a pirate rpg Ruleset (or any game that could use tropical nature photos). The goal is allow a newbie GM, or one without much time on its hands, several things: theme (nothing short of real photos can convey the colors of this region), tactical inspiration for both GM and players (showing some weird rock formation or some peculiar beach), tactical illustration maybe (as a complement to battlemap), and so on.

But it's not meant to illustrate a specific place. It's not “ok after traveling the forest, you arrive to Cabrits peninsula here's the image” because that would kill too much imagination and there's not enough images in the world to do that for each location. It's for “after exiting the forest, your eyes land on the see around some kind of peninsula, something like that [show image]” or as a player “hey this is perfect for our plan, look we could put the short guns here, the annex there, the sloop there, and have the frigate battling the current and wind here, hey GM did we encounter anything like that this last week of travel?”. Similar but the distinction is crucial in my opinion.

It's like running a game with a National Geographics issue on the gaming table for all to see and peruse, and sometime using a specific photo for something.

I have several advices on how to use it, and some pointers and warnings; but I'm looking for a way to display them without inserting it inside the regular in-game stories and notes. Maybe something inside the Library?

Also, is there a way to have the loaded module insert those images in a specific sub-tab of the Maps&Images?

Trenloe
January 6th, 2014, 13:52
Look at the 3.5e Basic Rules module that comes with FG. This puts text entries directly into the library - which is the best place for reference material. You can also build up headings, sections, sub-sections etc. in the library, include heading searches as well.

Your best bet would be to do the story entries within FG, export the module to produce a normal db.xml module and then edit the XML in this to make it a <library> module (refer to the structure in the 3.5e basic rules module) and rename to common.xml so that the players can download it.

Blacky
January 6th, 2014, 13:54
I'll look at this module, thanks a lot.

damned
January 6th, 2014, 21:37
is a module with 100+ images gong to increase download times for all players?
set as a GM resource only and then the GM can drag the appropriate images into the campaign?
how will the GM know what image is what without opening each and every one?

Blacky
January 6th, 2014, 22:16
All good issues, the more I work on this the more I think about those.

As for the download time, I personn&ly think one big download is far better than small ones with VOIP on during play. But right now it's at 44MB, meaning a good half hour if FG's networking doesn't much this up too much for 4 players and a 1Mb upload GM. Manageable with my style of play, just ask the player to connect an hour before the game and they download while having dinner before game night. It's what I do almost every week for my regular maps and illustrations, just ask the players to connect 5-10 minutes before game time (while I preload, each time, each file, by hand, somewhat a hassle but better than having FG eat up my VOIP bandwidth or interrupting the game with “Do you have it?” over and over again). But that's not for everyone. Although, forcing player to download is just an option. I just like having this option.

Note: I only have campaigns in mind, with a touch of sandbox style of play (in line with the rpg I have in mind this for). For one shots, either it's beer&pretzels and the GM doesn't need anything, or either it's carefully prepared adventure and the GM can most certainly find the best illustration that suits it himself.

As for knowing, well I'll probably set up a gallery on my website with them but it's not practical. Each have a somewhat descriptive name (although beach 1 through 20 doesn't help that much), it was needed to comply with the Creative Commons and there is subfolder for broad categories (fresh water, beaches, forest, mountains, etc.) I guess proper tagging (in the filename, so it's searchable by the FG image window) would help. But I'd prefer have thought of that before doing all of these images.

Overall, I'll probably need to seriously cut down the number of image, and rename them all for tagging :(

If anyone as others issues, or ideas, all welcomed.

Nickademus
January 6th, 2014, 22:46
I'm only partially aware of what you are trying to do here, and I agree with having the players connect early to download all the images rather than deal with it during the game. But I feel that the GM could run into issues with some players not being able to make it early.

A suggestion that may benefit you or any GM in that situation would be to create a campaign that just has the module set to client.xml and force load, then host the campaign for the duration of a day prior to the game. Could culminate with a session of character creation at the end or just leave the client open for each player to log in and download a copy of the module at their leisure. I find doing things a day ahead leaves plenty of time to deal with scheduling problems.

Griogre
January 7th, 2014, 01:10
Personally, if I'm understanding what you want I would do a library module that opens up a window with a bunch of links. Depending on how much descriptive text you want you could put the image description in as a table like what I did for the spells below or just a list of links. Note this is a very old screen and I don't believe you can underline the table rows like this anymore, but you get the idea.

https://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m222/Griogre/LinkTable.png

Blacky
January 7th, 2014, 14:33
That might also be a way to go.

I've put the full gallery up (https://chezblacky.franchouille.fr/jeux-de-roles/pavillon-noir/galerie-libre-paysages-caraibes-pirates/) (in French, but photos are for everyone :) ) And I'm working through it to transform it into module, by slashing a lot of things to keep the size more realistic, and renaming everything to do some king of tagging using the FG Image type search function.

I'll see what kind of complementary text is necessary, and the available time.

Blacky
January 12th, 2014, 18:57
Your best bet would be to do the story entries within FG, export the module to produce a normal db.xml module and then edit the XML in this to make it a <library> module (refer to the structure in the 3.5e basic rules module) and rename to common.xml so that the players can download it.
If I rename the content file common.xml, does the module content behave the way Data Module management hints to? Meaning a GM can forbid the module to players, allow it, or force it?

Griogre
January 12th, 2014, 21:41
The answer is maybe. The module would work like a common module, yes, but the rest would depend on the ruleset. If the ruleset allows players to load the data shared then yes it would work that way. However, if the ruleset does not normally allow players to access the data then setting the module to common won't magically allow them to access the data.

Moon Wizard
January 12th, 2014, 23:47
Actually, this has changed in v3.x.

Any module can be shared. By default, modules containing db.xml files are disallowed and not visible by players. Otherwise, module access is undefined, and the modules are visible and able to be requested by players. The access can be changed by the GM.

Regards,
JPG

Griogre
January 13th, 2014, 18:37
Yes, but if a ruleset for example doesn't allow the GM to share NPC's, wouldn't that mean the players could still not actually *see* or access the NPCs? If a ruleset doesn't give a client permission to open a window class it still can't be opened by the client, correct?

Moon Wizard
January 13th, 2014, 18:55
It depends. As long as the link to the NPC is visible (via Library or Campaign List), the player should be able to access it. You are correct in the case where the ruleset doesn't give the players the NPC campaign list button, and the NPCs are stored there.

Regards,
JPG