[Dynamic Lighting] Share your MOST DYNAMIC setup!

Greetings Roll20 Community - we're on the hunt for your most epic Dynamic Lighting setups! Share images of your favorite setups below, making sure to include a picture of your DL Layer or any other details that might help inspire another user.

Check out my epic lava map setup...

Dynamic Lighting Layer - Torches on the DL Layer w/ "Emits Light" set to 2ft & -5ft

Object Layer - Lava Trolls on the Object Layer w/ "Emits Light" set to 1ft & -10ft

Player View 

Can you see the glow of something evil in the shadows?

The basic setup for this map was super easy. Follow the instructions on adding light obstructions from our Dynamic Light wiki first, then make your lava glow by simply adding any token to the DL Layer & set the "Start of Dim" value under the Advanced tab in the token's Edit box to a negative number. In my example above, I went with a "Light Radius" of 2 ft and a "Start of Dim" of -5 ft. Items on the DL Layer will retain their light, but will not be visible to the player. Using this same concept, I was able to give my Lava Trolls a soft glow - with a "Light Radius" of 1 ft and a "Start of Dim" of -10 ft.

[Assets courtesy of Gabriel Pickard (Map), Arcknight (Tokens), & Greg Taylor (Torch)]

Got a setup you'd like to share? Leave a reply - we'll be gathering your posts for a blog post in a few weeks!

Here's a segment from a recent game session in some ancient crypts beneath a monastery.  [ Gabriel Picard's Red Cap's Map, which I ADORE!, Devin Night's Heroic Character Tokens, which I also love]

I turn my opacity up quite a bit so it's easier for me to see where the boundaries of light are.

I particularly like this part.  I needed the PCs to come down this hallway to observe a vignette (Sildar Hallwinter begin left by orcs to the gentle care of some ghouls and a dozen or so zombies... and something worse! (Yes, it's lost mines of Phandelver... but different!)).  I added in some "diffuse" light to draw their attention down the otherwise dark corridors.  The arrow points to the "diffuse" light source, (300 radius, -500 dim).  The token is on the dynamic light layer so it isn't visible to players:


Haradin's view down the hall:


It's a little hard to make out, but there are bars across that opening at the end (you can see their shadows better than the bars), there's also some rubble.  I like having views that are partially obscured.  This added a bit of fun for the players (hopefully) in seeing glimpses of what was transpiring.


Getting those little details to line up is sometimes difficult.  Selecting something that small makes it hard to move.  But, if you put in two at diagonals, you can select them along with what you want to align and then grab and move it with impunity.  I like to add another one to use as a handle to get things lined up really well. =D

Thanks for sharing The Aaron - the details in your post are perfect. Cool to see a more extreme use of the negative light source option (-300) - also my OCD loves this tip "I like to add another one to use as a handle to get things lined up really well" :D

Dynamic lighting is also pretty grand just for something like a dense forest.  (Gabriel and Devin again for the assets!)

Here I wanted the PCs to skulk up to the ancient gate, unaware initially of the Owlbears there.  Forests have constantly changing sight lines, so dropping pseudo random lines about makes for some great views that are always changing:

This keyboard shortcut can really help with making precise placements of objects and drawings, including on the Dynamic Lighting Layer:

• Alt+(←, →, ↑ or ↓): Moves a selected token three pixel in the specified direction

Maybe not the most epic, but I'll share a map from when I first played around with Dynamic Lighting. I got started by fiddling around in a castle setting. I think this was my first scene ever:
 


I remember it was a huge deal when I figured out to use brightly-colored lines. Way better than trying to find your last black line in a dark dungeon!

Great stuff in this thread! @Suzanne W: Yes, the more neon the color the better for dynamic lighting walls. Another thing I found useful: use a different color for doors or other movable dynamic lighting elements.

My contribution is not a use of dynamic lighting, but rather a lighting effect. I had a patch of phosphorescent fungus and mushrooms that I wanted to cast a glow, I set the large mushroom to emit light 39 feet with a Start of Dim of -1. I then pasted a translucent sickly pale green-colored patch over them on the map.

Dunno bout you guys but dont you find that DL causes a metric ton of lag for your players and yourself? They always get massive slow downs on their sides.

Saevar L. "Liquid-Sonic" said:

Dunno bout you guys but dont you find that DL causes a metric ton of lag for your players and yourself? They always get massive slow downs on their sides.

I have a good computer and video card, so it doesn't lag me... but players might lag. However, I don't like a lot of little bits of DL like in Aaron's posts... cause it just looks cluttered to me. It would work a lot better if you could still see the map greyed out after viewing it with sight/exploration, like fog of war in RTS games.

I do love the dynamic lighting effect, and fog of war is nice, but the more DL you use. The more sloggy it becomes.  I prefer just to use FOW mixed with lighting of tokens.

Awesome feedback SkyCaptainXIII & Saevar L. "Liquid-Sonic" - do either of you have any examples of how you prefer to use DL or even FOW - it would be interesting to see how you do it!

Cold Swamp map page in AD&D 2E Adventures in Homebrew World game,

This is by-far not the most epic or precise use of Dynamic Light, but it was a mega-epic adventure map with a large amount of DL lines that restricted movement and vision, and it is a big Page for Roll20 gameplay. We had fun. Here's how I put together the map page, and my ways of using Dynamic Light and Fog Of War.

Map Size: 160 x 220 Units (@ 5.1 feet per unit).

Monsters on this map included: Black Dragon, Pan-Lung Dragon, bullywugs, lizard folk, hill giant, warthogs, shambling mound, ogre magi, wight, and quite a few more. There is also a Road and a Town, with numerous characters to meet.

Game sessions played on this map: Weekly for 2 months, around 8 sessions.

Players in the game when we played the Swamp page: 7 including DM / GM (Gold).

Campaign duration so far: 14 months and counting.

Dynamic Light and Fog Of War

I used Dynamic Lighting (the Neon Green lines) and Fog Of War (the dim-black sections) together. Locations that are discoverable by Players moving their tokens around are not under Fog Of War, but the deepest blockaded areas of the swamp (such as the Lizardman Colony) are under Fog Of War so that Players/Tokens know that they must approach the boundary and infiltrate (in-game terms) for the GM to open and reveal that section.

Players: "This appears all black, it won't show my light when I try to go here."

GM: "Ok, it seems you have reached an entry-path to the Lizard Folk's hidden colony. First roll your (Surprise, Perception, Secret Doors, or Initiative) check, and then I will reveal that section from the Fog Of War."

Picture from the GM view of Dynamic Lighting Layer

The green lines are 'walls' of dense swamp vines, trees, and impassible slopes,


It was a vast swamp wilderness map (covering a quarter-mile on the Roll20 map, it represented a 250-square mile swamp in the game-world).

Graphics and artists incorporated and mashed-up by me,

We use a LOT of pictures. Many characters, encounters, and map scenes have both the Top-down viewpoint of the map, and a first-person perspective in the form of an illustration from the ground's eye viewpoint. Likewise most Players, Monsters and NPC's have a top-down token and a forward facing Portrait that gets popped-up and displayed during the gameplay.

More than 12 large map background tiles, including Gabriel P. and others from Roll20 Marketplace and some From The Web results.

Swamps
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/431/quic...

Swamps 2
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/652/quic...

Blue Tokens that I like to use for the Players, these are Quick to set up new players (Use their 1st Letter of their Name, rather than finding and cropping the exact dwarf cleric's face or body) and they are good for the GM if you make Large map pages, and you are zoomed out (20%, 10%) with these Blue Tokens it is easy to see which Token is which Player on low zoom:
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/78/blue-...

Tokens used for the Monsters and NPC's, buildings, traps and foliage are partially from Roll20 Marketplace (such as Brass Badger Workshop) and largely From The Web or my own custom Uploads.  Some handouts and scenario pictures are placed on-map for GM to use Shift-Z and pop-up display to the Players view. Some pix are from the AD&D Module PDF's that were incorporated in the homebrew adventures. 

Screenshot of live game in Danger At Dunwater Pan-Lung dragon encounter,

Picture during gameplay on a small zoomed section of the map (Pan-Lung dragon encounter based on the famous AD&D 1st edition module "Danger At Dunwater" in the Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh series from TSR UK), unfortunately I did not hit Control-L and capture the Player's dynamic light view, this is the GM view so the more jagged black parts you see are Fog Of War boundaries.

The group was carving into the Fog Of War (the dense swamp, hidden sections of map that only reveal in-game when GM is ready and the action occurs, surprise rolls and checks are resolved).




They defeated the Pan-Lung dragon and made peace with the lizard folk colony! Next they went underwater in the ocean to a shark-people fort with an equally epic-scale map. We're still playing the campaign and now the party is much higher level and gaining fame as heroes in the homebrew world.

When Where and Why we use the DL and Fog features

We use Fog Of War on about 50% of our pages (to create areas that the Players must indicate they are pressing-forward before the GM will reveal what's there). We use Dynamic Lighting on about 10% of pages. We use DL for a special touch of atmosphere, mystery, and claustrophobia, in places like campfire nights, or dark tunnels and dungeons, or wilderness travel at night. DL is also sometimes useful in canyons, alleys and cities, with Global Light turned on, but we've often found it is better to let the Players see Rooftops rather than just the pitch-blackness that would be behind a DL line with Line-Of-Sight feature. So, my tip is that we do not worry about using constant DL, it is not constantly needed but is best saved for special effect on certain maps. Fog Of War is more commonly useful, and NO hidden sections is great for many scenarios. No Fog, No DL, on places like inside a Tavern, there is usually no need to blacken the pantry or side rooms. 

Remember you want to expose the artwork and convey visual information and atmosphere to the players, so double-check as GM using Control-L and Opacity Sliders to make sure that Players are not seeing a mostly-black screen with just a sliver of colorful map (unless that is exactly what you want, for a dark tunnel or creepy night). Think about TV and Movies, you often see a full-camera view into the Bad-Guy's hideout, yet it does not spoil the story and the tension, but rather builds upon it more than pure blackness and unknown.  If it is a city or wilderness, is there any harm to letting them see behind or around buildings and trees? When you want that vision-blocked effect, yes, use DL and mark the trees or buildings. But if you want the players to see & enjoy your whole town map and decide their way around without blackness shifting behind corners and walls and trees, it is fine to disable DL for many maps and occasions and let the Players have the bird's eye view just like the GM gets.

Happy adventuring!

I used dynamic lighting to great effect to make a city come to life, blocking off streets and making dark alleyways. I was able to designate different wards of the city and control how the players progressed through the streets. I even made a few interior rooms using walled off areas that I could move the player's tokens into. 

I was able to emulate day/night by turning the global illumination on and off.  

I had street lights at regular intervals set to different brightnesses depending on the area and the effect I was going for.

Candelabra sized for darker areas set to 20/10. Lamps set to 40/20 for marquee lights and for the brighter streets I had lanterns set to 60/30. 



The players were able to explore the city freely and discover its secrets. 

The player view was like this 



They had a great time exploring and want to get back to the city soon.

Happy gaming.

What does the negative light source number do exactly? Didnt see it mentioned on the wiki?

These are some great examples of how to use dynamic lighting. I've only been using it in a very basic way. Aaron's example of multiple lines overtop of trees is great. Golds use of FoW and DL is pretty inspiring, as is Eds city. Pretty darn awesome. 

Brail said:

What does the negative light source number do exactly? Didnt see it mentioned on the wiki?

It causes the light source to start out much dimmer.  Here's some comparisons (Radius/Dim Start):

(Let's hope my players won't come here ... ;) )

My setup isn't that fancy but I really like how the combination of GM layer and DL layer allows you to make easy-to-use, good old dungeon crawling maps.

Here's one level of a megadungeon OSR campaign I play on Roll20 (Dwimmermount FWIW), and Roll20 can handle quite large marp with intricate DL. It's not the biggest level I've mapped but at least I can take a screenshot of it ;)

GM layer is used to hide monsters and traps, obsviously but is also used to help me, the GM, to navigate the map with invisible (to players) room numbering, reminders of secret doors (the red "S" on some walls) and easily opened/closed doors with moveable shot DL parts, in a different color from the "walls". I learn/saw on the forum about how to make a "handle" on moveable/doors DL parts, to ease the "grabbing" with the mouse.

PS/Edit : and with the shift+click polygon lines tools, it's super fast and easy to draw the DL on a well aligned square/angled map, following the lines of the background image.

The full map (clic to zoom), as seen by the GM on the object layer :


The full map on the DL layer : 


A close-up detail with doors and secret doors (orange), walls and partial walls (blue) etc :

I like how you have the angled DL ready for opened doors since rotating existing lines doesn't change the actual lighting.

Thanks SkyCaptainXIII. It was a trick found on the forum, if memory serves.

I find that as a player, dynamic lighting can be very disorienting - the general spatial awareness of ones surroundings is lost and it always feels like one is in a dark little bubble.  So I have been experimenting with ways of overcoming that given limitations like not being able to draw onto a layer which can be seen in areas of darkness.  The above map preserves the locations of the buildings, tree trunks and well (also limiting movement) but still restricts the sight of the 3 half-zombies (who don't have darkvision in this rendering) appropriately.

Michael

I don't think my players read the forums, so I think this is safe :) The entry hall to a Dwarven stronghold. Many surprises in store for my players, hopefully it strikes an ominous tone!




DL is below. Very simple set up for dynamic lighting, but the little touches like the fallen column and the... innocent statues... add a lot I think!

Thats neat.  Can it be adjusted so the sides of the pillars facing the character can be seen?

I think the easiest way to do that is to adjust the art. These columns are viewed straight down so it's hard to set up the DL in such a way that the column is visible without giving rise to weird shadows when viewed from other angles. Maybe a more Isometric column view would allow you to do that? There's also posts in the suggestion forum for more advanced lighting configurations where that would be more feasible (which I'm supporting). Maybe some of the map creation maestros here have other suggestions though! I'm new to this myself.

Awesome map. The idea of a fallen column was brilliant and gave the sensation of realism. 

Joe L. said:

I think the easiest way to do that is to adjust the art. These columns are viewed straight down so it's hard to set up the DL in such a way that the column is visible without giving rise to weird shadows when viewed from other angles. Maybe a more Isometric column view would allow you to do that? There's also posts in the suggestion forum for more advanced lighting configurations where that would be more feasible (which I'm supporting). Maybe some of the map creation maestros here have other suggestions though! I'm new to this myself.

The closest you could manage would be to put X across them instead of a box, that would allow the near side to be seen but create the same shadows.

Ahh that makes sense! I'll have to try that.

The Aaron said:

The closest you could manage would be to put X across them instead of a box, that would allow the near side to be seen but create the same shadows.

That's a great Idea. I usually just create the lighting box a tad smaller than the object, so you can still see the outline/texture of it.

Super happy this is  a topic. I've been having troubles lately on how I want to set up my DL and this helped a ton!

Awesome Disobey! That makes this Community Manager very happy indeed!

A really helpful post -- thanks!  I'm somewhat new to DL, and I never considered using "X"s to mark columns or trees, etc.  I really like the idea, as it gives a sense of the object (you can see the side of the tree / column) yet still blocks line of sight.  Thanks!

A bandit fortress in the forest. Created by using stuff from marketplace and the Dundjinni homepage. I wanted the exterior to be visible at all times but leaving the inside dark for exploration using dynamic lightning. I'm kinda pleased with the result. 

The fortress.

Nothing like a dungeon jail. I really like the lines from the bars.

This is a pretty typical setup for me.


Here's a screencast showing how to set it up.
https://youtu.be/hxqFQChjAjs?t=201

Later on in the same video there's a test walkthrough.
https://youtu.be/hxqFQChjAjs?t=359

(Reflecting eyes have "Emits light" set to -3', and "All players see light" is on. That lights up the eyes, but not the surrounding area, simulating light glinting off reflecting surfaces.)

Here is a pic from another game. My GM Andrew made this dynamic lighting map setup, and I took a Screenshot as Player in the game. We were in the sewers, and there is a sewer-grate looking out to a canal. The game is called City Of Vallek (AD&D 2nd Edition) on Roll20.

The issue with bars and grates and such, is that due to light diffusion and reflection off surrounding surfaces... you don't typically see shadows like that.

I think it gives the impression of having lines across your vision (window view partially blocked by bars).  

It's not necessarily shadows that are casted upon the surfaces. Bars can cast shadows anyway.

Suzanne W. said:

Maybe not the most epic, but I'll share a map from when I first played around with Dynamic Lighting. I got started by fiddling around in a castle setting. I think this was my first scene ever:
 


I remember it was a huge deal when I figured out to use brightly-colored lines. Way better than trying to find your last black line in a dark dungeon!

It's nice to see someone using my Ravenloft map from the Marketplace.  I have set up the whole caste with dynamic lighting for my own campaign.  Now if only there were a way for me to share that DL setup with the people using these maps...

Well, there are SOME options... https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1337473/script-w...

The Aaron said:

Well, there are SOME options... https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/1337473/script-w...

And another way is, if the Content Creator makes it as (or into) a Module with DL, as some have (partially listed on the link below),

https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2669536/do-marke...

This is more of an example of using the API to change lighting while the players already are on the map.

I ran my players through Frozen Wind, a (now free) 3.5 module you can get at Paizo that I converted to Pathfinder. In it the players are trapped in a blizzard and have to get through it and basically survive a night of zombies waves. I liked the idea of the DarknessClosingIn API script, but wanted to control the timing. So i made a series of macros using TokenMod that set player vision based on how bad the snow conditions were. They started out with normal vision, but every few minutes I let each one see less and less. (the players with pets could see more but not much I could do about that unless I controlled the pets).

When they start out it's all la de da I'm having fun walking through the snowy wilderness.


Then the storm starts. They find a monastery where they can take shelter, and their vision is limited. You can barely see the bad guy in the lower right corner.


The storm is very bad, they can't even see monsters 15 feet away


And finally at 5' visibility, the monsters (who had snow vision) could easily just walk right up to them. 


Combine this with scary music and wind effects, and this scared the players so much they refused to complete the module and holed up in one of the rooms, forcing all the monsters to come to them 1 to 3 at at time, which is smart, smarter than the average group of people trapped in a horror movie. This module featured a Yukionna, so I also found a sound effect of a young girl laughing, which I played randomly, so it sounded like a ghostly girl laugh from all directions.

the macros are as follows, i just selected the character and hit the macro:

set 5' visibility: !token-mod --set light_radius|7 --set light_dimradius|2 --set light_multiplier|1  --off light_otherplayers
set quarter visibility: !token-mod --set light_multiplier|0.25 --off light_otherplayers
set half visiblity: !token-mod --set light_multiplier|0.5

i made a "reset visiblity" where i used each character's tokenid to reset the values to the beginning values.

To simulate lights going out, I also had a bunch of braziers at the ends of halls emitting dim light , and I just en masse moved them to the gm layer.

(Reflecting eyes have "Emits light" set to -3', and "All players see light" is on. That lights up the eyes, but not the surrounding area, simulating light glinting off reflecting surfaces.)

wow awesome idea

Ed S. said:

I used dynamic lighting to great effect to make a city come to life, blocking off streets and making dark alleyways. I was able to designate different wards of the city and control how the players progressed through the streets. I even made a few interior rooms using walled off areas that I could move the player's tokens into. 

Wow that is cool how you put the lines at the apex of the roofs. I never even thought of that That makes it look really good.

chris b. said:

Ed S. said:

I used dynamic lighting to great effect to make a city come to life, blocking off streets and making dark alleyways. I was able to designate different wards of the city and control how the players progressed through the streets. I even made a few interior rooms using walled off areas that I could move the player's tokens into. 

Wow that is cool how you put the lines at the apex of the roofs. I never even thought of that That makes it look really good.

Yeah, my players loved the city, it was a lot of work, but well worth it.

chris b. said:

To simulate lights going out, I also had a bunch of braziers at the ends of halls emitting dim light , and I just en masse moved them to the gm layer.

What?!  I'm going to have to test this.  Such a timely solution, because my party is in a dungeon, about to face creatures that can cast darkness.  Was struggling with how to solve.  Earlier post in thread made me aware that unseen light sources can be placed on dynamic lighting layer.  Your idea to quickly switch these sources between DL and DM layer is amazing for a quick "flip of the switch".

Still perhaps not a perfect solution, since darkness has a radius, and having to adjust for that in a room that has multple dim light sources, but still so very helpful.  Thank you all for your comments in this thread.

For darkness you could find an area of effect token and tint it to black,  if you want to block line of sight you would need to add dynamic lines across the token in maybe a x pattern

I'm seeing some of you putting the DL on trees of the whole tree.   my tip for you guys (dont have a pic of it yet)  put an X in the middle of the tree to simulate the tree trunk, that way when the PCs are on the ground they can still see the tree trunk but not past it.  *shrugs* hope that helps. 

jbokcrusader said:

For darkness you could find an area of effect token and tint it to black,  if you want to block line of sight you would need to add dynamic lines across the token in maybe a x pattern

Pro subscribers can even use Lucian's Dynamic Lighting Recorder to automatically add DL lines to such templates :)

xTimmyx said:

I'm seeing some of you putting the DL on trees of the whole tree.   my tip for you guys (dont have a pic of it yet)  put an X in the middle of the tree to simulate the tree trunk, that way when the PCs are on the ground they can still see the tree trunk but not past it.  *shrugs* hope that helps. 

yeah i saw that above for trees and columns, that is a lot better solution. i changed some of my maps after looking a the above.

If you want players to see the top of something but no necessarily pass thru it, try adding a DL around the edge of the object and placing a token(i use a transparent png with aura) inside the barrier that has sight, emits light, and is controlled by all players.

Moonlit camp in the woods.  The stumps have DL and prevent a player from passing thru, but they can still see the tops.

DL Layer	Token Layer

DL layer - just the stump tops.  Token Layer - light source in upper left corner for the moonlight, each stump inside the DL barrier, campfire, and one player(light spell)

That technique is good for some maps, like that one. Otherwise players can see where all the trees are.

SkyCaptainXIII said:

That technique is good for some maps, like that one. Otherwise players can see where all the trees are.

Certainly.  I only use this technique for "immediate" surroundings.  The GM can toggle the extra light/sight tokens as needed. Kind of like the breadcrumb trick for areas of the map that party has previously explored.  Of course, the API(tokenmod) could be leveraged to toggle token settings more easily. ;-P