Dynamic Lighting and Cragmaw Castle

One for the dynamic lighting experts out there... I've been running Phandelver and my lot are getting close to wanting to investigate Cragmaw Castle... So I have the Mike Schley map loaded into the system and I started the process to dynamically light it... then it hit me! Outside the castle is in daylight but within the castle is dark *unless* light filters in through arrow slits or similar breaks in the walls and then it's 'dim' light. How on earth do you handle that? I thought that 'global illumination' might work if you block line of sight (as per normal dynamic lighting approach) - but no, all the interiors are lit. At the moment, I've ended up with a kludged solution of putting a 'border of gems' around the map and then making each gem emit light... but this is painful in the extreme. Is there a clever/better/easier way to get this done that my poor braincell hasn't found? Thanks!

Put light sources outside the castle as the sunlight and keep the interior lit with dim light, that's the way to do it.  You could add a vote for the suggestion to have adjustable global illumination  here . That would make these types of endeavors less painfull

I pretty much do what Ed S. recommends... it takes some extra work, but you can place objects outside (rocks, trees, whatever) that are actually light sources and which will simulate sunlight. But you'll have to tweak their range and dim distance, so that their light doesn't spill too far into your castle through arrow slits, windows, etc. You'll have to place a light source somewhere directly outside every opening in the castle, otherwise you'll get weird looking light angles spilling inside. As I said, it takes some extra work to make it all look right for your players. But it's well worth the effort, once you're finished.

I made token images of windows and arrow slits then enable light see able by all players with a specific direction like 45 or 90% with a range of a few feet then placed them where the windows or arrow slits were supposed to be. This simulates light coming in through the window or arrow slit. Made one and copy/pasted it lots but it did it's job of simulating light. As for outside, you could get away with the four corners holding light sources with a very large radius and the DL option of enforcing line of sight. That should light up the outside while the inside is lit from those windows tokens I suggested.

That's a nice idea, Pat! Here's some thoughts that might give you ideas: You might consider placing some tokens just outside each opening with only dim light in a particular angle and point them though the windows to give a more diffuse lighting feel, then use brighter lights further away for the corpuscular rays of direct light.   Line all those bright lights up to give the idea that the sun is in one direction and use dimmer lights on the other side of the castle if you want to give it a big sort of shadow area.   You can use directional lights for the "sun" to avoid the multiple rays into a window problem.  You can put your light sources on the Dynamic Light Layer so you don't need to disguise them as rocks and bushes. Store tokens with different light source settings as characters in the Journal, then drag them out when lighting your maps.

Brett E. said: I pretty much do what Ed S. recommends... it takes some extra work, but you can place objects outside (rocks, trees, whatever) that are actually light sources and which will simulate sunlight. But you'll have to tweak their range and dim distance, so that their light doesn't spill too far into your castle through arrow slits, windows, etc. You'll have to place a light source somewhere directly outside every opening in the castle, otherwise you'll get weird looking light angles spilling inside. As I said, it takes some extra work to make it all look right for your players. But it's well worth the effort, once you're finished. That's what I've done for now - by putting a 'border' on the map, the 'openings' allow light to 'flood' into the interior... playing with the ranges would create the 'dim' lighting called for. Pat S. said: I made token images of windows and arrow slits then enable light see able by all players with a specific direction like 45 or 90% with a range of a few feet then placed them where the windows or arrow slits were supposed to be. This simulates light coming in through the window or arrow slit. Made one and copy/pasted it lots but it did it's job of simulating light. As for outside, you could get away with the four corners holding light sources with a very large radius and the DL option of enforcing line of sight. That should light up the outside while the inside is lit from those windows tokens I suggested. Hmmm... I thought about that possibility later on last night. However, two things seemed to play against it. With Brett's option, the light would 'naturally' flow through the arrow slits and other internal partitions (when they are opened). The second point was that, with the other option, the PCs could scout around the outside and peek in through the arrow slits to gain some intelligence of what's there... As I've started with the external light source approach, I think I'll go this route this time... but the idea of light emitting 'windows' is a great one... the next 'tavern scene' I have to do will incorporate that concept! Thanks all!

Pat S. said: I made token images of windows and arrow slits then enable light see able by all players with a specific direction like 45 or 90% with a range of a few feet then placed them where the windows or arrow slits were supposed to be. This simulates light coming in through the window or arrow slit. Made one and copy/pasted it lots but it did it's job of simulating light. I did something similar once, soon after Dynamic Lighting became available. The PCs were asked to check on a kindly old wizard who had retired to a cottage in the forest, but hadn't been seen in town for a while. Each window on the cottage's ground floor had a flower box mounted outside it, and these flower boxes were also actually short-range light sources. These allowed the PCs see a bit into the otherwise darkened interior.

Ed S. said: You could add a vote for the suggestion to have adjustable global illumination  here . That would make these types of endeavors less painfull I imagine Ed's post answers this, but is there a way to set Global Illumination on, but then by creating a Dynamic Lighting "block" around the outside of the building, it keeps the Global Illumination 'on' outside the building, but allows you to manipulate the lighting level inside the building? My guess is, the answer is "no" :) .  Thanks!

Just my 2 pence worth (Limey version of the 2 cents worth), in total agreement with all who have posted here so far. The only thing I do different is that I uploaded a 1 pixel completely transparent image which i then put on the TT, add a tiny aura that only the GM can see and add a generic light setting that all players can see, then I set 'that' as a default token on a journal entry so that i can quickly drag and drop light sources as needed that hardly takes up any of my storage space and won't cause rendering issues on slow machines when using a lot of them :) (the last bit is my paranoia rather than fact so it might not have an impact, i just feel happier 'thinking' that it might!) I still put set dressing lights here and there (torches and the like) in case the players want to douse or move them but my invisible friends are very handy for tricky lighting situations or lighting on the fly.

Brett M. said: Ed S. said: You could add a vote for the suggestion to have adjustable global illumination  here . That would make these types of endeavors less painfull I imagine Ed's post answers this, but is there a way to set Global Illumination on, but then by creating a Dynamic Lighting "block" around the outside of the building, it keeps the Global Illumination 'on' outside the building, but allows you to manipulate the lighting level inside the building? My guess is, the answer is "no" :) .  Thanks! I'll save Ed the trouble... no. Global illumination effectively treats the whole map as emitting light so that each and every square is covered by bright light, while you can still block sight with lines the squares within an enclosed space are still just as lit as the rest of the map... sorry... but who knows what the future may hold!!!

Ziechael said: I'll save Ed the trouble... no. Global illumination effectively treats the whole map as emitting light so that each and every square is covered by bright light, while you can still block sight with lines the squares within an enclosed space are still just as lit as the rest of the map... sorry... but who knows what the future may hold!!! Thanks  Ziechael :) !

Ziechael said: I still put set dressing lights here and there (torches and the like) in case the players want to douse or move them but my invisible friends are very handy for tricky lighting situations or lighting on the fly. I like for my encounter maps to be as interactive as possible, so I too have torches etc on the map which the players could theoretically extinguish, move and so on. Similar to you, I also have a pre-made (and pre-lit) torch, lantern & candle in my journal which can be quickly dragged and dropped onto the map. That way, when a player says something like "My character wants to light a torch and throw it down this dark hallway", I already have a graphic of a lit torch (with the correct light and dimness settings on it) ready to go.

Staple for my players is the 'pebble with light cast on it fired with a sling' approach so my journal has one of them ready to go, i even have it set up as a rollable table token just for a variety of pebbles (ahh the life of a DM!) :)