Fog of War: version 4.1 vs version 4.0

[webdove]

Here are some tests of the appearance of Fog of War in FGU 4.1 vs 4.0

These are the combat tracker tokens:

https://i.imgur.com/1NnXdHk.png

The map is Dungeon of the Mad Mage level 1.
The map is dark. All actors have darkvision.
"Party Vision and movement" is off so actors are not forced into Party Vision.
Only actor _Right is in Party Vision.
The left, right and lower door to the pillared chamber are closed. The upper door is open.
Actors _Left, _Right and _Center have moved some so they have vision memory (FoW) of parts of the map. Actor _Below (npc skeleton) has not.
Actor _Left is owned by Prellin, actor _Center is owned by webdove. actor _Right is unowned.

---------------------- FGU 4.1
Prellin's screen. No actor is selected. Realtime Vision and Fog of War are visible for actors _Left-PV (owned) and _Right+PV (in Party Vision).
The FoW is very dim.

https://i.imgur.com/df1APzc.png

Prellin's screen. Actor _Left-PV (owned) is selected. Realtime Vision and Fog of War are both visible.
The FoW is very dim.
The PV actor is not visible. This is a change from version 4.0.

https://i.imgur.com/yaM9012.png

DM Screen, no actor selected, Player Vision Preview is enabled. Realtime vision is visible for PC actors.
FoW is no longer visible in this mode as it was in 4.0.
All map tokens are visible.

https://i.imgur.com/1tNuBFs.png

DM Screen, _Left-PV actor selected, Player Vision Preview is enabled. Realtime vision and FoW is visible for actor _Left-PV.
FoW is very dim compared to version 4.0.

https://i.imgur.com/E9bTXAX.png

(continued below)

[webdove]

-------- FGU 4.1 (continued)
DM's screen. No actor is selected. Player Vision Preview is disabled. Realtime vision is visible for PC actors.
FoW for PC actors is not visible as it was in version 4.0 (shown below).

https://i.imgur.com/qMV2Txq.png

-------- FGU 4.0
Prellin's screen. No actor is selected. Realtime Vision and Fog of War are visible for actors _Left-PV (owned) and _Right+PV (in Party Vision).
The FoW is fairly bright.

https://i.imgur.com/eWBx0eY.png

Prellin's screen. Actor _Left-PV (owned) is selected. Realtime Vision and Fog of War are both visible.
The FoW is fairly bright.
The PV actor is visible.

https://i.imgur.com/nefBbFQ.png

DM Screen, no actor selected. Realtime vision is visible for PC actors. FoW is visible for all PC actors.
The FoW is fairly bright.
All map tokens are visible.

https://i.imgur.com/oFlaVJv.png

DM Screen, _Left actor selected. Realtime vision and FoW is visible for actor _Left.
The FoW is fairly bright.

https://i.imgur.com/mV7UD9t.png

The two changes that are most significant from version 4.0 to version 4.1 are that the DM no longer sees the FoW memory of player PCs when they have not selected a specific player, and the FoW memory is in general very dim and difficult to see.

Is there a chance that you could brighten FoW to be more like it was in 4.0?

[Gollwyn]

Was there ever any answer? The Fog of war area for my players is so dim as to be unusable for them to assess the very large maps. So it is a shame that I have to turn off all the dynamic features and go back to manually masking so they can actually see the basic hallway structure.

Also if knows of any better/enhanced maps for mad mage I would love to know about them and purchase them. The art level of these maps is quite lacking compared to other published adventures, much to my disappointment. Basically graph paper outlines and doors.

[LordEntrails]

The easiest solution is just to have those players who are having trouble seeing the FOW history areas etc adjust their monitors. Certainly not ideal, and hopefully their will eventually be an in FGU solution, but usually just adjusting contrast is all that is needed.

[Gollwyn]

Also if knows of any better/enhanced maps for mad mage I would love to know about them and purchase them. The art level of these maps is quite lacking compared to other published adventures, much to my disappointment. Basically graph paper outlines and doors.

Just to be clear this is not a complaint against FG or the FG module map conversion - this is a weakness in the published adventure itself - ugly maps.

~G

[Gollwyn]

The easiest solution is just to have those players who are having trouble seeing the FOW history areas etc adjust their monitors. Certainly not ideal, and hopefully their will eventually be an in FGU solution, but usually just adjusting contrast is all that is needed.

That's actually not as easy to do on some kinds of monitors these days as you might think. I am trying to do a filter - adding the "parchment" filter looks like it improves the situation considerably (and also makes the boring maps look a little better) but then I run into the problem that I can't really trust the Player Preview entirely (as noted above by the OP) to match what the players will see. I do wish there was an ability to spawn a "player window" that is entirely the same experience of a player in the game 100% right alongside my primary DM window. I wonder if that's on the wishlist.

Wish me luck testing parchment filter with my players Sunday. :)

~G

P.S. I do sometimes have weird issues when I add lights to these Mad Mage maps that the lights are visible to everyone everywhere no matter what line of sight. Not sure what is going on with that. I delete the light layer and re-add and it doesn't do it. Any thoughts? I am pretty sure that's me doing things in wrong order or something, not FG.

[DCrumb]

You can always connect to your own campaign on the same computer. You might have to create a character, but when you join your own campaign, you are getting a player's view.

[LordEntrails]

I do wish there was an ability to spawn a "player window" that is entirely the same experience of a player in the game 100% right alongside my primary DM window. I wonder if that's on the wishlist.
Nearly impossible to do. Because your computer would have to know all the device drivers and settings each of your players computers is using. i.e. In simplest form, there is no (reasonable) way for your computer to know what the display brightness is set to on some nearly random remote computer. Nor what the graphic drivers are set to, or the Windows display settings, or the operating system it is using, or...

[Eltrym]

You can always connect to your own campaign on the same computer. You might have to create a character, but when you join your own campaign, you are getting a player's view.

I've done that with my laptop for some time now.