Special Announcement - Kickstarter

[iotech]

So... there is a sale on.
Currently, I am on the Subscription for Ultimate and have been since the beginning of time (feels like it anyway).
I pledged at $135 USD for Newcomer Ultimate for FGU. This includes no FGC license.

If I understand this correctly, I could buy FGC Ultimate right now for $82.50 on sale, then change my pledge for FGU to Rookie Ultimate for $30... thus spending less money overall ($112.50) AND end up with BOTH FGC and FGU. Which, also by my calculations, is VERY generous of SW to run a sale right now.

Anyone see fault in this logic? Is my understanding good?

[iotech]

Ah, it seems I may have been mistaken... the link the Nylanfs posted is for the UPGRADE price.

So, my path would look like...
Buy Standard (on sale for $30 right now)
Upgrade this to FGC Ultimate for $82.50
Then pledge $30 for FGU Ultimate.
Total spent is ~$142.50... slightly more than my current pledge, but I get license for BOTH FGC and FGU.

Have I got this right now?

(Edit: When I checked, the Standard was on sale, but Ultimate was not. Now it shows Ultimate as on sale for $111. Less than $2 difference between that and going Standard>Ultimate Upgrade. Pulled the trigger on this, all is well.)

[damned]

Ah, it seems I may have been mistaken... the link the Nylanfs posted is for the UPGRADE price.

So, my path would look like...
Buy Standard (on sale for $30 right now)
Upgrade this to FGC Ultimate for $82.50
Then pledge $30 for FGU Ultimate.
Total spent is ~$142.50... slightly more than my current pledge, but I get license for BOTH FGC and FGU.

Have I got this right now?

(Edit: When I checked, the Standard was on sale, but Ultimate was not. Now it shows Ultimate as on sale for $111. Less than $2 difference between that and going Standard>Ultimate Upgrade. Pulled the trigger on this, all is well.)

It looks about right...

[Sorrior]

So here is my question..I plan to buy the standard version of the game and get a rookie to ultimate upgrade(i figure i can just sub for a few months or upgrade to ultimate when i have more money). I also plan to give an extra 160 for the pathfinder bundle and i am curious how that works as in will i be getting the bundle as a bonus once the kickstarter is done orr do i get it when FGU comes out orr does i get it right away? And how will you know i have pledged extra just for this bundle?

[Zacchaeus]

Hi Sorrior welcome to FG.

Once the KS finishes you will get sent a backer kit which will ask you for details of what you pledged. Once that has all been filled in and sent back to Smiteworks things will get sorted out (also the payments etc have to be cleared as well which will take a few days).

Once all that is done you will be able to access the Pathfinder material.

[LordEntrails]

The masks that we support will need to be solid with a transparent background. The solid portion gets turned into polygons which block all LOS past the edge. ..., so I may not get around to it until I get back next week -- Tuesday or beyond.

As Doug mentioned, he can run a sample map you define through the process to give an idea of where it is. You should pick a map with some complexity. Thin/thick walls, doors, secret doors, debris, etc. While we could potentially spend time refining the algorithm, there's only so much you can do that will work in general on every map type.

I've sent Support an email with the image and mask image. Note, the mask image is a jpg, it just occurred to me re-reading this you needed an alpha transparency with it, which I didn't define (though would have been easy had I remembered to do it). If its not something that you can do quickly, let me know and I will resend it.

Curious as to how much cleanup might be needed, if the mask for the walls is too thin (too few pixels) or the image otherwise needs cleanup or different specs etc, let me know, probably easy to do during creation and export.

Thanks for taking a second look at this, I'm sure their is just more than me that appreciates it.

[notrealdan]

For the LoS in FGU, there are two types of LoS blockers, walls and terrain, as shown in the FGU videos. For the image+mask method, would we have to create two masks? One for walls and another for terrain? Or would we create one mask for all and still need to go into FGU and do some cleanup (specifying which areas are which type of blocker, add doors, etc.)?

[LordEntrails]

For the LoS in FGU, there are two types of LoS blockers, walls and terrain, as shown in the FGU videos. For the image+mask method, would we have to create two masks? One for walls and another for terrain? Or would we create one mask for all and still need to go into FGU and do some cleanup (specifying which areas are which type of blocker, add doors, etc.)?

Good question. I assume the mask only does blockers, but terrain and door type elements 'could' be done with the mask image using different colors or specific RGB values (i.e. black for blocker, red for terrain, and three shades of blue for the different door types).

But, I think the first part is getting the mask import to work without having to clean up. From what Moon has said, the initial tests they did importing a mask required lots of cleanup afterwards, it became just easier to do everything in FGU. The mask idea will only be reasonable if the mask import is "clean" And that's something that hasn't been successful yet.

[notrealdan]

Good question. I assume the mask only does blockers, but terrain and door type elements 'could' be done with the mask image using different colors or specific RGB values (i.e. black for blocker, red for terrain, and three shades of blue for the different door types).

But, I think the first part is getting the mask import to work without having to clean up. From what Moon has said, the initial tests they did importing a mask required lots of cleanup afterwards, it became just easier to do everything in FGU. The mask idea will only be reasonable if the mask import is "clean" And that's something that hasn't been successful yet.

Thanks, and I totally agree with the "one step at a time" approach.

Is a mask method like this something that would generally only be useful if you created the map in something like Photoshop or GIMP (or insert your favorite robust tool here) in the first place? Is it made easier because you may have all the walls already together in a layer (or grouped somehow, not a Photoshop/GIMP expert...)? For those of us without those kinds of skills (perhaps the majority) and are mostly using flat jpg maps found online, would a mask method be more difficult and not worth it, and we'd be better off using tools within FGU?

I do back some Patreons that provide fantastic maps, and some of them offer the Photoshop files also, often for a higher price. I'm wondering if those files would be more useful for this kind of work than just the jpg files.

And trying to wrap my head around it, since I haven't seen this done before. Thanks!

[Trenloe]

For those of us without those kinds of skills (perhaps the majority) and are mostly using flat jpg maps found online, would a mask method be more difficult and not worth it, and we'd be better off using tools within FGU?

The mask method would be more difficult unless the image was very simple. You essentially be making a mask outside of FGU, which process would be very similar to what you'd do defining blockers in FGU. Then you'd import and have to do all the checking/cleanup.