LOS occluders - sensible amount of nodes per entity

[seycyrus]

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here, and if so, I apologize. Please set me straight.

I just started a thread over at the profantasy CC3+ forums regarding some method of automatically generating occluders and such for an exported map. I was wondering about symbols such as trees etc. - Basically things that aren't walls which I think are more straightforward to handle(could be wrong).

If I understand it correctly, there is a way to set up a macro to use a command to trace every tree (for example). I have never used the command in question before today, but I gave it a test on one tree and it created a polygon with 71 nodes. Now I think that is FAR too many, right? Especially if you are going to have a dozen trees or so... right? If that is indeed the case, what would be a practical amount of nodes to have per polygon?

[LordEntrails]

How big is the tree? I think of it this way, in general LOS is to determine vision between 5 foot squares. So if you are placing ten or twenty nodes per foot... you are way over doing it. Such detail just won't matter.

So, a tree with a 5' radius (10x10ft square) has a circumference of about 30ft. So, 30 nodes would be highly detailed compared to 5 feet. Also remember that a tree does block zero then 100%, yet an includer is going to do that, so you probably want the occluders somewhere inside the foliage extents. Thinking about it, an octagon (8 nodes) would probably be just fine for a 10 ft square 'tree'.

[Zacchaeus]

Before you start worrying about the number of nodes; how are you going to get FG to recognise your polygon?

[seycyrus]

@Zacchaeus You seem to be implying that having my horse push the wagon is not the most efficient method :)

I thought that I had seen something that led me to believe that occluders could come "along for the ride" as a separate file that could be imported as a separate layer or something.

Is the wiki the best place to start learning about how the LOS is implemented?

[seycyrus]

... so you probably want the occluders somewhere inside the foliage extents. ...

That's a potentially nice thing about this TRACED command on CC3+. It seems that you can set the trace inside a set distance of the object's "normal" outline.

[Surge]

Before you start worrying about the number of nodes; how are you going to get FG to recognise your polygon?

You can generate an XML and include that in the image folder with the same name as the image (except the extension), and FG will read and use it as LOS shapes.

[seycyrus]

You can generate an XML and include that in the image folder with the same name as the image (except the extension), and FG will read and use it as LOS shapes.

Surge, thanks for your response. I saw this stuff being discussed somewhere, but recall where. Is it the big ~ "community LOS project thread"?

I have an original map, then I create an "occluders map with a bunch of 2d polygons. CC3+ can save as image files such as jpg.

Would the probable roadmap be, open in Gimp, save as pdf, convert pdf to xml?

[Surge]

You'll have to work out the XML structure and write something to generate it. Smiteworks hasn't published it anywhere yet, but some people have reverse engineered it. I am aware that Arkenforge has implemented an auto export from their mapping software, and someone has written a python script for Dungeon Painter Studio and shared it in the Armory forum here.

[seycyrus]

You'll have to work out the XML structure and write something to generate it. Smiteworks hasn't published it anywhere yet, but some people have reverse engineered it. I am aware that Arkenforge has implemented an auto export from their mapping software, and someone has written a python script for Dungeon Painter Studio and shared it in the Armory forum here.

Hrmm, Thank you. This is beyond me.

[LordEntrails]

given that CC3p can do vectors, it should be capable of outputting occluded info. But is going to require atheist a macro. Its on my radar to pay attention too.

But, I don't expect anything soon

[Zacchaeus]

@Zacchaeus You seem to be implying that having my horse push the wagon is not the most efficient method :)

I thought that I had seen something that led me to believe that occluders could come "along for the ride" as a separate file that could be imported as a separate layer or something.

Is the wiki the best place to start learning about how the LOS is implemented?

Indeed, the occluders are stored in an XML file; but the point would be that whetever CC3 output isn't going to be recognised necessarily by FG. The occluder files need to be in a format that FG will recognise.

More information here https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGU/pages/260440084/Developer+Guide+-+Extracting+LOS+Data+for+Modules