Variable light sources in MapTool?

[rom90125]

First,

Thanks for the great app! I am very impressed with what you and team have done thus far.

I have one question at this time. Does MapTool support light sources? If not, is it in the works to support this feature?

It would be nice to have Fog of War enabled, and have a token representing a defined light source (with visible radius chosen by the GM/DM) that would reveal only the areas of the map that fall within the radius/range of the light source. As the token is moved across the map, Fog-of-war would be updated to reveal areas that are within the light source area, and hide areas no longer in the radius/range of the light source.

[trevor]

There has been a lot of discussion about auto exposing fog of war. In a general case, it's dangerous to have automatic exposing. Imagine the case where you are dungeon crawling, if you expose the entire vision radius (circle around the player) you might expose the secret room, or even the hallway on the other side of the wall.

That being said, we have recently introduced the ability to put light sources on tokens. Use the right mouse button on the token and select Light ... Note that the interface is a first pass implementation and will soon be simplified and enhanced.

Once a token has a light source, the gm can then know how much of the fow to expose. And with the very recent addition of a freehand area expose tool you can expose exactly what the players can see.

In another recent post, someone had made the suggestion of having two layers of fow, one for undiscovered area, and one where the players have been but currently can't see. Imagine the fow in Starcraft for example, once you've been to a location you know what the map looks like, but once you leave the area it becomes grayed out. Now that CAN be automated based on a tokens vision I really like this idea so look for it in the not too distant future.

Oh, and welcome, welcome

[rom90125]

Thanks for the quick response Trevor.

FYI
I'm unable to WebStart or download the beta for TokenTool...both links are pointing to non-existent objects...

[trevor]

Super bummer, let me take a look ...

[trevor]

Hmmm, looks like the beta is broken, I'll get with the web guy to fix it.

In the mean time, it looks like the alpha works, and to be honest, the alpha is head and shoulders better than beta, so I'd recommend that one anyway

Let me know if the alpha link doesn't work for you.

[jay]

Originally I thought we could just remove the FOW under the light until we hit something on the map that was a different color than the background color. This has lots of problems:

• Impossible to determine what the background color is. You can't just pick an arbitrary color under a token the map can have squares that contain both floor and wall.
• Often there isn't just one background color on a map but a pattern. (the unbounded maps are an example).
• When a map has a grid on it, the grid would block the light. On many of the maps we have been using with my group the map grid lines are the same color as the walls.

The next thing I thought we could try is to clear the FOW under the light until it reached a line that was drawn on the map. The problems here are:

• The DM would have to draw lines to show the light boundaries.
• There (currently) isn't any way to distinguish between what is drawn by the DM and what is drawn by the user. So user lines will block light and user erasures will let it through.
• There would be know way to differentiate between a line that block light and one that did not. So even if the GM draws a line on the map to show something, it will start blocking the light.

The last 2 problems we can fix internally by just defining a special type of drawing that blocks light and that only the DM can draw. So my question to the DMs would be; would you draw the light boundaries on your maps so that you could use something like this?

I'm thinking that making a change of this size would be a of work. So if we do decide to do something like this, we would have to prioritize it.

[storyguide3]

Would it possible to have 2 FOW layers, one for the DM and the other for the players? The DM layer would be absolute, unaffected by the light sources on tokens. The Player layer would be affected by the lights.

When in play, the DM would remove FOW from areas that the party "could" see, and then the movement of lighted tokens would actually remove the FOW on the player layer.

This would also allow the DM to place light sources as some sort of token in a room so that when the players entered a lit room they would already be able to see whatever was illuminated by the extant lighting.

[trevor]

Would it possible to have 2 FOW layers, one for the DM and the other for the players? The DM layer would be absolute, unaffected by the light sources on tokens. The Player layer would be affected by the lights.

From an earlier post:

In another recent post, someone had made the suggestion of having two layers of fow, one for undiscovered area, and one where the players have been but currently can't see. Imagine the fow in Starcraft for example, once you've been to a location you know what the map looks like, but once you leave the area it becomes grayed out. Now that CAN be automated based on a tokens vision Smile I really like this idea so look for it in the not too distant future.

So, yes

[storyguide3]

From an earlier post:

In another recent post, someone had made the suggestion of having two layers of fow, one for undiscovered area, and one where the players have been but currently can't see. Imagine the fow in Starcraft for example, once you've been to a location you know what the map looks like, but once you leave the area it becomes grayed out. Now that CAN be automated based on a tokens vision Smile I really like this idea so look for it in the not too distant future.

So, yes

Time to get new glasses.

[rom90125]

Hmmm, looks like the beta is broken, I'll get with the web guy to fix it.

In the mean time, it looks like the alpha works, and to be honest, the alpha is head and shoulders better than beta, so I'd recommend that one anyway

Let me know if the alpha link doesn't work for you.

Looks like the 'light' feature is not on the alpha release...btw, the beta link is still down

[trevor]

Looks like the 'light' feature is not on the alpha release...

Just to make sure I'm understanding, are you looking for the light in TokenTool or MapTool ? TokenTool won't have something like that, but in MapTool you should be able to right click a token and select Light... from the popup menu.

btw, the beta link is still down

I'll poke the web guys again.

[rom90125]

Trevor,

When I right-click on a token that was dragged/dropped onto the map, I do not see any reference to 'light' on the popup menu. The options I am given are:

Size
Snap to Grid
Visible
Rename
Arrange
Set Token State.

Size is set to 'Medium', Snap to Grid and Visible are checked, and Token State is set to 'Clear Token State'.

I am running MapTool via the Webstart shortcut created when I first ran the app.

[trevor]

That looks like the Beta token menu. Try the Alpha version of MapTool, you should get a menu like:

Set Token State
Size
Arrange
Light ...
Snap to Grid
Visible
Rename
--
Delete

Let me know if you don't see that