FEATURE: Vision limiter

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wolph42
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FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by wolph42 »

(This is a feature post, discussion about the functionality of this feature (and this featue alone) can be done here.)

Vision limiter.

This was build in the BoT using the eventArea/eventToken system (or the triggerArea system). And I find it limited. vision is limited when standing IN that area, but not when looking AT that area. This is basically why I added the layered example so your vision gets gradually less when you move. However two rooms next to eachother, one filled with mist the other clear and a doorway in the middle...

I would say that this somehow needs to be similar as to 'difficult terrain' it impairs the movement/sight. With sight I can imagine that you cast a 'ray' into a certain direction and that 'ray' stops on a VBL. The distance the ray can reach is set in the overall map and the vision settings of the campaign and token. I can imagine that you create an area that changes this value in two ways:
- limit to penetration depth (PD) e.g. you can look 3 meters into the mist after that everything is obscured
- limit the total REMAINING vision distance (by a multiplier??) if the mist has a PD of 3 but is only 2 meter thick you can look through it, but not as far as usual. So you can set a divider per square obscured e.g. 2 will divide the remaining vision distance by 4 (2 for the first meter and 2 for the second meter of mist).
And I guess that there are vision types to be defined that influence this divider for special token...

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Re: FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by JamzTheMan »

For this, I think it may be useful to start listing out various "Test Conditions". I can think of several for Pathfinder/DnD but other games need to be thought of as well.

For instance:

1. Fog - Player can not see more than 5 feet into or through the fog. If on the outer 5 feet, can see out
2. Web - 20 feet or more webbing blocks los (I guess this is same as #1)
3. Elevation? User can not see through/into area until within 20 feet?
3a, Ravine, user can see "through" the area as normal but can not see "into" the area until within 5 feet.
3b. Mountain. For every 5 feet of "area" the user sees 10 feet. (this may be better represented with an elevation property on a token and allow vision to be dynamically calculated?)
4. One way glass. (Keep dreaming, this one is a pickle)
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Jagged
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Re: FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by Jagged »

JamzTheMan wrote: 1. Fog - Player can not see more than 5 feet into or through the fog. If on the outer 5 feet, can see out
2. Web - 20 feet or more webbing blocks los (I guess this is same as #1)
3. Elevation? User can not see through/into area until within 20 feet?
3a, Ravine, user can see "through" the area as normal but can not see "into" the area until within 5 feet.
3b. Mountain. For every 5 feet of "area" the user sees 10 feet. (this may be better represented with an elevation property on a token and allow vision to be dynamically calculated?)
4. One way glass. (Keep dreaming, this one is a pickle)
5. Grid based vision. For lots of games, vision is often based upon individual cells of the grid. So you either can see a cell or you can't, or there are set levels of vision (25%, 50%).

Not expecting this to happen, but thought I'd mention it ;) One advantage for grid-based vision, I'd have thought, is that it might be relatively simple to add an elevation element if cells could have a height.

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Re: FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by RPTroll »

Macro functions to see if a token is in the area to apply modifiers to ranged combat.
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Re: FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by Craig »

I think I prefer this all as part of what is discussed here as one largish change to VBL is better than 1 largeish change, throwing that out and then doing the largish change again...
JamzTheMan wrote:For this, I think it may be useful to start listing out various "Test Conditions". I can think of several for Pathfinder/DnD but other games need to be thought of as well.

For instance:

4. One way glass. (Keep dreaming, this one is a pickle)
Actually... If we were to implement what was detailed in the other thread and we all agreed to use only simple polygons (i.e. polygons with no intersection of line segments) which we would probably have to do for the other stuff to work well anyway... Then its just some polygon vertex sorting when VBL is drawn, and some math when doing to the pre process VBL step.

Its probably easier than either of these options.
JamzTheMan wrote: 1. Fog - Player can not see more than 5 feet into or through the fog. If on the outer 5 feet, can see out
2. Web - 20 feet or more webbing blocks los (I guess this is same as #1)
And this one
5. Fog - Reduces vision by half, 1/x etc

This would be easier (if I understand you correctly)
JamzTheMan wrote: 3b. Mountain. For every 5 feet of "area" the user sees 10 feet. (this may be better represented with an elevation property on a token and allow vision to be dynamically calculated?)
This is by far the hardest of the lot...
JamzTheMan wrote: 3a, Ravine, user can see "through" the area as normal but can not see "into" the area until within 5 feet.

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wolph42
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Re: FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by wolph42 »

I think I prefer this all as part of what is discussed here as one largish change to VBL is better than 1 largeish change, throwing that out and then doing the largish change again...
I guess if we come to a conclusion in both threads we can combine the two into one and discard these two

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Re: FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by Craig »

wolph42 wrote:
I think I prefer this all as part of what is discussed here as one largish change to VBL is better than 1 largeish change, throwing that out and then doing the largish change again...
I guess if we come to a conclusion in both threads we can combine the two into one and discard these two
Sorry I didn't mean that I prefer the discussion to happen in the other thread, more that if we are going to update VBL to be better as per the other thread then these changes detailed here are part of that rather that doing it twice :)

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Re: FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by Jagged »

Craig wrote: This is by far the hardest of the lot...
JamzTheMan wrote: 3a, Ravine, user can see "through" the area as normal but can not see "into" the area until within 5 feet.
I think this would be easier if an elevation feature existed. Then this kind of vision could be calculated using the same vision logic, just from a derived grid.

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Re: FEATURE: Vision limiter

Post by RPTroll »

Craig wrote:
This would be easier (if I understand you correctly)
JamzTheMan wrote: 3b. Mountain. For every 5 feet of "area" the user sees 10 feet. (this may be better represented with an elevation property on a token and allow vision to be dynamically calculated?)
This is by far the hardest of the lot...
JamzTheMan wrote: 3a, Ravine, user can see "through" the area as normal but can not see "into" the area until within 5 feet.
Seems like there might be a way to infer VBL from elevation change. But then you get into token height as well.
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