Advanced Mapping/Drawing Tools for the Background Layer

Don't know if this has been suggested but things like: - Lines with stone, wood and other textures, to easily use the polygon tool and lay down walls on a map. - Brush and other types of paint tools with textures to easily apply grass, water, sand on a map. - Ability to change background color to other colors or textures like: Old School Paper, wood, parchment, water, stone, grass, etc. and/or: - Able to right click a map tile and have the option to "Use as Background", so we don't have to copy and paste the tile all over the map (because expanding a single tile over the whole map usually messes it up). Let me know what you think. Cheers! Andres G.

Hi Andres! Nice write-up with your list of good ideas for this. I believe there is a pre-existing Suggestion for this that you could add your comment and +1 vote. But I'm not able to find that thread right now either, due to the size of the Suggestions forum growing a lot & the search tool isn't easy to use for something like this. I just remember it exists, and should talk about Tiles and Textures in the post. It was a common suggestion on the old Roll20 Suggestions forum, and a lot of those come up in the Search. I believe it's already in the new Suggestions forum voting too, if anyone can find it. In any case it's a fine idea, and if there are other threads on this it would be great to see them combined for maximum voting.

Thanks Gold for your reply. Its and obvious enough suggestion that I'm sure it has been suggested before, but I can't seem to find the post either. Maybe its buried deep in the old posts that it may need a new thread. If anyone finds the thread let me know so I can submit my vote and suggestions under there, thanks!

Example being this flash based website: <a href="http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/" rel="nofollow">http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/</a> So you would pick a small texture instead of a color to fill your box with. This would allow for creating terrain mostly. And being able to replace the color of the line drawing tools with a image as well that repeats. This would be mainly for making roads, rivers, etc.

I also agree that textured background would be a great plus. There is one thing to think about though. If someone wants to merely tile on the background, that is not really that hard to do through cut-n-paste. But I have a need to use a free-hand drawn shape with a texture. I have this beautiful map of textures, then suddenly a cartoonish homogeneous color area. Talk about dead give aways to the players that something is there! I can add colors to a free-hand drawing; I would like to add a selected texture within that free-hand drawing.

Have you tried using the DM Layer for things you don't want your players to immediately notice? I've found that by using both dynamic lighting and the DM Layer I'm able to hide something obvious from the players.

Andres, a later followup reply: As a Pro subscriber perk, be sure to check the API Repository to find an API Script that may accomplish what you wanted, <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1483765/new-offi" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1483765/new-offi</a>... See Also some related Suggestions threads, you may want to add your comments and Vote +1, or ask them to vote on your thread, Some Basic Map Editing Improvements <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1775590/some-bas" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1775590/some-bas</a>... Ability to Cut Apart Textures / Texture Tiling <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1401271/ability-" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1401271/ability-</a>... Token/Tileset Copying for a Set Area <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2251336/token-sl" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2251336/token-sl</a>...

Gold said: Andres, a later followup reply: As a Pro subscriber perk, be sure to check the API Repository to find an API Script that may accomplish what you wanted, <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1483765/new-offi" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1483765/new-offi</a>... See Also some related Suggestions threads, you may want to add your comments and Vote +1, or ask them to vote on your thread, Some Basic Map Editing Improvements <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1775590/some-bas" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1775590/some-bas</a>... Ability to Cut Apart Textures / Texture Tiling <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1401271/ability-" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1401271/ability-</a>... Token/Tileset Copying for a Set Area <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2251336/token-sl" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2251336/token-sl</a>... Thanks Gold for trying to pool similar ideas together. As for the API, Steven S. recently developed a tile set+API that does something similar to what I'm proposing in this thread, called Dungeon Connect. I have yet to play with it and it looks promising. Although the idea of being able to draw lines with some basic predefined textures, and being able to "set" a specific tile as background sounds a lot simpler to use. Similar to other drawing programs, what I envision is having a texture option in the color palette with water, stone, grass, snow, wood, metal, etc. textures that can be applied to the different drawing tools we already have in Roll20, coupled with the option of "set as background" as well, I think you can draw pretty decent maps on the fly.

I'm not sure how I do this, but I had suggested an idea that was already out there. I am voting for that idea: .. Select a texture and tell the drawing tool to tile it across a selected area so that I don't have to cut-n-paste endlessly for large maps. These tiles are for flooring and terrains. I need it for the Map/Background Layer, but I suppose it would be useful at any layer.

These suggestions so need to happen. &nbsp;Textured fills would be elite.

Added my vote.&nbsp; I often used these tools in MapTool. The ability to draw shapes and fill them with seamless textures, and also to control the opacity of that shape was a great tool for GMs. It's not so much about using the VTT as a photoshop replacement, but rather it's about having the tools to quickly meet map needs that might arise. My two favorite applications of those tools were:&nbsp; 1) A flooding chamber created with a seamless water texture, gradually increasing the opacity every round. 2) Using high res town maps from various modules (yay Rob Lazaretti!) -- when the players would enter a building for which I had no internal map, I could just slap a seamless wood or stone texture down with a stone border texture and BAM! I had a rudimentary internal map. These are features I miss in Roll20.

Oh, and if you want to /exceed/ MapTool in this regard, give us brightness and contrast controls in addition to opacity. Those issues can often make the difference between a hideous texture application and a beautiful one.

owen o. said: Added my vote.&nbsp; I often used these tools in MapTool. The ability to draw shapes and fill them with seamless textures, and also to control the opacity of that shape was a great tool for GMs. It's not so much about using the VTT as a photoshop replacement, but rather it's about having the tools to quickly meet map needs that might arise. My two favorite applications of those tools were:&nbsp; 1) A flooding chamber created with a seamless water texture, gradually increasing the opacity every round. 2) Using high res town maps from various modules (yay Rob Lazaretti!) -- when the players would enter a building for which I had no internal map, I could just slap a seamless wood or stone texture down with a stone border texture and BAM! I had a rudimentary internal map. These are features I miss in Roll20. Nice! The opacity and brightness options would be a great touch! Thanks for the votes and keep them coming, this thread needs more votes to be considered by the Dev Team. Cheers! AG

Seems like a good idea.