Paintbrush Tool For FoW & VBL

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LonePaladin
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Paintbrush Tool For FoW & VBL

Post by LonePaladin »

Sometimes a map will have an irregular area -- particularly anything with a cave, but any natural terrain can have it. When working with Fog of War or the Vision Blocking Layer, going around the various curves and wavy bits with the existing drawing tools can be difficult. It would be nice to have an option that works like a marker or paintbrush -- allow the user to set the brush's radius, then draw over an area with it, and have it either add or remove from the FoW or VBL. Much like the Polyline tool, except automatically following the pointer's path instead of requiring constant right-clicking.

Bur5ch3
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Re: Paintbrush Tool For FoW & VBL

Post by Bur5ch3 »

Hello there,

I'd like to push this idea here, because I do loads of masking for VBL purposes and the given tool are doing an ok job but are time consuming in non square areas. More than a brush tool, I'd like to have something like a color picker to select a color and turn this selection into a VBL. As I mainly have black walls I'd then just click on them, selection done. That would be very cool. Otherwise it would help, if I could import a separate layer for VBL so I could prep this outside of MT and then just import as overlay.

Best
Bur5ch3

Phergus
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Re: Paintbrush Tool For FoW & VBL

Post by Phergus »

Bur5ch3 wrote:
Mon Jan 06, 2020 1:35 am
Otherwise it would help, if I could import a separate layer for VBL so I could prep this outside of MT and then just import as overlay.
You can already do this: Adding_VBL_with_a_Mask

Technically you can paint in your VBL by using the drawing tools and then using the Path to VBL or Shape to VBL options in the Drawing Explorer.

Just don't be too surprised when the performance goes into the toilet with the overly complex VBL.

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Full Bleed
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Re: Paintbrush Tool For FoW & VBL

Post by Full Bleed »

Phergus wrote:
Mon Jan 06, 2020 5:12 pm
Just don't be too surprised when the performance goes into the toilet with the overly complex VBL.
Yeah, this is key. MT's primary VBL tools are basic shapes for a reason: The geometry of a basic shape calculated against the geometry of light sources and vision keeps the math much simpler. Simpler equals performance.

Your VBL doesn't have to be "beautiful". It has to be 1) effective in communicating what a player can and can't see and 2) quickly and easily applied. Highly complex geometric shapes that will crush performance and fail to significantly improve player understanding or speedup map building isn't going to end up being a path many will end up taking. When prepping a map I think the time I put into applying VBL probably accounts for less than 5% of the total time in. Anything more becomes a chore with virtually no significantly greater return (with regard to the quality of the game sessions.)

When it comes to VBL, simple really is king.
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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