Is there a way to remove the grey background on maps and images?

[Rylan Storm]

I've installed FGU today after watching a few of the Twitch videos about maps but there's something that's bothering me that I can't find any info on. Just need to know if Im doing something wrong or if it's not supported functionality.

When I add an image or a map using FGU it seems that something is setting the size of the image/map and it's not the image Im importing. FGU then adds a grey background.

To clarify.

How FGC adds the image
39244

How FGU adds the image.
39245

Is there a way to select a layer and do something like "Size map to layer". It looks really weird that you put down an image and you and your players can then scroll over this massive background. Also, when you add an fx layer the fx covers that grey background and it just looks a little odd.

This all seems very weird so Im sure Im just doing it wrong. Any thoughts?


https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=136203

[Trenloe]

Click the "Zoom to Fit' button in the top left (the four arrows in an X shape).

[Kelrugem]

I think that for players it is always black, but I didn't test it :) (when it is about that you are afraid of that players could see the boundary) EDIT: With activated LoS :)

[Rylan Storm]

That's not really getting me to where I'd want to be either.

That just zooms in (and makes the image really blurry) but what I really want is the map/image/window areato be defined by the actual image, not something that seems to be set in the background and is out of my control.
39246

In the case of this particular image, it's 600x300 pixels. In FGC the window size is only just enough to accommodate the image. If I expand the window the image scales to fit. Now what happens is the image appears in a large window with grey, I have to downsize the window and play around with it. If I expand the window I just get more grey area.

It really just seems like it's a lot more effort to get a result which doesn't look as clean.

[Rylan Storm]

I think that for players it is always black, but I didn't test it :) (when it is about that you are afraid of that players could see the boundary)

Sorry, you and I seem to have posted at exactly the same time. It's not that I'm worried about it - it's just that the one thing that drew me to Fantasy Grounds over Roll20 was how clean it all looked. Making map window areas larger than they need to be and allowing your players to scroll way into the blackness/greyness for small handouts etc just looks really messy. It's also a case that displaying an image now seems to take 2 or 3 more steps.

It used to be
1. Click on image.
2. Share.

Now it's

1. Click on image.
2. Resize window to a reasonable level.
3. Zoom to fit.
4. Adjust the window area a bit more to get rid of the background.
5. Share
6. Hope that players don't scroll off into the border area.

Also, in the screenshot I added in the most recent post, the blizzard on the black area just looks weird.

[Kelrugem]

Sorry, you and I seem to have posted at exactly the same time. It's not that I'm worried about it - it's just that the one thing that drew me to Fantasy Grounds over Roll20 was how clean it all looked. Making map window areas larger than they need to be and allowing your players to scroll way into the blackness/greyness for small handouts etc just looks really messy. It's also a case that displaying an image now seems to take 2 or 3 more steps.

It used to be
1. Click on image.
2. Share.

Now it's

1. Click on image.
2. Resize window to a reasonable level.
3. Zoom to fit.
4. Adjust the window area a bit more to get rid of the background.
5. Share
6. Hope that players don't scroll off into the border area.

Also, in the screenshot I added in the most recent post, the blizzard on the black area just looks weird.

hmmm, I understand. But actually I think that is a "feature" compared with FGC because zooming and panning got sometimes difficult in FGC, especially when your tokens are moving at the boundary. Now you can scroll over the boundary, and it may look nicer because then your token can still be in the middle :) Getting rid of such a hard boundary solves such zoom problems etc. as in FGC (for example you can now also zoom out as much as you want, for a "sharper" quality in case the map has not such a high resolution).
Maybe changing the way how zoom to fit works could be changed (with an automatic adjustment of the window boundary)? The way how it now works, is that it zooms as long as either the vertical or horizontal axis fits the image size, one could try to adjust the code in such a way that also the other axis gets adjusted (changing the window itself), this existed somewhat in FGC :) So, your suggestion about such a zoom to fit sounds indeed good :) (but assuming a rectangle for the image, other types of images is different of course)

But the Fx may be indeed something for a report, I think :)

[Kelrugem]

Oh, and for the DM it is necessary to go over the boundary because you can add other assets on the fly :) (for building maps inside FGU) Would be a bit difficult when you cannot go over the boundary then :D

[Zacchaeus]

FGU handles images differently from FGC. In FGC an image is just an image but in Unity an image could be a single part of a much larger image. If you are using images from modules then they'll work the same as they do in classic - just click the image and share. However if you import an image then FGU doesn't know that all you want is that image. It could be something that you are going to build on and use as part of something else. Even so the procedure is just the same. Click on image and share because no matter what you set it up on in your screen the players can zoom in and out and move it around all they want. So it's pointless trying to resize it so that the background isn't visible.

[LordEntrails]

It's one of the architectural changes between FGC and FGU. In FGC images are single files. In FGU an image is a compilation of an unlimited number of files (assets) and therefore the "canvas" is infinitely large.

The color (grey/black) of the canvas is controlled by the ruleset/theme and is the same as the LOS unrevealed color. Something they are considering changing or making configurable in the future.

Not sure what implementing a canvas size would do to limit zoom extents, but I do know FGC behavior was often criticized too.

As always, add suggestions to the Wish List so the community can vote and the devs can track :)

[Rylan Storm]

Yeah, I can see how the new functionality has influenced this but at the end, when your map is all laid out, a "Crop to Layer" feature would be really useful and make things much cleaner. I think it would also be beneficial to treat maps differently than images for handouts.

As I say, it doesn't look very clean and one of the reasons I picked FG over Roll20 was because it looked clean.

FGU handles images differently from FGC. In FGC an image is just an image but in Unity an image could be a single part of a much larger image. If you are using images from modules then they'll work the same as they do in classic - just click the image and share. However if you import an image then FGU doesn't know that all you want is that image. It could be something that you are going to build on and use as part of something else. Even so the procedure is just the same. Click on image and share because no matter what you set it up on in your screen the players can zoom in and out and move it around all they want. So it's pointless trying to resize it so that the background isn't visible.

Definitely stuff that I will add to the Wish List. It's possibly a show-stopper for me. Trying to decide now.


https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=136203

[Kelrugem]

Yeah, I can see how the new functionality has influenced this but at the end, when your map is all laid out, a "Crop to Layer" feature would be really useful and make things much cleaner. I think it would also be beneficial to treat maps differently than images for handouts.

As I say, it doesn't look very clean and one of the reasons I picked FG over Roll20 was because it looked clean.

FGU handles images differently from FGC. In FGC an image is just an image but in Unity an image could be a single part of a much larger image. If you are using images from modules then they'll work the same as they do in classic - just click the image and share. However if you import an image then FGU doesn't know that all you want is that image. It could be something that you are going to build on and use as part of something else. Even so the procedure is just the same. Click on image and share because no matter what you set it up on in your screen the players can zoom in and out and move it around all they want. So it's pointless trying to resize it so that the background isn't visible.

Definitely stuff that I will add to the Wish List. It's possibly a show-stopper for me. Trying to decide now.

I understand that, FGC looks in that regard indeed better because the background gives a little bit of "(map) editor" feeling instead of RPG. Hm, maybe some inbuilt ability to customize that background would solve it? but as I said, the players probably only see black there when LoS is activated, so, that is mainly now something on the DM side; not much too change on players' side I think, because even when it would be like you want it, then still a lot would be black for the players when LoS is activated such that this look may be way more neutral for players than you think :) Changing it for players may result to that people complain about that players can see or otherwise "feel" the boundary (that was the case some time ago) But a different mode for handouts sounds good as you say :)

[Rylan Storm]

I played around with FGU for a few hours last night and have just come to the realisation that this map issue is actually a show-stopper for me. I was totally convinced I was just doing something wrong so I was surprised it was just like this.

I really like the line of sight engine but I'll never be painting a map using a tool like Fantasy Grounds. And I think that new functionality has come at the cost of a really clean interface. When the map is locked the window and zoom should just be locked to the dimensions of the largest layer, in almost all cases this will be the background image.

I was able to zoom a 2048x2048 image out to about 50 pixels, scroll away from it and actually lose it. This was deliberate but that's the sort of thing users will do. Resizing the window to remove the bars just takes too long and then you've got a lot of wasted real estate on your screen.

I'll keep an eye on FGU. I've submitted the item to the wish list and hope it garners some support. But until there is a change there, I think I'll stick with FGC.

[Kelrugem]

I was able to zoom a 2048x2048 image out to about 50 pixels, scroll away from it and actually lose it. This was deliberate but that's the sort of thing users will do. Resizing the window to remove the bars just takes too long and then you've got a lot of wasted real estate on your screen.

For that you can use zoom to fit or reset zoom :) (but especially the first one) The players are able to do that, too :) (in case you didn't know)

So, just that shouldn't be so much of an issue, I hope, and I personally didn't really hear about that people are really doing that :) But besides that, adjusting the dimensions as a standard with on lock sounds useful :) (but whether it should also be locked to the dimensions as in FGC I am not sure, I personally prefer that I can now go over the boundary and freely decide my zoom level due to the frequent issues with the standard of FGC I had. Maybe an option can be included or something like this such that everyone can decide :) ) We will see what will be implemented/changed :)

[Rylan Storm]

https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=136203

[GEONE]

In FGC there was a radial option to "Adjust Vertical" and "Adjust Horizontal" along with "Original Size" which was perfect for scaling the window to fit the image. I was disappointed to learn this feature was removed from FGU, now sharing images feels clunky as they all have a whitespace around it and the window border doesn't automatically open with the image's correct aspect ratio.
While those buttons still exist in FGU, they function differently, setting the zoom level rather than resizing the window's border.

48565

Making it so the image window is automatically cropped to the image extents when the image record is LOCKED would solve the problem while still letting the DM edit the infinite canvas while map making.

[Moon Wizard]

Images are zoomed to fit the window size on opening; so that the longer side of an image always fits within the window. This ensures that the whole image is viewable when first opened. Are you not seeing this?

There's also a Zoom to Fill option on the radial menu to zoom the image to the shorter side of an image (where the view of the image is cropped on the sides, which was the FG default due to limitations of that client).

Regards,
JPG

[GEONE]

The issue the OP and I have though is that the window is square by default, which leads to either grey bars on the top or sides, or the image being cutoff. The window's dimensions ideally should be scaled to match the images dimensions.

[LordEntrails]

Another way to think of this would be to change the aspect ratio of the image window to match the image aspect ratio.

There are issues with all of that though. Since an image really doesn't have a boundary, it is limitless in size because assets and drawing can be made outside of the size of the asset used to initially create the image. FGU would have to calculate the current limits of the displayed assets, and then calculate that aspect ratio. Also, does FGU increase the current window size (height or width) to achieve the aspect ratio (and possible make the window undesirably large) or decrease the window size to meet the aspect ratio (and possibly too small)?

Not that any of that could not be coded, but it adds complexity that has to be maintained. I personally like the idea and voted on the wish list item linked above. Others should do the same so SW can see how popular the idea is to the community.

[Egheal]

https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=134456

when trying to vote with this link i get a "Sorry, the project is blocked by the administrator".

[superteddy57]

I'm not sure which project Rylan was referring to, but you could search from the main page. I believe that is the old link provided.

https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/

[LordEntrails]

when trying to vote with this link i get a "Sorry, the project is blocked by the administrator".
That link is to the obsolete and no longer used wish list. See the link superteddy gave for the new wish list.

[GEONE]

Here's the entry in the new wishlist

https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=136960

[Egheal]

Thanks guys!

[Rylan Storm]

Just going through some old requests to see if any progress has been made and I came across this.

Not sure what happened with the links but here is the one that I created. https://fgapp.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=136203

This has most votes so it might be better to consolidate on one post for the time being. I'd really like to see this get implemented.