I just rage quit due to clunky map-building issues, please help

[FFCanuck]

Hey all,

I hopped over and decided to give FGU a try after Matt Colville did a video showing off the amazing features Fantasy Grounds seems to have for play.

However, I have hit a wall trying to make maps from tilesets and I need some help. Amongst the many problems I have encountered:

- I can't lock the background layer, so as to prevent myself from moving it or selecting it while trying to move select and move tiles.
- I can't figure out how to layer tiles in front or behind each other (ie 'send to front', 'sent to back' ) ... etc.
- I can't find an option to make resizing tiles/assets snap to grid, which would make things a lot easier
- there's no tool that allows be to draw and select multiple pieces and move group them or move them together

And some odd bugs:
- For some reason, at some point while working scrolling my mouse wheel causes multiple gridlines to appear and write over each other, covering the drawing with gridlines until I close the map and open it back up
- tiles set to default at 1.0 by 1.0 will suddenly start filling half or less of a grid square, as though the grid size has changed without me noticing
- Sometime I try to move a tile and it suddenly seems to collapse in on itself and disappear, and then a debug window appears
- after trying to move an object, one of the little white squares will appear in a different spot on the drawing area, and after this happens nothing can be moved resized normally

Are there any decent tutorials? I am extremely frustrated so far at how difficult making simple maps with tile sets seems to be. Is the UI just kind of awful?

[superteddy57]

I have moved your post into the Support for Unity forums for more visibility.

Have you seen this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaFvDapOlL4

We go through the process of making and using tilesets. Also would suggest checking on our wiki to see if that helps as well or hasn't been seen. https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGU/pages/950633/Working+with+Images+as+the+GM

We thank you for your report of any bugs you may experience with Unity. Can you provide images of these occurrences you are experiencing?

[AlphaDecay]

You can lock the layer by hovering your mouse over the right side of the layer list. In the first image you can see the tooltip where my mouse would be hovering. In the second you can see I've clicked on that spot and locked the layer.
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To layer tiles you need to select the layer (its name will be shaded) and then drag it up or down in the layer stack.

To deal with sized assets...For example I have tiles I've purchased from DMGuild made by HeroicMaps. They are designed for a 300 pixel grid. So to set the grid I click on the grid tool in the upper right of the toolbar and type in 300 by 300 in the grid size. I then use the four arrow buttons or my arrow keys to move/nudge the grid to where I want it. From that point forward I just don't touch the grid tool. Now when you select a layer and have the layer tool active you'll see its dimensions. For the adventurer's shop I know it to be a 6x9 tile for my 300x300 grid. So I set the dimensions to be 6x9 and lock the layer.
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If you have a road or something that you'll do many "stamps" of, you activate the Layer tool, then choose the "tile" icon (looks like a stamp) to the right of the arrow. Then drag and drop your image into the little image box, set the dimensions for your grid, then every time you click it will create an appropriate sized layer of your image. Lock the layers after getting them placed and you should have no issues with accidental drags, misalignment to grid and so forth.

I can't reproduce the scroll wheel creating many grid lines and I've tried zooming like a madman and moving the image all over (Nvidia 1080). Sounds like a video card driver issue related to the client or could be a client bug in the code for that driver/card combo. I'd post your configuration for someone to see if there are issues there.

If you drag and drop an image from your assets onto the main image window it will create a new layer and have a default scale for that image. At this time I don't think you can have it remember what scale you want the image to be dropped in as, so you'll need to set it after dragging it in or use the stamp/tile tool and pre-scale it. I agree and do experience the same thing when grabbing a white square "grabber" and dragging an image I can either make its size "zero" or too big and get the error window. Pressing Control+Z to undo returns it to view though. As my tiles are fixed size I generally just use the dimensions boxes for scaling rather than the grabbers, but if I do use a grabber I just try and be careful not to hit the image bounds of zero or off the screen. Hopefully they catch those issues in a nicer way in the future.

All in all, it does have its quirks and does need some quality of life improvements (grouping layers maybe in a nested view like Gimp does and locking groups), but I'm sure those things will come in time. I also would not do un-furnished tiles as I think trying to place an empty room and then furnish it with a million little things would be an exercise in layer frustration.

[Surge]

An issue i have found with locking layers - the columns for the layers does not at all line up with the column headers, so I end up missing the button when trying to lock the layer. It would help tremendously if the layers window had grid lines to separate the rows and columns.

[AlphaDecay]

An issue i have found with locking layers - the columns for the layers does not at all line up with the column headers, so I end up missing the button when trying to lock the layer. It would help tremendously if the layers window had grid lines to separate the rows and columns.

Agreed. Another is not being able to name the layers.

[FFCanuck]

Thank you, this was super helpful! So far I have been trying to use the tile sets bundled with the Ultimate subscription. Follow up question, do you know how to 'fill' the blank space not occupied by tiles or dungeon? Ie have my negative space black instead of tan with gridlines?

[AlphaDecay]

Thank you, this was super helpful! So far I have been trying to use the tile sets bundled with the Ultimate subscription. Follow up question, do you know how to 'fill' the blank space not occupied by tiles or dungeon? Ie have my negative space black instead of tan with gridlines?

I don't know how to fill the blank space with black - mine is grey surrounding my tiles/images not tan - maybe that is the theme I'm using? I thought about using a mask to turn everything black and just unmasking my image but the mask only affects the image and not the surrounding negative space.

[Moon Wizard]

The negative space is actually transparent; and the tan is the base graphic for the window frame. You'd need to create a filled color image, and add as a base layer.

Regards,
JPG

[Neovirtus]

Similar types of questions...

Does the eraser tool work? Any time I draw with the paintbrush tool, the eraser doesn't remove it. I have to delete the whole layer every time. It seems like sometime when I first pick it, the eraser will work for a second or two, become hung up in a single area, then cease to do anything.

Also, how do you pick the second color in the color picker? If I want to make a square filled with a color, I can't figure out how to do that.

[Moon Wizard]

The drawing/erase tool on the top toolbar is for temporary drawings during play.

The painting and image painting modes available in the image data control on the right are independent of those; and only available to the GM. (and have more options)

There is no option to fill a square at this time. You would need to add a colored block graphic to your assets and use to tile.

Regards,
JPG

[Neovirtus]

Yes, I'm not referring to the old style "drawing" tool available to players. I'm talking about using the paintbrush tool, and the eraser within the same tab when the image is unlocked. The eraser tool does not seem to remove drawings reliably (or at all in my case).

[Surge]

I have had the exact same issue lavoiejh. More often than not, the eraser for the painter layers does not work.

[Neovirtus]

While trying to capture the behavior, I think I figured out what is happening. It seems that if you are in an image that is new, or only contains layers created by bringing in assets, and try to draw it will work, but erasing on this layer does not work. I believe in both cases, it creates a drawing layer for you, but erasing does not function in that layer. If you create a blank layer, and draw in it, erasing works perfectly. At least that's what I'm experiencing right now.

edit: Maybe not quite so clear cut... seems like creating a dedicated drawing layer *helps* but doesn't fix the issue. See attached .gif

[Moon Wizard]

Thanks for the additional info. I've added this one as task FGU-1031 for Carl to investigate once he's done with his font changes.

Regards,
JPG

[GregMahn]

I have moved your post into the Support for Unity forums for more visibility.

Have you seen this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaFvDapOlL4

We go through the process of making and using tilesets. Also would suggest checking on our wiki to see if that helps as well or hasn't been seen. https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGU/pages/950633/Working+with+Images+as+the+GM

We thank you for your report of any bugs you may experience with Unity. Can you provide images of these occurrences you are experiencing?

I agree with the OP.

The video linked is poorly named. It has nothing to do with creating or using tile sets. It is more about creating reusable map segments that have built-in LOS; pretty advanced to someone that is completely new to map making. It also pretty much skips over placing or using the tiles from the commercial set altogether other than the first hallway segment that is built. Finally, if you have to use Photoshop to alter images or individually resize each tile from a commercially available set, the whole process is pointless. These tools should make it easier, not harder.

[Ghoti]

Just adding my voice to this issue; I and one of my friend are both replicating the "eraser stops erasing" issue with a high degree of ability to replicate.

[Sgt.Rock008]

I have experienced the same issue as OP yesterday. After using the paint brush I switched to the eraser and it would not erase. It also producer and error in the console log. See attached. Also, layers would disappear when trying to highlight the paint layer. Layers would reappear when using the mouse scroll wheel but then disappear again when trying to click on a layer to highlight. Very strange behavior.


D&D 5e
Curse of Strahd - migrated from FGC in April
Simple Grey Theme / Curse of Strahd decal
Windows 10 / FGU Ultimate Licence
FGU version 08-20

[kevininrussia]

I have experienced the same issue as OP yesterday. After using the paint brush I switched to the eraser and it would not erase. It also producer and error in the console log. See attached. Also, layers would disappear when trying to highlight the paint layer. Layers would reappear when using the mouse scroll wheel but then disappear again when trying to click on a layer to highlight. Very strange behavior.

It’s discussed here

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?61090-FGU-Map-FX-amp-layers-broken-with-new-update