Nuclear Blast Sized Fireballs

**mclimbin** · February 19th, 2021, 19:23

Hi all,
I'm wondering if there is a way to avoid or workaround this small issue.

I love using the new spell effect templates. They are great, and my players love them. The only problem is, during a game, if I drop a template onto the map that we are using, the spell effect is HUGE! I inevitably get comments like, "Yes, Mr. GM, that is exactly the size of my fireball--the whole map" or "Nuke them from orbit!!".

While I enjoy the jokes, I'd prefer to have the spell effect become visible to the players after I have a chance to resize it correctly.

Is there any way to do this? For example, set a new image layer to be not visible by default? Or some other way to deal with this?

What do you all do?

I use Unity and am playing 5E by the way.

**kevininrussia** · February 19th, 2021, 19:48

I use those templates in 4e. What I do is add the spell images I think will be needed to the maps as layers before game, size them and turn the layer invisible to players and drag the image off the side of the map. Then when needed I position the image and turn the image visible to the players. Its something you have to do to each map though. Would be nice to be able to save scale state of the image seeing that we don't have access to the file to resize the image in photoshop.

**jwatmough** · February 19th, 2021, 20:01

The spell templates, when dragged and dropped onto the map, should size automatically to their correct size compared to the grid on which the map is set. For example, fireball will always be a 20' radius or 8 squares across, 4 from the center to an edge.

**kevininrussia** · February 19th, 2021, 20:27

It depends on the ruleset. In 4e its 3 squares from center to an edge for fireball. There should be a system built to easily modify and save the scale to fit any ruleset.

**mclimbin** · February 19th, 2021, 20:34

@jwatmough, That would be awesome if it worked like that...

Any ideas why it could be that it is not working for me in that way? I must be doing something wrong?

**mclimbin** · February 19th, 2021, 20:38

I'm dragging them as images. How does a second layer know the size it should be? Isn't it just two images stacked on one another? Am I supposed to be using it as a token or something?

**mclimbin** · February 19th, 2021, 20:39

@kevininrussia, I have done that too. It is good if I am able to prepare all the possible spells, but if they pull out something new, I'd like it to work better.
That said, there are certain spells that they always use that I can prepare for each map.

**jwatmough** · February 19th, 2021, 21:00

Originally Posted by mclimbin

@jwatmough, That would be awesome if it worked like that...

Any ideas why it could be that it is not working for me in that way? I must be doing something wrong?

The art packages are encoded with the 'size' the image should be displayed in the terms of the grid of the workspace. When dragging an image from the assets window into the image workspace FGU looks at that information and adjusts accordingly for what the grid has been defined as. I just tested to make sure and it is indeed working that way.

**jwatmough** · February 19th, 2021, 21:10

If you would like a live demonstration of this I would be happy to showcase its functionality on my Twitch stream tomorrow at 3pm eastern time. I am also more than happy to help you sort it out here. The first step would be to make sure you are fully updated and that you disable all extensions. Create a new campaign and then within that campaign a new blank image record. Set the grid size to 100x100 and drag the fireball template from the assets window onto the new image.

**mclimbin** · February 19th, 2021, 23:08

Thank you! I am using a custom map. It's a map of Skullport, and it has a grid incorporated into the image, but each square is 10'. I set up the grid with smaller squares so there are 4 squares within that 10' square.
When I drop the effect, it seems to be calculating not from the 5' square, but the 10' square. It seems to be double the size, in other words.

The other problem is that one of the fireball images that I use is from a third party; it's not a spell effect template, so it doesn't seem to have the size encoded. I think this is really the main problem.
Is there information or a tutorial out there that can show me how to encode the sized of the template so that it will drop properly?

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