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View Full Version : Darkvision and Bright/Dim/No light interaction



Ecks
May 15th, 2021, 01:14
Not sure if this is known or expected behavior or not. I noticed that darkvision with no light sources on a map appears to be "full" brightness instead of "dim" brightness. Not sure if this is expected in the absence of light. I noticed this on the b/w maps in the Dragon Heist module, and it stood out since Darkvision is rendered as greyscale and the map was already in greyscale. I also noticed that if lighting is disabled on these maps, the maps appear to get darker for players.

Here is the setup on Zhent-Warehouse-Lower-Players from Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. There is a single player with Darkvision 60 defined on their character sheet. Capture1 (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46696) shows the DM and Player views.

Capture2-Lighting-Disabled (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46697) shows the player view with lighting turned off. Note that the map has gotten darker without lighting enabled (and is darker than the actual map) which seems odd. If I disable line of sight then the map lightens back up to what it normally looks like with no effects.

Capture3-LightAdded (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46698) shows the DM and player view with a light added to the map (created with default settings, Bright 20.0, Bright Falloff 25.0, Dim 40.0, Dim Falloff 50, Color FFFFFFFF). The player with darkvision now sees dim lighting in the area defined by the light (though, shouldn't it be bright?) and areas with no light appear brighter than areas with dim light: Capture4-Player (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46699) (in this screenshot, the large door is open allowing dim light to fall outside. No other lights on map, and you can see the area north of the token is brighter than the dimly lit area).

Last, Capture5-Player (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46700) shows the darkvision view with no lights on the map. It appears to be bright light for 45' and then dim with a falloff to 60'.

To recreate the setup:
New 5e campaign, new PC with Darkvision 60
Share Map Zhent-Warehouse-Lower-Players
Add PC to CT and add PC token to map

FGU v4.1.0 (2021-05-12)
5E ruleset v2021-05-11
Windows 10

Moon Wizard
May 15th, 2021, 05:40
This is by design. Originally, we had looked at making the brightness of darkvision down to 50%, but it was too dim. So, in order to balance usability vs. true to mechanics, we made it brighter. I think that it is exaggerated in your example, because your map is black and white. On colored maps, the darkvision became almost un-noticeable.

Regards,
JPG

Ecks
May 15th, 2021, 15:10
Fair enough, thanks for the reply. It looks good on full-color maps.

Was the darkening of the image with only Line-of-sight enabled expected? Here's a better screenshot of it: LoSDarkening.JPG (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46729)

Moon Wizard
May 15th, 2021, 16:39
I'll ask @cpinder to take a look when he has a chance; but it seems minor at this point.

Regards,
JPG