Dynamic Lighting integrated with Fog of War (Warcraft 2 style)

plexsoup said: Seems like a lot of people are asking for this... But there's already a pretty easy fix available to pro subscribers. Here's a script you can use to drop LightCrumbs. <a href="https://gist.github.com/plexsoup/64852540504101b52" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/plexsoup/64852540504101b52</a>... (I'm not comfortable doing 1-click installs yet. Just drop it into the scripts window in the game settings.) (It's not really my script. It's The Aaron's Mark script with a few small modifications.) Here's a video of the script in action. <a href="https://youtu.be/iIZxO9NPN4g" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/iIZxO9NPN4g</a> Make a macro with the following contents:&nbsp;!LightCrumb @{selected|token_id} Set it for as a token action and click the button when you want to drop a crumb. Make another macro !LightCrumb-clear to remove them. This is a brilliant idea, and I can see a number of uses for it. but it has one flaw in what we are looking for here. &nbsp; The lightcrumb leaves a light token that shows all the players the area they were in (I would adjust the crumb to only give off dim light as if it had low light vision), but it will also revile any thing the GM would bring in to follow the players, What is being looked for is a shadowed version of the explored map that will not show anything on the token layer. &nbsp;In effect illuminating the map layer only in the areas that the party has been but keeping the token layer limited to direct line of site for the players.&nbsp;

Updated&nbsp; the script and&nbsp; the video

Updated&nbsp; the video again. Still making good progress on&nbsp; the script .

Thank you for keeping us updated. :)

I vote and I'd like to add: please enhance the possibility of hiding an area: currently you have ploygon-reveal, but if you want to hide an area you have only rectangular-hide.

I believe this would be a very creative creation, it would also allow so much more in the dynamic Lighting department. The benefits would be really kool having stuff explored stay open. In the mean time, I have seen a few DM, put light sources in rooms that have been explored and turn on the allow all to see options. Not really sure how they set that up but it works as a tempory fix in the mean time.

plexsoup said: Updated&nbsp; the video again. Still making good progress on&nbsp; the script . Plexsoup I think this is really amazing video, I was thinking if the token you use for the image was a transparent white or black dot, really small it wouldn't show up as bright, making it appear as though its just a lighted source not a torch being left behind. But thats just an idea. Also may not appear to be another object in the field of players view when fighting monsters and stuff.

Good news, Joshua. That's already a thing. Here's a New video showing how it looks with transparent tokens.

As a temp fix I'd love to just see a lighting option that doesn't reveal the object layer. so you could create map torches that don't reveal characters

You could use Aaron's bump script in tandem with the LightCrumb script. <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2956622/script-b" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/2956622/script-b</a>... Then you could move invisible tokens around and reveal them when needed.

+1

+1

plexsoup said: Good news, Joshua. That's already a thing. Here's a New video showing how it looks with transparent tokens. Maybe I missed it in your videos, but is there a way for the crumbs to give off only dim light?

@Deven Yes. click the config button, then set Dim Start to 0 Also, make click Toggle Inherit Light Settings once or twice to make sure INHERIT_CHARACTER_LIGHTING is set to false

+1 Id like gm to have the option of current FOW system and a new one like the suggested one.

Im new to roll20 and was trying to figure out how to do something like this for some bigger maps im planning.

FYI: Light Crumb Trails is in the 1-click repository now. It provides a reasonable approximation of Warcraft style fog-of-war.

This is a really fantastic idea for a script, thank you for all the work on it! Do you have any suggestions or am I missing something in the setup, that allows you to place the light objects on a non-interactive layer? I would prefer that players be unable to move the objects themselves if at all possible. Or is this simply happening because I am the GM logged in as a player?

Sorry. For this to work, the torches have to be on an interactive layer and controlled by the players.&nbsp;

Is there any input from the Dev team as to whether or not they're actually looking to implement this? The script workaround is ok, but resource-intensive on large maps and very clunky compared to a built-in solution.

It would be nice to hear from the Dev team on this, but at this time I have not seen any input from them.

+1. I'm not using dynamic lighting very often in my campaigns because the players cannot then see the areas they've already explored. This would be a much, desired feature.

Jyro X said: Is there any input from the Dev team as to whether or not they're actually looking to implement this? The script workaround is ok, but resource-intensive on large maps and very clunky compared to a built-in solution. The first response from the devs was "it's impossible, it's too much memory to alocate, it can't be done". Then people started pointing out several ways this could work, from polygons to manual tool, then the devs responded with "we'll maybe take a look into this", now they are simply ignoring this issue. I guess they have more important things in mind, since the compendiums and adventures seem to be selling well.

I agree, if they were going to solve this they would've by now. I'm removing my +1 from this and just recommending the Lightcrumb&nbsp;script. &nbsp;Not ideal an perfect solution, but good enough for me.

+1. This would be amazing for overland mapping.

After watching what the devs have to say about the suggestions last week, I'm now convinced that this feature will not make it into Roll20 in the next few years. No point in keeping my vote for that, I think. I don't really complain, since I understand the technical reasons, but I just wanted to write down that I didn't lose interest...

Ulti said: After watching what the devs have to say about the suggestions last week, I'm now convinced that this feature will not make it into Roll20 in the next few years. Do you have a link to that?

This sucks on so many levels. There are other options for playing out there and if the Devs are unable/unwilling to implement something so basic I'll gladly switch to something else. Seriously disappointed.

Found the link:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.twitch.tv/videos/131819773" rel="nofollow">https://www.twitch.tv/videos/131819773</a>

This could be easily done by reworking how FoW and DL interact: areas with neither fog nor lighting are grayed out, areas with light and no fog are lit, areas with both are... something. Just give me something so that I can have dynamic lighting turned on and my players be able to see where they've been without me having to mess around with scripts. I have no idea why it's taken so long to have even a basic implementation of this idea, even if it isn't the whole "everything the light touches is defogged" thing.

+1

I was hoping to find a solution to this too. what if I enable global illumination and use dynamic lighting with line of sight and fog of war? That could work, right?

I'm going to keep my points here indefinitely and if they every offer multiple points on a single project. I don't think we should just assume it's okay that they brush off the second highest enhancement request because "it's too hard". This is something that's available today in free tools today that I used before joining Roll20. When I joined just I assumed this would be possible. I understand that a cloud based environment has challenges, but people mentioning putting their votes elsewhere because this will never happen isn't the right course of action from the community either.

Jeremy R. said: I'm going to keep my points here indefinitely and if they every offer multiple points on a single project. I don't think we should just assume it's okay that they brush off the second highest enhancement request because "it's too hard". This is something that's available today in free tools today that I used before joining Roll20. When I joined just I assumed this would be possible. I understand that a cloud based environment has challenges, but people mentioning putting their votes elsewhere because this will never happen isn't the right course of action from the community either. Likewise. Just because they don't have a solution doesn't mean it's not possible. I don't think it would be terribly resource-intensive to have fog-of-war delete itself anywhere hit by light/vision. Still too resource intensive somehow? Make it run a check every five seconds instead of deleting live. Every 5s, grab each "player token"s vision range and delete in a circle around the token. Maybe find a way to run this check on the GM's computer so it doesn't even draw from the server. That'd mean it doesn't work while the GM's not logged in, but that's almost a "feature not a bug" side-effect anyway. If the GM has all the tools to do this manually on their end, I don't see why it can't also be automated on their end.&nbsp;

Given that this feature has be a gaming industry standard for decades I'm not about to abandon my support for this feature. I'll withdraw my support for the feature the same time I withdraw my support for roll20.

"Given that this feature has be a gaming industry standard for decades I'm not about to abandon my support for this feature." I agree 100%.

Well, in their recent QA, they said with the current implementation of dynamic lighting it isn't possible/practical. So they simply need to redo their dynamic lighting system built around the idea of persistent fog of war. Maybe the fact that they hired on a bunch of new people could be an indication that is indeed being done. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

+1

Rumor is at GenCon that they've conquered the hurdles for this and it is "almost done".

Wholy cow. &nbsp;I just... let me change out of my brown pants and put on my party hat now. Wow.... &nbsp;Uhm, any wildly unfounded guesses when that will come out? And thank you for all your hard work.

Thank you! &nbsp;I'm glad that one of the top suggestion candidates is finally in development. &nbsp;It's been a long time since that was the case.

Nice work! Looks like I'll have to retire the LightCrumb script.

plexsoup said: Nice work! Looks like I'll have to retire the LightCrumb script. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."&nbsp; ;-P

plexsoup said: Nice work! Looks like I'll have to retire the LightCrumb script. Please don't! Depending on how demanding the new fog of war is I might be sticking to lightcrumb&nbsp;still!

I'm most happy to have been wrong on that!

Awesome! So looking forward to this!

I was so freaking excited to see this is being implemented. We took a 3 week hiatus, and come back to amazing news!