Who turned the lights off?

[biodude]

When I first tried MapTool 1.2 I found the templates a bit limited and disappointing (can't move them once they are placed, and they act essentially as drawing objects). However, I quickly found a workaround by making a bunch of markers that I could set the "light" on, creating circles and cones for area of effect.
That seems to have disappeared in 1.3, even though there is a menu item in the View menu for "Token Lights". What happened to this awesome feature, and how does the menu item relate?

The old "light" effects could also be used for over/underlays, or just really cool auras! glowing angels, shadow-monsters, etc. I really miss these I'm wondering if the old pop-up dialogue could be added as a tab in the token properties dialogue. Unless it's an issue of storing this info in the token file?

[biodude]

While it's on my mind:
The current interaction between the invisible light (see above) and the preset vision modes is hard to visualize for me, partly because I can't always remember what the distances are for the standard light & vision modes.
This made me think that generic vision settings might be nice to have:
A. distance in light
B. distance in shadowy / low light
C. distance in darkness (VBL applies)
D. distance in terrain (VBL does not apply)

The standard vision forms could be included as presents and would essentially be built up using these basic blocks and standard distances:
Normal = A
Low-light = A+B
Darkvision = A+C (or just C)
Blindsight = C or D only (depending on how you interpret it)
Tremorsense = D?

Blindsense is a bit tricky, but could essentially be the same as Blindsight for the purposes of MapTool. Things with multiple vision modes would use the sum of all their basic vision modes. What do people think?

[dorpond]

I also liked the "light" option in 1.2 for things like spell affects on players and such.

I wonder how we could (or should) implement that old lighting system into Maptool for personal radiant effects of some sort?

We really currently have no way to show Detect Evil (cone effect spell) or Protection From Evil (circle effect spell), or any of the other personal effect spells that are attached to the token now that Light is 'real' in 1.3. 1.2 lighting was multipurpose.

Hmmm, any thoughts out there from the peanut gang? Is there a need to salvage that old code and revamp it?

[biodude]

So, I've been trolling through the extensive and active (!) forum, and found these threads:

• * Darkvision change please
  * Setting the radius of lights
  * AoE Templates

All of which discuss what I was thinking of. Blindsight= X-ray vision or when going Ethereal, for example.
It sounds like trevor's working on this and it will work in the final release of 1.3 (b32?). I can hardly wait!

It also occured to me that the "auras" I described earlier could also be areas of darkness, but then they'd have to interact with the lighting "layer" or somesuch. I don't know how hard that is to code (add yet another option), but I'm just providing ideas. I'm picturing a drop-down list, or radio buttons for: light, darkness, none (does not affect vision).

Speaking of ideas (I'm just full of them right now), it would also be nice if the AoE overlay (templates / light) can be toggled between grid and "smooth" modes. Not everyone wants to feel constrained to a grid approach I like options

If I can find lighting on the "wall of features", I might have to donate to it.

[torstan]

Lighting is at the top of the wall of features and so can't have any more credits thrown at it

It's the feature currently in development. Hopefully most of the tools you wan will make it in. However the visible light auras haven't been discussed for a while. I believe that there is a plan for bright and shadowy illumination to have different visual representations so some of the invisible light source issue you refer to will be covered by that.

As for cones, can't we effectively draw these when required using the AoE templates? I realise these are blocky, but if this was extended to have non-blocky would this do the trick?

If I remember rightly in the lightsource discussion there was some chat about non-360 degree lightsources, such as bulls-eye lanterns, flashlights and so on. Is this still on the slate for 1.3?

[trevor]

Is this still on the slate for 1.3?

Making light and vision have shapes is actually very, very trivial. I just need to build the UI to support the selection

[biodude]

Lighting is at the top of the wall of features and so can't have any more credits thrown at it

I was very excited to see that

As for cones, can't we effectively draw these when required using the AoE templates? I realise these are blocky, but if this was extended to have non-blocky would this do the trick?

The trouble with that is that the AoE templates are permanent once placed. If you want someone carrying a lantern with light in only a cone, or a headlamp / flashlight effect, this would be difficult to accomplish. But the non-blocky option is always nice.

Making light and vision have shapes is actually very, very trivial. I just need to build the UI to support the selection

I am eagerly looking forward to this feature. There are already a few suggestions about the UI, but I'll suggest a Light tab in the token properties dialogue. Maybe even light and vision together in the same tab? Happy coding