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Dynamic Lighting - Updates, Bugs, & Feedback

September 04 (2 years ago)

Edited September 04 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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Marketplace Creator
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Erik Bjornharta
 said:

I am having major issues with dynamic lighting and it has become unusable. Even a map that is 25 x 25 with just three large rooms, no extra stuff, barely any lines is so laggy and jerking around that it takes almost 5 mins to move a token, open it's character sheet and roll a single attack. This problem does not exist on any other map without dynamic lighting, even a map I have that is 85 x 56 loaded with tokens has no issues. This completely wrecks all caves, mazes, castles etc, anything in doors that my party has to go through.

I have looked into all the trouble shooting or suggestions and even deleted half my NPC character sheets, nothing improves it. Only 2 tabs on browser and discord running on comp. I've been using dynamic lighting for the whole campaign, since it was launched / renamed from fog of war, no issues until last 2 weeks. 

Why is dynamic lighting a brick now? 



Hi Erik!

Try checking your browser to see if Hardware Acceleration has been toggled off. I have heard anecdotal reports of this being re-set when the browser updates. There are no widespread reports of sudden DL lag, so it's likely a setting you can control. Also check to make sure your browser/computer is WebGL compliant (almost all are, but it doesn't hurt to check.)


Edit: This page has some links that might help.

September 05 (2 years ago)

Edited September 05 (2 years ago)

Glad my new MacBook is running with UDL and Explorer Mode since I STILL can’t get rid of the lag on my PC. Checked Hardware Acceleration (on) and WebGL enabled…

Edit: Also updated my graphics driver and Enabled override software rendering list…

September 18 (2 years ago)

Edited September 18 (2 years ago)

After LDL finally broke I switched to UDL. I'm on a high-end MacBook Pro and it worked fine. Last night I ran my first game with UDL. My 5 players all have different computers. Some are on Mac and some are on PC. UDL worked fine on 2 machines, and it absolutely crushed (Roll20 was barely responsive on) the other 3. We checked for WebGL and Hardware acceleration. None of the players ever had performance issues on LDL. All I can guess is that UDL takes more muscle and the folks with older machines are out of luck? Is there anything else they might try?

I did find this, would it help?

chrome://flags/
Enables Display Compositor to use a new gpu thread.
When enabled, chrome uses 2 gpu threads instead of 1. Display compositor uses new dr-dc gpu thread and all other clients (raster, webgl, video) continues using the gpu main thread. – Mac, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, Fuchsia, Lacros

#enable-drdc

September 19 (2 years ago)

Edited September 19 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter

It might make a difference depending on the complexity of the DL, but I can run most of my pages on a low end Chromebook. It shouldn't require a high end machine. Here are some things to look for:

Do your players with issues see the spinning cube on this page?

What do they see in the first section of this page? They should see something like:

Graphics Feature Status
Canvas: Hardware accelerated
Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Enabled
Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Compositing: Hardware accelerated
Metal: Disabled
Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
OpenGL: Enabled
Rasterization: Hardware accelerated
Raw Draw: Disabled
Video Decode: Hardware accelerated
Video Encode: Hardware accelerated
Vulkan: Disabled
WebGL: Hardware accelerated
WebGL2: Hardware accelerated
WebGPU: Hardware accelerated

Have the players with issues tried running a different browser or in a private browsing window? (this is not a diagnostic step, not a solution).

Is the page in question using paths drawn with the freehand tool (these paths are unnecessarily complex)

September 19 (2 years ago)

Edited September 19 (2 years ago)

Thank you Keith, I'll have them try these steps. It's encouraging that you can get it work on a lowend Chromebook... maybe there's hope

FWIW, the dynamic lighting I make is really simple line tool and rect tool. No freehand which I read is dodgy. The only tokens with sight are my players. No fog of war, discover mode, or other extra features enabled. Thus far, all maps have had daylight mode enabled.

Edit: For some reason the second "this page" link isn't working?

keithcurtis said:

It might make a difference depending on the complexity of the DL, but I can run most of my pages on a low end Chromebook. It shouldn't require a high end machine. Here are some things to look for:

September 19 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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Fixed. The link was supposed to have been: chrome://gpu/

Another thing that can dramatically improve performance is to turn on Update on Drop.

And yeah, the Chromebook can handle most levels of UDL, but I sure wouldn't want to rely on it for something like Dungeon of the Mad Mage. At least not during play!

September 19 (2 years ago)

The only difference I'm seeing on my own machine is. A quick Google tells me it defaults to off. Should Roll20 users enable it? Thanks again.

  • Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Disabled

keithcurtis said:

Fixed. The link was supposed to have been: chrome://gpu/

Another thing that can dramatically improve performance is to turn on Update on Drop.

And yeah, the Chromebook can handle most levels of UDL, but I sure wouldn't want to rely on it for something like Dungeon of the Mad Mage. At least not during play!




September 19 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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That one's new on me. It wouldn't hurt to experiment, you could always toggle it back. But to be honest, I don't really know.

September 20 (2 years ago)

Edited September 20 (2 years ago)

So, I am pretty sure someone has commented before about issues with nocturnal night vision, which by and large I like very much. My issue is the distance is not quite right. I set a token for 60 ft and it cannot see things at that distance. The first screenshot is with 60 ft nocturnal night vision, the second is with regular night vision. Both shows the same placing and map and you can see the player token can see the npc token clearly on the regular , but not nocturnal. I put the player token at 65 ft night vision and there you can just make out the npc token in my 3rd screenshot. I just feel it is dimming really hard near the last ten feet or so. My fix has been to extend the vision, but this causes issues when you approach lit areas.


September 20 (2 years ago)
Gauss
Forum Champion


Spaceman said:

So, I am pretty sure someone has commented before about issues with nocturnal night vision, which by and large I like very much. My issue is the distance is not quite right. I set a token for 60 ft and it cannot see things at that distance. The first screenshot is with 60 ft nocturnal night vision, the second is with regular night vision. Both shows the same placing and map and you can see the player token can see the npc token clearly on the regular , but not nocturnal. I put the player token at 65 ft night vision and there you can just make out the npc token in my 3rd screenshot. I just feel it is dimming really hard near the last ten feet or so. My fix has been to extend the vision, but this causes issues when you approach lit areas.


Could you screenshot the page settings? 

September 20 (2 years ago)


Erik Bjornharta said:

I am having major issues with dynamic lighting and it has become unusable. Even a map that is 25 x 25 with just three large rooms, no extra stuff, barely any lines is so laggy and jerking around that it takes almost 5 mins to move a token, open it's character sheet and roll a single attack. This problem does not exist on any other map without dynamic lighting, even a map I have that is 85 x 56 loaded with tokens has no issues. This completely wrecks all caves, mazes, castles etc, anything in doors that my party has to go through.

I have looked into all the trouble shooting or suggestions and even deleted half my NPC character sheets, nothing improves it. Only 2 tabs on browser and discord running on comp. I've been using dynamic lighting for the whole campaign, since it was launched / renamed from fog of war, no issues until last 2 weeks. 

Why is dynamic lighting a brick now? 

I have been having an issue with dynamic lighting that began around the same time as you (late August). For me, it's that Explorer Mode no longer works. Whenever its enabled, my browser (Chrome) lags a huge amount and then crashes; sometimes, when that crash happens, it reveals the entire map to the players! One of my players saw the entire map layout and was spoiled due to this glitch. 

I am playing through the module "Dungeon of the Mad Mage" and both my players and I haven't had any issues with the Updated Dynamic Lighting or Explorer Mode up until the past month, but now I am unable to turn Explorer Mode on the maps without my or my players' Roll20's crashing. This occurs even when I try to use Explorer Mode with the extremely rudimentary black-lines-on-white-background maps sold as part of the official module. I used these maps with Explorer Mode on from Nov. 2021 through June 2022 with UDL (when it launched), but now I no longer can. (And all the time I spent importing color maps and optimizing them for Roll20 so we could switch away from these B&W maps is totally wasted.)

It's very hard to run a dungeon crawl without explorer mode, and this is kind of ruining the third level for my players. Hope they can fix whatever they did here ASAP. 


(And before anyone asks: yes WebGL is enabled and Hardware Acceleration is on for both me and my players.)

September 20 (2 years ago)

it's a "supposedly" not happening bug... or very rare, or with no consistent reason... in our group, only 2 players out of 6 have this issue... scanned already all the possibilities... finally not using the FOW for the last year or so now... absolutely inconsistent and non trackable bug as it happens randomly... 

So we use breadcrumbs... but that's an issue when we have a monster sneaking freom behond or following them from afar... 

Anyway, that and the non updating vision are for me the 2 everlasting bug that really are making the game experience painful somtimes... 

And that drives me mad when i read comments on the changelog when they say these bugs are "fixed"

September 21 (2 years ago)

I'm not sure what you are looking for in that, but here is what I have set it to atm. I have this issue with all my maps though and I just feel it fades to strong at the last 10 or so feet.



Gauss said:


Spaceman said:

So, I am pretty sure someone has commented before about issues with nocturnal night vision, which by and large I like very much. My issue is the distance is not quite right. I set a token for 60 ft and it cannot see things at that distance. The first screenshot is with 60 ft nocturnal night vision, the second is with regular night vision. Both shows the same placing and map and you can see the player token can see the npc token clearly on the regular , but not nocturnal. I put the player token at 65 ft night vision and there you can just make out the npc token in my 3rd screenshot. I just feel it is dimming really hard near the last ten feet or so. My fix has been to extend the vision, but this causes issues when you approach lit areas.


Could you screenshot the page settings? 




September 21 (2 years ago)
Gauss
Forum Champion


Spaceman said:

I'm not sure what you are looking for in that, but here is what I have set it to atm. I have this issue with all my maps though and I just feel it fades to strong at the last 10 or so feet.



It looks like your cell size is only 0.6, I wonder if that is what is messing it up. Could you reset your cell size to 1 and see if that resolves the distance issue? 

I understand if the cell size needs to be 0.6 after testing, just trying to test if that is the cause. 

September 21 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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The Nocturnal setting does make things right on the edge difficult to see. In that first screen shot, the token is visible, but only just barely. The solution is to either increase the range by 5 feet, and gift darkvision players by that five feet in dim light, do the opposite (short change them 5 feet when in darkness), or choose a different mode.

September 21 (2 years ago)

Edited September 21 (2 years ago)

Having similar issues to others with Dynamic Lighting. Running Dungeon of the Mad Mage with custom art so I have to redo all of the dynamic lighting. I use only Lines/Shapes, and explorer mode on. The maps seem to run fine when I am alone, but when my party of 5 is playing, it runs into issues. Starts with slowdown and poor performance and then ends up causing memory related crashes, with multiple players experiencing the crash at the same time. All are using Chrome or Chrome based browsers. This of course, is causing great issues for me and my players. Before I am asked: Hardware Accel/Web GL are active and my gaming pc is more than strong enough.

Additionally, for the past month or so, I have had issues with "Phantom" Dynamic Lighting lines, both from Roll20 5e Modules and Hand Drawn Dynamically Lit maps. These lines appear randomly on maps, blocking player sight as if a Dynamic Lighting layer line was there, but none exists. Moving nearby actual dynamic lighting lines often causes the phantom line to move as well, but I have not yet found a way to remove them. 

1. Dungeon Master using Player's view of the Phantom Line. Obviously the area to the right of the diagonal line is completely black for the players.

2. Dynamic Lighting Layer view of the same spot


September 21 (2 years ago)

Edited September 21 (2 years ago)

Gauss or Keith (or anyone who knows): does Roll20 use this? It's the last item on the screenie.

https://gpuweb.github.io/gpuweb/

I am seeing on our tests that it's hardware accelerated for some of my players, but not others. Wondering if it's worth pursuing? Thank you.


September 21 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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I haven't a clue, unfortunately.

September 22 (2 years ago)

Edited September 22 (2 years ago)


Grifbald said:

I have been having an issue with dynamic lighting that began around the same time as you (late August). For me, it's that Explorer Mode no longer works. Whenever its enabled, my browser (Chrome) lags a huge amount and then crashes; sometimes, when that crash happens, it reveals the entire map to the players! One of my players saw the entire map layout and was spoiled due to this glitch. 

I am playing through the module "Dungeon of the Mad Mage" and both my players and I haven't had any issues with the Updated Dynamic Lighting or Explorer Mode up until the past month, but now I am unable to turn Explorer Mode on the maps without my or my players' Roll20's crashing. This occurs even when I try to use Explorer Mode with the extremely rudimentary black-lines-on-white-background maps sold as part of the official module. I used these maps with Explorer Mode on from Nov. 2021 through June 2022 with UDL (when it launched), but now I no longer can. (And all the time I spent importing color maps and optimizing them for Roll20 so we could switch away from these B&W maps is totally wasted.)

It's very hard to run a dungeon crawl without explorer mode, and this is kind of ruining the third level for my players. Hope they can fix whatever they did here ASAP. 


(And before anyone asks: yes WebGL is enabled and Hardware Acceleration is on for both me and my players.)


I am having the exact same issue with the map revealing currently, it's driving me crazy and we had to restart 3 times already, since I can't move a single token now without Roll20 revealing the whole map! I've tried everything, different computers, different browsers, different movement patterns, different vision settings etc. nothing helps. And I just subscribed especially for this feature (dynamic lighting with exploration)

...

September 22 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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Hi Mac Bad!

All of the problems of this nature I have been seeing lately have been dealing with Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Are you also running this module?


I know it's not ideal, but it can at least get you playing, but there is an alternative to Exploration Mode if it is crashing on large maps. Light Crumbs can carry you over for the time being. If this is another DotMM issue, it could be that the module maps are just too complex for Exploration Mode to work properly at the moment, and this might be something that Roll20 can eventually resolve.

September 22 (2 years ago)


keithcurtis said:

Hi Mac Bad!

All of the problems of this nature I have been seeing lately have been dealing with Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Are you also running this module?


I know it's not ideal, but it can at least get you playing, but there is an alternative to Exploration Mode if it is crashing on large maps. Light Crumbs can carry you over for the time being. If this is another DotMM issue, it could be that the module maps are just too complex for Exploration Mode to work properly at the moment, and this might be something that Roll20 can eventually resolve.


Hey keithcurtis!

No, this is a custom made map, where I try to run the "Crowns&Castles" game. The map is quite extensive yes, but I'm just surprised that it happens to 2 out of 4 players, while the other 2 have absolutely no problem. And I simply cannot differentiate why that is, since the 2 that do have a problem have as good a computer as the other 2 and I've already excluded all the possible mismatches with browsers etc, as I wrote above.


Light Crumbs sadly don't work for me, since every player is actually running his own kingdom, so their tokens are simply given "Night Vision" so that the players can only see the vision of their own tokens. I don't use normal light on the map at all.

September 22 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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Light Crumbs is the name that has persisted*. They should be called Vision Crumbs. Setting a vision crumb for each player won't solve the issue?

This would be a token controllable by the specific player with (in this case) darkvision, that just stays around in places they have already seen.


* In the old lighting system, there was considerable conflation between light and sight for darkvision.

September 22 (2 years ago)

Edited September 22 (2 years ago)


keithcurtis said:

Light Crumbs is the name that has persisted*. They should be called Vision Crumbs. Setting a vision crumb for each player won't solve the issue?

This would be a token controllable by the specific player with (in this case) darkvision, that just stays around in places they have already seen.


* In the old lighting system, there was considerable conflation between light and sight for darkvision.


Well, the problem is with the "exploration" mode, since they already have settlements that give constant vision around them but I wanted them to not be able to see further, what is actually happening in the parts of the map that they've already been to but are not at currently.


UPDATE:

The issue is certainly connected to the "Exploration mode", since after turning it off, I have no more issues with the map showing itself.

September 28 (2 years ago)

When there are multiple tokens with vision on the field, dragging tokens becomes unbearably laggy for the DM, who can see everyone's vision.

One token with vision is fine; two is pushing it, but three and above make it unbearable. You can barely move the tokens.

Explorer mode was not on for this issue. It was turned off.

September 28 (2 years ago)
Gauss
Forum Champion


Elizabeth C. said:

When there are multiple tokens with vision on the field, dragging tokens becomes unbearably laggy for the DM, who can see everyone's vision.

One token with vision is fine; two is pushing it, but three and above make it unbearable. You can barely move the tokens.

Explorer mode was not on for this issue. It was turned off.


Are you as the GM assigning control of the tokens to yourself?  

October 01 (2 years ago)
LRose
Plus

Hello, I am also having very frustrating problems with phantom lines appearing in my map. I am using legacy lighting and I am using the polygon tool. I have two phantom lines that run diagonally across the map. Players can walk through them, and they are persistent in that they do not update when players move around the map. They just exist. It seems to be when I draw ANYTHING in the lower bottom right hand side of the map because if I delete the lighting in that area the phantom walls vanish.


October 01 (2 years ago)
Gauss
Forum Champion


Hayley said:

Hello, I am also having very frustrating problems with phantom lines appearing in my map. I am using legacy lighting and I am using the polygon tool. I have two phantom lines that run diagonally across the map. Players can walk through them, and they are persistent in that they do not update when players move around the map. They just exist. It seems to be when I draw ANYTHING in the lower bottom right hand side of the map because if I delete the lighting in that area the phantom walls vanish.

If that is a bug there is nothing that can be done at this point. Support for Legacy DL ended about a year ago iirc. 

Hi, Hayley! It is my understanding that the phantom lines bug in LDL occurs when there's a closed polygon on the Dynamic Lighting layer. The fix is to redraw the dynamic lighting lines to avoid closed polygons.

(At the Pro level there is a community-created script to do this)

I hope this fix works for you.

October 05 (2 years ago)

Yeah, if you use legacy dynamic lighting, you can literally *never* have a single closed polygon on the map or it will draw a phantom line from the corner of that polygon to the top right of the map that blocks line of sight.


Happened some months ago due to a totally unrelated new dynamic lighting update and has existed ever since. It's extremely frustrating.

October 09 (2 years ago)

What Sarah and Tormak said, but also the "closed polygon" can be a single point of dynamic barrier.  It's usually not too hard to use a token with vision to follow the line to the point that's causing the trouble.  [Still incredibly frustrating of course!]

Hayley said:

Hello, I am also having very frustrating problems with phantom lines appearing in my map. I am using legacy lighting and I am using the polygon tool. I have two phantom lines that run diagonally across the map. Players can walk through them, and they are persistent in that they do not update when players move around the map. They just exist. It seems to be when I draw ANYTHING in the lower bottom right hand side of the map because if I delete the lighting in that area the phantom walls vanish.





October 15 (2 years ago)

Edited October 15 (2 years ago)

I am encountering an odd issue with the lighting lines when using freehand to draw the walls. images attached. the first image i managed to get fixed by redrawing the line section in the bottom right as moving the line around it seemed attached to that... however i'm noticing a few other areas where it seems to be occuring. they dont seem to follow logical sense... with some angles they show up clearly but just moving a token over a space it doesn't show up at all. I'd really like to not have to redraw all my lighting lines... anyone have an idea of whats going on? - Edit. to clarify this is on the new Dynamic lighting, and the lines seem to be occuring in different directions regardless of where the actual lines are. and the lines themselves still function fine. its just the floating ghost lines...

October 15 (2 years ago)
Brian C.
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VeratiaGames said:

I am encountering an odd issue with the lighting lines when using freehand to draw the walls. images attached. the first image i managed to get fixed by redrawing the line section in the bottom right as moving the line around it seemed attached to that... however i'm noticing a few other areas where it seems to be occuring. they dont seem to follow logical sense... with some angles they show up clearly but just moving a token over a space it doesn't show up at all. I'd really like to not have to redraw all my lighting lines... anyone have an idea of whats going on? - Edit. to clarify this is on the new Dynamic lighting, and the lines seem to be occuring in different directions regardless of where the actual lines are. and the lines themselves still function fine. its just the floating ghost lines...

Do you get the same issue if you use the polygon tool instead of the freehand tool?

October 15 (2 years ago)


Brian C. said:


Do you get the same issue if you use the polygon tool instead of the freehand tool?


Sadly i cant really reproduce the effect even with the freehand. i managed it only once after this on accident, when i made a U shaped section to cover a rock face. i found a few other parts with similar issues since, but deleting and redrawing the lines seemed to have fixed it. resetting the DL setting on the page didn't do anything, relaunching the web app didn't do anything either.



October 15 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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VeratiaGames said:


Brian C. said:


Do you get the same issue if you use the polygon tool instead of the freehand tool?


Sadly i cant really reproduce the effect even with the freehand. i managed it only once after this on accident, when i made a U shaped section to cover a rock face. i found a few other parts with similar issues since, but deleting and redrawing the lines seemed to have fixed it. resetting the DL setting on the page didn't do anything, relaunching the web app didn't do anything either.




Are you using DL or Legacy DL? Legacy no longer supports open polygons. They produce odd light blocking lines similar to what you have posted.

October 15 (2 years ago)
Brian C.
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keithcurtis said:

VeratiaGames said:

Brian C. said:


Do you get the same issue if you use the polygon tool instead of the freehand tool?

Sadly i cant really reproduce the effect even with the freehand. i managed it only once after this on accident, when i made a U shaped section to cover a rock face. i found a few other parts with similar issues since, but deleting and redrawing the lines seemed to have fixed it. resetting the DL setting on the page didn't do anything, relaunching the web app didn't do anything either.

Are you using DL or Legacy DL? Legacy no longer supports open polygons. They produce odd light blocking lines similar to what you have posted.

They said it was the new DL system.

October 15 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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Ah thanks, I missed that from the previous post. Re-reading.

That same post does mention drawing with the freehand tool, which is currently not recommended (for the same reasons). I really wish they would just disable that tool on the DL layer. It makes far too many points which do nothing but dramatically increase the number of points and line segments to calculate sightlines from.

My recommendation would be to copy the page and redraw the DL lines on the copy. For caves, this is pretty quick to do with the polygon tool. It doesn't require anything near the exactitude that a floorplan does. If you don't have preset light sources on the DL layer, but only sight blocking lines, I'd make that copy and skip the DL layer, starting fresh.


Here's a technique for fast cave DL blocking. First, the way many people do it—hugging the walls (lines in blue):


A much faster way is to just worry about sightlines. In this case, you just make sight blockers where turns would prevent sight. This took literally less than 20 seconds. (lines in pink):


The second method is quicker, feels less claustrophobic to the players, and generally easier for rendering. There's probably no discernible difference in performance in a small, simple map like this, but for large maps it can make a big difference. Either method will work better than the freehand tool.

October 16 (2 years ago)
David M.
Pro
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The PathEditor script also has a means to simplify existing freehand paths using a customizable algorithm. More info and example use here. But yes, going forward, freehand on the DL layer is just asking for trouble.

October 17 (2 years ago)


Hello, I'm having a problem with what seems to be an invisible wall

As you can see from the pictures, the dynamic lighting shows the walls i've placed in yellow, yet the 2 players are unable to see each other.


Any idea how to resolve this?

Did you use the Freehand Tool to draw the Line? If so, try using Polygon or something like it.


Keith pointed that out in his post above:

That same post does mention drawing with the freehand tool, which is currently not recommended (for the same reasons). I really wish they would just disable that tool on the DL layer. It makes far too many points which do nothing but dramatically increase the number of points and line segments to calculate sightlines from.


Mosash said:


Hello, I'm having a problem with what seems to be an invisible wall

As you can see from the pictures, the dynamic lighting shows the walls i've placed in yellow, yet the 2 players are unable to see each other.


Any idea how to resolve this?




October 17 (2 years ago)

Yeah i did use the freehand tool.


So i should just avoid using freehand

TheMarkus1204 said:

Did you use the Freehand Tool to draw the Line? If so, try using Polygon or something like it.


Keith pointed that out in his post above:

That same post does mention drawing with the freehand tool, which is currently not recommended (for the same reasons). I really wish they would just disable that tool on the DL layer. It makes far too many points which do nothing but dramatically increase the number of points and line segments to calculate sightlines from.


Mosash said:


Hello, I'm having a problem with what seems to be an invisible wall

As you can see from the pictures, the dynamic lighting shows the walls i've placed in yellow, yet the 2 players are unable to see each other.


Any idea how to resolve this?







For Dynamic Lighting, yes. Otherwise feel free to use it...


Mosash said:

Yeah i did use the freehand tool.


So i should just avoid using freehand

TheMarkus1204 said:

Did you use the Freehand Tool to draw the Line? If so, try using Polygon or something like it.


Keith pointed that out in his post above:

That same post does mention drawing with the freehand tool, which is currently not recommended (for the same reasons). I really wish they would just disable that tool on the DL layer. It makes far too many points which do nothing but dramatically increase the number of points and line segments to calculate sightlines from.


Mosash said:


Hello, I'm having a problem with what seems to be an invisible wall

As you can see from the pictures, the dynamic lighting shows the walls i've placed in yellow, yet the 2 players are unable to see each other.


Any idea how to resolve this?










October 18 (2 years ago)

Just upgraded to get the dynamic lighting and I'm very disappointed to find that the freehand tool is completely unusable for making barriers. I cant make more than a few barriers without some weird artifact that makes random invisible light barriers. What do people do for non-grid, more organic shaped rooms and dungeons? I am using the UDL if that matters. 

October 18 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
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Hi WizardlyBlood!

The polygon tool suffices for any maps I've ever worked on. The DL line does not need to hug or respond to every dip and bend in an irregular wall. This post I made above shows two different approaches. The first is closer to what you would get with the freehand tool, and could be made much tighter with only a little more time and care. A well-constructed polygon line can be done with only a dozen or so points, a freehand line of similar length could easily contain hundreds. Further, the performance of DL is enhanced by more, but shorter lines, and is easier to edit as well. The freehand tool is ill-suited to the DL feature (and should be made unavailable on that layer).

October 25 (2 years ago)

Edited October 25 (2 years ago)

Hi there.

I've switched to using Explorer mode in tandem with UDL, i prefer the look it gives to map by softening the sharp black shadows. However, since doing so I've encountered problems. My group consists of me and 4 players. In my Sunday game and tonight' s game, 1 player from the 4 reported being able to see the entire map (a different player both times). Obvs I panicked, not knowing what to do. They kindly looked away and I hastily changed the page. Still, it's impossible to unsee what you have seen, even if it's only momentarily. Had it been a one-off I would have put it down to just one of those things, but it's happened twice now, in consecutive games. None of the other players (nor I) had this issue.

I resolved it by resetting the visible darkness and getting the player to refresh the page. Any ideas? The only other option is to turn off explorer mode, as I never had this issue when running with UDL only. I don't understand why this is happening.. all the light barriers are still there; even if explorer mode doesnt work, their token's line of sight should still be blocked, preventing any view beyond the local area.

Once uncovered by any lightsource (even if you resize the light radius of a given source later) this area is still uncovered as it does not reset / cover those parts after resizing the radius. This is what bugs me with explorer mode and is the sole reason me not using it...


Andrew W. said:

Hi there.

I've switched to using Explorer mode in tandem with UDL, i prefer the look it gives to map by softening the sharp black shadows. However, since doing so I've encountered problems. My group consists of me and 4 players. In my Sunday game and tonight' s game, 1 player from the 4 reported being able to see the entire map (a different player both times). Obvs I panicked, not knowing what to do. They kindly looked away and I hastily changed the page. Still, it's impossible to unsee what you have seen, even if it's only momentarily. Had it been a one-off I would have put it down to just one of those things, but it's happened twice now, in consecutive games. None of the other players (nor I) had this issue.

I resolved it by resetting the visible darkness and getting the player to refresh the page. Any ideas? The only other option is to turn off explorer mode, as I never had this issue when running with UDL only. I don't understand why this is happening.. all the light barriers are still there; even if explorer mode doesnt work, their token's line of sight should still be blocked, preventing any view beyond the local area.




October 26 (2 years ago)
Gauss
Forum Champion


Andrew W. said:

Hi there.

I've switched to using Explorer mode in tandem with UDL, i prefer the look it gives to map by softening the sharp black shadows. However, since doing so I've encountered problems. My group consists of me and 4 players. In my Sunday game and tonight' s game, 1 player from the 4 reported being able to see the entire map (a different player both times). Obvs I panicked, not knowing what to do. They kindly looked away and I hastily changed the page. Still, it's impossible to unsee what you have seen, even if it's only momentarily. Had it been a one-off I would have put it down to just one of those things, but it's happened twice now, in consecutive games. None of the other players (nor I) had this issue.

I resolved it by resetting the visible darkness and getting the player to refresh the page. Any ideas? The only other option is to turn off explorer mode, as I never had this issue when running with UDL only. I don't understand why this is happening.. all the light barriers are still there; even if explorer mode doesnt work, their token's line of sight should still be blocked, preventing any view beyond the local area.


Unfortunately that is a bug that happens with some folks and Explorer Mode. Short version is that their browser or system cannot handle it and it bugs out. 

The solution is, don't use EM with that player, or troubleshoot their browser (they would need to come post so we can work with them). 

One thing you could try with that player is turning on Explorable Darkness. Yes, that means you would have to reveal sections of the map, but it *might* stay functioning for that player and thus only sections are revealed. 

October 26 (2 years ago)

OK, thanks. I think I'll just turn it off (sigh). I cant constantly be wondering if my players can suddenly see the whole map, every time I load in a new page. Will this bug be fixed? Another suggestion would be that on error it fails safe not fails bad, ie shows nothing rather than everything.

October 26 (2 years ago)

Edited October 26 (2 years ago)
Gauss
Forum Champion


Andrew W. said:

OK, thanks. I think I'll just turn it off (sigh). I cant constantly be wondering if my players can suddenly see the whole map, every time I load in a new page. Will this bug be fixed? Another suggestion would be that on error it fails safe not fails bad, ie shows nothing rather than everything.


As I said, the fail safe is probably going to be Explorable Darkness. I would test it with your player. 
As for the bug being fixed, I am not a Dev so cannot speak to that, but I do believe they are working with Chrome (I assume your player was using Chrome? This is usually a Chrome issue.) to solve one of the potential issues that may be causing it. 

October 26 (2 years ago)
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter

You can also lessen the loss by judicious use of Light Crumbs: small tokens of vision shared by all that you leave in explored areas.