DM maps as layers in player maps

[jaharmi]

This is something I've been mulling over for a while. FG's image support gives us the ability to use layers. The layers can have different visibility settings for players vs. GM.

Has there been any thought of putting GM maps as a layer on the Player maps, especially for any official/store content? This would make better use of the screen space for GMs, who probably have many more windows open than players. It would keep the GM and Players on the same maps, making for a better experience for GMs and one that could not be replicated in a tabletop session.

I haven't seen this done yet, although the newest purchased D&D 5e content I have is probably The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. In this adventure, I set up the carnival in this fashion:

1. Started with the Player's map.
2. Added the GM's map into the Player's map on a new layer.
3. Arranged the GM map layer above the Player's map layer in the stacking order.
4. Set the GM map visibility to GM only.
5. Set the Player's map visibility to all.
6. Tried as best as I could to line up the two maps.

Even with my not-quite-unsatisfactory efforts, I found this much better than juggling between two different map windows. (And I run FG on in a 3420×2160 window on a 5120x2160 screen, leaving room for Discord and other things.)

Of special note, the maps themselves and the map tools were not great for this:

1. The two maps were different pixel dimensions. I think they also covered different areas, because the Player map has a border with important information. I understand this is (and always can be) an issue with the source material.
2. I didn't find any alignment tools or draggable gui×des, but the different pixel dimensions would have made that unsuitable in this case anyway. I tend to have difficulty with the image editor, since it's so unlike most other image editing (and editing paradigms) I've done on computers for years. (I'm on macOS and have used everything from MacPaint and SuperPaint, through Aldus/Adobe FreeHand, and a few more modern things, but less so than when I was younger.)
3. I tried to make the upper layer (GM map) transparent to drag around for sizing and alignment, but also had problems with this. It's been a while, so I'm not even sure I could set the transparency of the GM map image.

[Trenloe]

Has there been any thought of putting GM maps as a layer on the Player maps, especially for any official/store content?

Quite a few recent conversions use this approach.

[Zacchaeus]

Yes, the latest adventures have a DM layer which is composed solely of the room numbers, secret doors and other indicator information. At least the ones for 5e (Dragonlance and Golden Keys); and any that come out going forward will be the same. The only qualification to that is it may depend on the maps as supplied by the publisher. If those aren't supplied with multiple layers which can be turned on and off then it will be much more difficult to do something like this.

[dittotb]

When I do my maps I try to put a paint layer on the map (at the top) and then make the map on visible to the DM. Then I place the markers on that layer.