Dynamic Lighting for Dungeon Wall Torches - Not Pro Account

So I'm new to Roll20 and trying to figure out how best to manage Fog of War and dungeon lights (wall torches) without having a Pro Account that will manage it for me.  Right now I have some torches in my map (see below) Here is how I have the torches set up (see below) The torches are on the Tolken layer. They're assigned to everyone. But when I hit Ctrl+L to view it from the player's perspective, or when I test it with my dummy account, this is what I see (see below) What am I doing wrong? Why can't I see the torch light from the torches... or any light at all? Do I need to reveal the torchlight sections of the map that the players enter AS they enter it? Thanks.

With Fog of War on, you must explicitly clear the blackness for players to see.  Think of it as a window pane covered in black paint that you manually scrap away to reveal what is beneath it. If you're trying to do this without Dynamic Lighting, you would just turn those settings off on the token and all revealing would happen via FoW revealing.  If you're using Dynamic Lighting, you don't really need FoW, unless you just want to have the extra restrictions for players.

The Aaron said: With Fog of War on, you must explicitly clear the blackness for players to see.  Think of it as a window pane covered in black paint that you manually scrap away to reveal what is beneath it. If you're trying to do this without Dynamic Lighting, you would just turn those settings off on the token and all revealing would happen via FoW revealing.  If you're using Dynamic Lighting, you don't really need FoW, unless you just want to have the extra restrictions for players. So I would need to manually scrape away the black as you put it. That sucks. I was hoping to have it be dynamic but I don't have a Pro account so I guess I'll just have to reveal the map as the players move through it. I'm assuming this is the same for player held lights like a torch? If dynamic lighting doesn't work for static torches in a wall, it wouldn't work for players either right? With all of this COVID-19 craziness, I've had to scale back finances to the bare minimum. But, I can keep my monsters on the DM Layer and move them to the Token layer when the players cross that threshold right? It would be like me using a home map that I build out of EVA foam... I don't have dynamic lighting on those either. Would love some advice on how to run my sessions virtually with this limitation. Thanks!

Yeah, you've pretty much hit on the manual method. Cover the map in FoW, except where the players all. Then just use the reveal tool as they advance. Keep monsters on the GM layer unless you just want to reveal them as you scrape away the dark.

keithcurtis said: Yeah, you've pretty much hit on the manual method. Cover the map in FoW, except where the players all. Then just use the reveal tool as they advance. Keep monsters on the GM layer unless you just want to reveal them as you scrape away the dark. Sounds good I guess lol. I wish I had a bit extra $$. Oh well.

I still use that method from time to time. It easy for adhoc gaming.