Can i? A question about masking...

[dnmdk]

Hi, Im new to FGII...

I think masked maps is a very nice feature, but when i cut in the masked specially in dungeons I usually reveals secret pathways and doors because my mouse hand is a little shaky...

Is it possible to unmask with a rectangle tool somehow? thought about drawing by holding ALT, CTRL or SHIFT but that don't work? any ideas?

If its not in built in FGII? would it be possible to script the functionality?

/Lasse

[John_Geeshu]

I'll tell you how I get around this issue. There are several ways.

1. Leave a gap between secret passages/doors/chambers and the main dungeon so you can easily unmask the sections around them without displaying their presence.

2. Don't put secret passages/doors/chambers on the map, but know where they are -- using shortcuts -- and when they are discovered draw them freehand with the drawing tool.

3. Make walls very thick so you have plenty of space to draw along them. It also helps with this method, to build your map on a black background so that everywhere that is not a passage or chamber is filled in.

4. Put in more secret trapdoors with chambers/passages vertically above or below. These then require a point of reference (use shortcuts) and a separate map which you can open up if the secret is discovered.

[Foen]

I tend to leave a gap (ie a thick bit in the wall) between the ordinary dungeon section and the secret bit, then drop a secret door token onto the map/gap when it is discovered. I also use tokens for floor traps etc, so they are only revealed once they have been discovered.

Stuart
(Foen)

[joshuha]

my mouse hand is a little shaky...


It may not help much but if you are in the middle of masking and realize you have drawn the wrong area hitting escape will undo the current reveal. This only works if you haven't released the mouse button yet though.

[dnmdk]

I'm scanning my big old dungeon crawl images and using these. I kind of hard making a gap there and just thought i might me a feature available since the pointer have a rectangle tool.

[Toadwart]

It's a request that has been raised a fe times now so I'm sure the devs have it on their list of "things to add sometime" . . .

[Griogre]

I'm scanning my big old dungeon crawl images and using these. I kind of hard making a gap there and just thought i might me a feature available since the pointer have a rectangle tool.
Another technique you can use instead of unmasking a predrawn map like this is mask the whole map and just trace over it with the drawing tool pen. Bascially you use the underlying map as a trace guide. I found this to be no slower than unmasking in most cases unless the area is very elaborate. Another benefit of doing this is that if there is a faint grid on the map you are tracing you won't see it through the simi transparent mask so you don't have to worry about matching the underlying map's grid and the FG grid. It is not the prettiest thing, though.

[Dachannien]

One trick I use is this:

The shape you trace out with the unmasking tool always closes itself with a straight line when you release the mouse button. You can line this straight edge up with walls and such if you have trouble making your lines neat.

If, for example, you're revealing a hallway, you can do it in two parts. The first part, you push the mouse button on the wall at one end of the hallway, trace down the middle of the hallway (doesn't have to be exact, anywhere in the hallway will do), and release the button on the same wall but at the other end of the hallway. For the second part, you repeat this, but start and end on the other wall. If you do it right, you'll have revealed the whole hallway, but you can always go back in a third step and clean up any bits in the hallway that you missed.

For rooms, you can do one piece of the room for each wall, or at least for each wall that has a secret door or other nifty thing on it.

[Oberoten]

One of the most sorely lacking parts is the drawing tools. And it'd be so simple to fix. Just give us a shift-key to hold to draw straight lines like in old Deluxe paint.

And BOOM instant usefulness achieved for maps on the fly.

[Stebby Surehand]

Hello all. If I recall, we can set tokens to be "Always Invisible", right? If my memory is correct, then a possible workaround for this problem could be to not map the secret door but to use a token to represent it instead.

You could set the token to be always invisible so you (as DM) would see it on the map but the players would not. If one of them makes a successful check, you can easily make the token visible, thus revealing it to the observant PCs.

Cheers,
~Stebby