Flatten/Merge map layer tokens to free resources?

If there was a "flatten" feature available, say on the map layer, would this reduce the memory/load for the server and browser?

Strictly speaking, yes. If nothing else, there's the overhead of file headers and metadata for each image. Whether it would be a noticeable improvement for most campaigns is an entirely different question, to which I suspect the answer would be "no," but I don't have actual data to back that up. It depends on a lot of things, from the type and number of images used in an average campaign, to the manner in which overlapping images are rendered by the tabletop.

Maybe the Devs can chime in on this one. I assume there would be a noticeable difference for a map that has loads of additional tokens.

The devs recently revamped the graphics loading part of the code to significantly reduce the memory/load overall. It is generally recommended if you want to connect all the tiles to form one map, you might want to think about using a 3rd party program such as gimp or photoshop.

Thanks Pat and Brian. I have taken screen shots of roll20 tokens and maps and then used Paintshop Pro to modify/edit before re-importing back to roll20. I figure if it isn't that bad of a load on server/browser resources I would just leave everything on the map layer and not worry about merging things down to a single image. There's so many cool tokens available on roll20 it's hard not to "adorn" my maps with a ton of them.

As a mentor you can always post a suggestion for this feature if there has not been one posted yet.

This was more of an inquiry rather than a suggestion. If it looked as if there would be a significant benefit for roll20 I could make a suggestion. Once I get some votes back... lol However, it sounds like there isn't much to gain by merging a minor amount of tokens into a single image. I'm sure there may be some fringe case of someone using 25+ tokens on the map layer but it's probably not worth the code to help out that one campaign.

I heard of people using loads of tokens and not seeing any performance issues then I heard about people entering a game and their computer bogs down due to 50 to 100 tokens being used to create the map, monsters, map dressings, and everything else. It really depends on each person's computer graphics capability. Most modern computers (about 5 yrs or so) have no issue with a moderate amount of tokens (50ish). The gm can always archive the maps he is not using or planning to use for that session and that reduces the load also. The devs have revamped in the last 6 months (I think) how roll20 handles the graphics and that really streamlined the usage load. It is a general recommendation that if a person is experiencing a load problem then maybe the gm would be nice enough to download his tokens needed to make a whole map with gimp then upload it to replace the tokenized map.

It is a general recommendation that if a person is experiencing a load problem then maybe the gm would be nice enough to download his tokens needed to make a whole map with gimp then upload it to replace the tokenized map. Good to know. So, is everything not archived using system resources actively?

not actively, it is cached so it could be consider passively using resources. The only active one is the one being used on the screen itself. That means if you have a 4000x4800 map and you are zoomed down to the closest setting, Roll20 would only process what is shown on your screen not the whole map. Roll20 would basically ignore everything else including the archived maps but just use a very tiny amount of memory to note what is stored and where. That is how I understand it and can explain it.

To add to what Pat is saying here are a few things about how images are processed: 1) Large images are divided up into smaller segments so that the entire image does not have to be processed. This does not actually split the image up (it is still a single image when you move it around etc) but your computer will only process a section of it. 2) When you upload an image it is re-processed into several versions, each with a different size. The version being used is dependent upon the size of the image being displayed. Example: If you are at 10% zoom you might see a thumbnail version of your image but when you are at 200% zoom you might see the maximum size version. 3) PNGs take a lot of processing power to display. Avoid them as map elements unless absolutely necessary. #3 would be the primary benefit to a feature that flattens the map layer. If you use a lot of PNG elements (perhaps you are building a town with a lot of PNG tiles) then building the map in an external program (such as GIMP) and exporting the flattened image as a JPG would significantly improve the processing of that map. I do not know if such a feature would be feasible in Roll20 (that is for the Devs to determine) but if you use a lot of PNG tiles and see a reduction in performance as a result then you may want to post a suggestion for a flattening feature.

Thank you for the explanations. Should I assume that all tokens from the market place with transparency are png's?

Vince said: Thank you for the explanations. Should I assume that all tokens from the market place with transparency are png's? Yes, that is a good assumption. It's possible some are GIFs, but GIF images don't tend to look as nice (so many artists would shy away from them), and have limited support on Roll20 compared to JPG and PNG.