Will we have the ability to separately add a portrait, and add a top down portrait.
Like we currently cant do in FG without a gms help.
Sorry the Second portrait was meant to say to token
Will we have the ability to separately add a portrait, and add a top down portrait.
Like we currently cant do in FG without a gms help.
Sorry the Second portrait was meant to say to token
It'll probably work as it does now.
There is underlying functionality based off the portrait - selected by the players and used to display when a PC is being used by a logged in player, and the token (the "top down portrait" as you call it) that is used to show the PC on the map and comes from either an auto generated graphic when the player selects a portrait, or from a token that the GM or player has access to (different from a portrait).
Currently, every character can have a portrait (shown at upper left of tabletop when PC is active) and a token (used to denote the PC on the combat tracker and maps). If only a portrait is defined, then a token is built using the portrait.
In current FG version, the portraits and tokens can be set by the current user based on the files on their machine. This will work similarly in FGU. We will look into asset sharing between clients down the road, but it is actually challenging due to bandwidth and delay considerations.
Regards,
JPG
Well If you have a FULL portrait you want your fellow players to have access to, you can Upload it to Cloud Storage then provide the link in the FG Chat. Or ... yep, email it to your GM and he/she can put a Link to it on your character sheet
Could you please consider increasing the size, or giving us a setting to control the size, of the token generated?
The current 100x100 pixel size leaves the tokens generated as to small and fuzzy/blurry upon creation, even if the original is a high quality image.
I know Roll20 uses 256x256 pixels for medium sized tokens (monster manual for example), for this very reason I imagine, to give a good looking experience.
Not something to ignore as players and GM will spend hours looking at them (their character personifications on the map) during play.
With the removal of memory size issues with Unity the option would be there for the taking to add even more polish to the visual experience.
Why do you say "removal of memory size issues with Unity"?Quote:
Originally Posted by Styrmir
Unity will not solve all memory issues. The GM might be able to run XYZ but in most cases you will have a wide variety of client specs at the one table.
People will start loading very large high res maps and they ill just end up with different memory issues.
As in that the client will stop breaking down around the 3.2 gb mark, but instead be brought in line with more modern applications as for its limitations.
I can understand that you might want to manage expectations, but overall as for client specs I feel it's pretty likely that most specs will include at the minimum 8GB of ram on the vast majority of computers now a days. Not that passing that memory use should be a goal or anything, but without inspecting memory handling within the Unity engine even passing a computers memory amount would probably be handled differently than currently. With hard drive memory swapping for example, rather than causing bugs and crashes. But that's me speculating without digging into Unity specifications, as an extrapolation of general memory handling in modern applications.
People can of course always loose themselves entirely and that is the case with any application. But breaking past the current boundaries and being able to push up the visual experience further with larger higher quality maps and tokens is certainly a good thing to stay competitive. Visual appeal is a large factor for a lot of people. And while my main draw to FG are the things I'm able to do with it as I mainly GM and how comfortable it is to work with it when it comes to planning and creating content, and how it takes some of the workload of GM'ing with automation and presentation. Players, particularly those whom have previous experience from other competing platforms will often make more surface level comparisons on visual aspects first to decide if they like things. So I've worked hard to improve those factors as I'm able to with extensions and pouring days into improving artwork and content presented to my players.
So as far as I'm concerned the time is ripe to take advantage of these improvements. I Photoshop art and tokens, overpainting and improving art when needed. I do this for all the monster manuals I've created, I've replaced art and tokens from purchased monster manuals to increase their quality and created personalized tokens for my players in this way. All high quality images for monsters and their tokens at 256x256, with these now ranging in quite the few hundreds. It simply makes the experience that much better in my personal opinion.
Even so I keep under the current limits, though in my more intricate and content rich campaigns I do have to choose and pick modules to load somewhat currently to make that happen.
ps. All those valid observations above aside, but to the original posts point. If FG gave the option to render tokens from portraits at higher quality, up to the quality I and my players have come to expect (that is less compressed in size in short) that would be a very nice improvement.
Memory considerations do not go away with a 64-bit build, because you still are limited by physical RAM in the machine, as well as OS considerations for per process memory and page file size. We are still going to have recommendations for graphic sizes, though FGU should be able to handle more resolution in general.
In FGU, we are working on being better at only loading assets when needed, and disposing of assets not used for long periods of time. While this has worked much better, we're working on a separate loading bottleneck now. So, trade-offs as always.
One relevant note is that any products available in the store also have to be built for both FG Classic as well as FG Unity; so they will adhere to the current asset resolution guidelines as long as FGC continues to be supported.
Regards,
JPG
I am so focused on the future of this platform, and the possibilities I see, that it passed my mind that FGC would of course still be used along side for the foreseeable future. So that makes sense.
As a software developer I keep thinking about what could be possible and what I'd like to do to improve the platform further as I want to see it grow and prosper. I ask myself what would bring it to the largest client base, how can it stand out against it's competitors do better and outshine them, etc. Ranging from thoughts of what I could do myself if I was working on it.
- Such as a more modernized, clean looking web presence for a comprehensive centralized and easier way to set up, advertise and find filtered games with fewer clicks. Using standardized database linked entries for searches etc. (roll20 has the best model for this currently).
- Certain core changes that could be done to optimize and improve certain aspects of the client such as the ones you're looking into in the above post, which sounds great. This is of course from someone looking in from the outside without having seen the central code and how it's working together.
- C# core or Unity improvements / changes in the form of plugins. (I know you've had trepidation about this, just what I'd like to get my hands into I suppose :))
- Various extensions in lua I've been considering.
- Steam like 'Workshop' sharing and auto-updating of extensions and plugins through subscriptions.
The list go on, but I'm sure you have your own lists and there is a lot you guys would like to do but it's always the question of where to best distribute your resources with development.
In short I'm very passionate about FG and want to see it grow into it's full potential over time and to take an ever larger slice of the pie of the overall client base. People are missing out by not experiencing it.
I'll end this post by saying that I know you guys are a small team and you do work very hard on everything and it is noticed. So I appreciate your efforts and you've done a great thing with FG and I'm very excited to see what's in store in the foreseeable future.