spell/area effects in maptools

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assassinpsion
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spell/area effects in maptools

Post by assassinpsion »

What are some ideas for showing spell/ area effects in maptools game play? For example how would i show an area of Darkness or a fireball?

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aliasmask
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by aliasmask »

For fireball I use the template tool to draw the area. For darkness centered on a token I use an aura and if it is stationary I just draw a circle. You can use the alt key to draw from the center. Use the ctrl key to snap to grid when drawing shapes.

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Full Bleed
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by Full Bleed »

I use the template tools to show AE spells.

And I simply use FoW for darkness. This would require that you're manually revealing FoW in your game though (and I imagine would be much harder to manage if you're using individual FoW... which I don't use.)
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

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wolph42
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by wolph42 »

aliasmask wrote:You can use the alt key to draw from the center. Use the ctrl key to snap to grid when drawing shapes.
I didn't know that. I've updated the wiki: Shortcut_Keys are there any others in this area that aren't in the wiki?

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Full Bleed
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by Full Bleed »

wolph42 wrote:I didn't know that. I've updated the wiki: Shortcut_Keys are there any others in this area that aren't in the wiki?
Not sure if they're in the wiki or not... but you can use similar shortcuts when drawing VBL and FoW (toggling shift to add/remove).
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

taustinoc
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by taustinoc »

Not implemented that I can see, is a way to force a square or true circle (both dimensions identical) in Fog of War/VBL. Most graphics programs do this with the <Ctrl> key, in my experience (which is pretty limited, but they all have the function).

(Maybe it's there, and I just haven't figured it out yet.

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JamzTheMan
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by JamzTheMan »

For circle vs eclipse (happy eclipse day btw!) IIRC it's control+shift, you can control+shift+alt for a circle that snaps to grid.

Also, for "darkness" you can specify negative "lumens" for such effects now in the dev version or my fork...
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taustinoc
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by taustinoc »

JamzTheMan wrote:For circle vs eclipse (happy eclipse day btw!) IIRC it's control+shift, you can control+shift+alt for a
circle that snaps to grid.
Is this in the latest dev version? This is in 1.4.0.5 and 1.4.1.7 (just tested that latter, and it's identical):

<Ctrl> snaps to grid, which makes it pretty easy to get a circle, but it doesn't force it. It does more or less the same thing with rectangles, except when it snaps to grid, it appears to snap to a hexagonal grid, regardless of what the setting in Map-->Edit Map is (including no grid at all). So I can get a rectangle that is 13.8 x 10.6, or one that is 13.8 x 15.7, but nothing that is actually square (with snap to grid).

<Alt> creates the shape centered where you start (or started, instead of that being the upper left corner. It's a little weird in that if you click on the map and start to draw a shape, so that you can see what you're drawing, then press the <Alt> key, it doesn't repaint the projected object until you move the mouse. Same when you release the <Alt> key. Not a big deal, but it took me a lite experimenting to figure out what was really happening.

The two interact as expected.

<Shift> does not appear to do anything at all, by itself or in combination with anything else.

(And it's ellipse, BTW, two l's and no c, but hey, as you say, it eclipse day, so what the heck.)

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JamzTheMan
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by JamzTheMan »

Had eclipse on the brain all day lol

Anyhoo, ya, after some sleep, the only way to create a perfect circle vs ellipse is by snapping it to a grid, or at least easier way. Most of the time I guess I don't care if it's a "perfect" circle or i'm aligning it to the grid... Sorry for the confusion.
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taustinoc
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by taustinoc »

The "always snaps to a hexagonal grid even when the grid is square" thing could get pretty annoying, though. That seems like an actual bug.

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JamzTheMan
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by JamzTheMan »

If I draw a circle using FoW tools, I can get a perfect 20x20 circle using control key, on square & gridless maps. Now on Hex maps, it does snap like you said...

FYI: Hexes need a lot of love (so does gridless). Templates and drawing on those may yield weird results... I'll be looking into Hexes soon(tm) because of Starfinder....
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taustinoc
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by taustinoc »

Ok, this is weird. I think I've figured out what's going on.

(This is in 1.4.0.5, but I believe that 1.4.1.7 does the same thing.)

Open a new, blank map.
Select FOG.
Select the rectangle tool.
Left click to begin drawing a rectangle.
Then press the <Ctrl> key.

The cursor won't immediately move. But when you move the mouse, it will then snap to the nearest grid intersection, regardless of which way you move the mouse. So your rectangle might go from 3.7' to 1.9', even though you moved the mouse the other direction. (If you move it fast, you probably won't notice this.) After that, it will go from 1.9 to 6.9 to 11.9. The basic issue is that if you're already started drawing a rectangle, turning on snap to grid doesn't move the origin point to a grid intersection.

(It actually does the same thing on the ellipse tool, it's just not nearly as noticeable unless you're watching the dimensions.)

So this isn't actually a bug, or even undesirable, but it sure is confusing. (Especially the part where the cursor doesn't snap to a grid intersection until you move the mouse. At least until you figure out what's happening.)

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aliasmask
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Re: spell/area effects in maptools

Post by aliasmask »

You can click a location but it doesn't start drawing until you release the mouse button. This gives you a chance to use the meta keys when drawing, ie to snap or center drawing. If you actually already started the drawing it'll be the 2nd point that gets centered or snapped.

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