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'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:40 pm
by Soultroubadour
Hey guys-
I just made a kind of astrolabe for my game and i need some advice on how to make it work-

Shantaya's sextant was one of those cool props that came with RPGs back in the day. It consists of a disk and a ruler that you line up with points on a special map. I just converted the images of the disk and ruler into .png format so i can drop them into maptool. However in order for the sextant to work properly i have to make the ruler 'rotate' around the point in the center of the disk. Kinda like hands on a clock where the ruler is one of the hands and the disk is the face of the clock. Can I lock these 2 tokens together in this way?

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:23 am
by dorpond
'lock' is where you have me confused.

If you are looking to put a ruler on a disk, that is easy - place the disk on the map first as a background image and then place the rule on it as either a background (these images will stack up on each other) or object image (objects just automatically are above backgrounds).

Then you can rotate the rule by changing the facing (control+shift+mouse wheel). of course, you will want to design your png images so that they rotate properly. Upload them and one of us can help you with that.

Now, if you want those images locked so that this device 'travels' on the map like other tokens, then no, we cannot connect them together. You would have to select both images and then move them around. What I am talking about here specifically is a rider on a horse, pirates on a boat, etc - being able to move the boat and the riders move with it.

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:48 am
by CoveredInFish
There are two "grouping" macro sets that perform movement on tokens just like the movement you did to a "master" token. ATM these are triggered by macros, but this just inspired me to do an update using the onTokenMove-Event.

For your sextant its probably pretty easy to code a specific solution. onTokenMove-macro to check if the ruler is moved, check by how much (maybe you'll have to get tricky to get delta-facing) and do that to the disc as well.

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 12:38 pm
by Telarus
Shantaya's Sextant & the Barsaive Map w/ Constellation Border is one of the coolest, fiddlyiest RPG game-aids I've ever seen. A digital version would KICK donkey. Following this with interest. :twisted:

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 12:15 am
by Soultroubadour
Here's the sextant and ruler (called a 'rod') as is. I added the little window in the Sextant so that you could more easily place it over a point on the map. In practice you would place the sextant on the map and then place the rod with he notch on its end straddling the same point on the map. The rod moves in a radius of that point and is lined up with stars along the border of the map. I am working on the map and will upload soon.

They don't necessarily have to move around together as long as you can easily rotate the rod around. I think the ideal 'action' would be to place the sextant token on the map and have it contain a macro that calls out the image of the rod and locks it in position while in use. If you pick up the sextant and the rod goes away... move it into position and hit the macro again. Is that easier or harder?

Haha Telarus is already dreaming of using this to navigate his ED frame... as am I my friend. As am I...

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 12:18 am
by Soultroubadour
crunchy bits.

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:33 am
by Soultroubadour
still working on the map that goes with these- the only image of Shantaya's star map i can find is broken into 6 scans from the old boxed set map. I got them basically pieced together but the cutoffs don't match etc. I found a nicer map of Barsaive and placed it in the frame but its not done to the same scale as the old one so if you line everything up with the kingdom of Throal there's some space to fill in order to make it look good. This is going to require some more work but if i can get everything to match up i can lay some nice new meridian lines on top of the sharper map...

wish me luck.

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:17 am
by Telarus
I wonder. Have you seen that map I made (and that piotrus annotated?):

https://rapidshare.com/files/1236796006 ... otrus_.rar

This map was hand vectored from the Barsaive Box Map w/ the Vivane Province Map. I had to morph the vivane province map to fit the greater barsaive area, but it's to-scale with the Barsaive box map.

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 6:32 am
by metatheurgist
Dunno if this is what you're after, if it is, it seems like a lotta work for not much gain. IMO you could get the same result with auras and conic auras and the presentation would look modern and slick as opposed to something that escaped from (I'm guessing) the 70's.
test.cmpgn
(2.33 MiB) Downloaded 184 times
As it stands it looks kinda...phallic. I wouldn't be surprised if whoever designed the thing got a chuckle out of imagining a whole lotta of (mostly male) rpg geeks handling something that might as well be named Shantaya's Junk, instead of Shantaya's sextant and rod.

Of course, it's entirely possible that I just have a dirty, dirty mind. ;)

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:11 am
by Bone White
metatheurgist wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if whoever designed the thing got a chuckle out of imagining a whole lotta of (mostly male) rpg geeks handling something that might as well be named Shantaya's Junk, instead of Shantaya's sextant and rod.

Of course, it's entirely possible that I just have a dirty, dirty mind. ;)
That was a bold innuendo.

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:32 pm
by Soultroubadour
lol- I could see where the utility of this thing would be elusive without the main part- the map which I'm still trying to get scaled properly. If i can put it all together star readings on the sextant will coincide with every significant place in the province of Barsaive. In addition to being a really cool interactive prop for role playing navigation and travel, with maptool it could be the ideal way to navigate between significant maps in a campaign. You could role play and NPC actually telling the characters how to navigate to the next place and then they could acually use that to get there. Discover or create new places on the continent and mark them on the world map with a flag token or easily navigate to places by the stars. It could be kinda awesome.

As for the rod- thats getting there, but not quite.
The rod part needs to rotate a full 360 degrees with the notch on the end centered on the point in the very middle of the sextant. So the question- Do I need to make an image for all 360 degrees of to do that? or is there another way...

rod.

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:35 pm
by CoveredInFish
No you can rotate freely. Either by mouse wheel with ctrl key IIRC or by macro using Wiki: setFacing().

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 9:17 pm
by Soultroubadour
Oh ok- right now the mouse wheel+shift only makes it point up, down, left and right... what should i do to make it do the directions in between?

thanks as always for all of your help everybody :)

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 11:43 pm
by Azhrei
Soultroubadour wrote:Oh ok- right now the mouse wheel+shift only makes it point up, down, left and right... what should i do to make it do the directions in between?
Read his post again: try using Ctrl+wheel. Or just reading the message that appears in the window's status bar at the bottom of the window.
thanks as always for all of your help everybody :)
You're welcome, as always. 8)

Re: 'binding' tokens to one another...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 6:29 am
by metatheurgist
Ctrl+Shift+mouse wheel will rotate a token in 5 degree increments. That wouldn't work well in this case so you'd want to right click and select Set Facing, then hold Ctrl and move the mouse.