Updated Dynamic Lighting - Feedback Thread

I'm having a problem with the dynamic lighting. In multiple games (all modules), my players will move their tokens and simply go blind. Like the dynamic lighting just turns off and they can't see anything. The only fix I've found is the turn off the dynamic lighting (revealing the whole map) and turn it back on, and even then they usually go blind the next time they move their token.

Katie Mae said: Hi there!  We're back after a wonderful holiday break with more UDL updates, and this one is important! Thanks to your feedback, after our latest updates we are now considering UDL to have reached 1.0.  To learn more about what that means to us, you can visit this blog post.  In the coming days, we will be closing this thread and creating a new one as we look toward the future of UDL. As always, your feedback will be essential in the process of improving our platform! Until this thread closes, feel free to post feedback about UDL as it stands, and where you would like to see us go from here.  Happy new year!  Hello Katie, I would like to know how much longer we will have access to legacy lighting, and if roll20 can commit to not remove it until UDL is working.  I have invested a lot of time and money into this platform- like many, many others- and have tons of maps that will be ruined if you take away legacy lighting.  

Turk_SeSo said: If I use UDL and have two or more characters with night vision, the grid dissapears in the areas where the night vision overlap.  This makes NPC placement very difficult :/ Hiya, it isn't a fix but is a workaround for me - increase grid opacity on page settings and set night vision to dimming, starting at 0'.  As GM there is still some guesswork if 3 PCs are close, but 2 is more doable and for the players it is all good.  They certainly have to be closer than your tokens for it to matter

I'm using LDL in my game, but I've made a copy and converted it to UDL to experiment. Two issues of note. 1. Nightvision set to "dimmed" doesn't really do much in the way of dimming. In fact, it's kind of hard to tell that it's dimmed at all. Is the level of dimming something that we will be able to set? If not, could the dimmed-ness in UDL be matched to the dimmed-ness in LDL? 2. The vision multiplier doesn't appear to do anything in combination with nightvision. For instance, I set a character's sight to 30' of nightvision (dimmed), then in advanced, I set the vision multiplier to 200%. The result? 30' of nightvision, rather than 60'. Is this a known unfinished feature? (less important, but far easily implemented... in the vision multiplier text, "it's" should be "its.") Thanks for keeping track of these and addressing them.

Thank you Dylan- that makes me feel a bit better. I am not using UDL so I can't give any information- will continue using legacy until it's usable.  Dylan T. said: Erica said: Hello Katie, I would like to know how much longer we will have access to legacy lighting, and if roll20 can commit to not remove it until UDL is working.  I have invested a lot of time and money into this platform- like many, many others- and have tons of maps that will be ruined if you take away legacy lighting.   I'm not Katie, but I can field this one. We haven't set a date for sunsetting the Legacy System, as we'd like to make sure Updated Dynamic Lighting is in an incredibly solid place before we start that process. As evidenced by the bug reports and posts here, we still have some hurdles to clear before we're there, but know that we will definitely give you all  at least three months' notice before that happens. In the meantime, please keep sending us the feedback as you encounter bugs in your games. Thanks.

Decided to try out UDL today since it's been many months since I last tried it. Ran into a large bug. This is all when I'm GMing. Load a page, everything looks fine. I move a token that has night vision. This causes all tokens on the map, even those without vision, to become transparent, as if I changed the layer I'm working on. Also, if I use CTRL+L to try to see through a particular token's vision, I can't see anything. (Though there is some weird visual artifacts that are difficult to describe.) The only way to make it go away is to change which page I'm on and then change back. However, all of this is only on the GM side. The players do not appear to experience any problems. This only happens if the token I move  belongs to a player and has night vision . It does not occur if those two conditions are not met.

Craig M. said: I'm using LDL in my game, but I've made a copy and converted it to UDL to experiment. Two issues of note. 1. Nightvision set to "dimmed" doesn't really do much in the way of dimming. In fact, it's kind of hard to tell that it's dimmed at all. Is the level of dimming something that we will be able to set? If not, could the dimmed-ness in UDL be matched to the dimmed-ness in LDL? 2. The vision multiplier doesn't appear to do anything in combination with nightvision. For instance, I set a character's sight to 30' of nightvision (dimmed), then in advanced, I set the vision multiplier to 200%. The result? 30' of nightvision, rather than 60'. Is this a known unfinished feature? (less important, but far easily implemented... in the vision multiplier text, "it's" should be "its.") Thanks for keeping track of these and addressing them. Hi Craig, I use Firefox and VTTES and this is the difference with night vision set to either none or dimming, in both cases transparent and without modifying the vision multiplier as I also cannot make that do anything, page settings are both daylight and explorer off.    It's the orc using its night vision.  Sorry, couldn't resist ::eats, shoots and leaves::

Simon: You're right. There's definitely a discernable difference in UDL between undimmed and dimmed vision. I overstated that. In reconsidering, I think my real issue is with the difference between LDL and UDL dimmed. Here are screen caps (Opera, Mac, no relevant extensions) of the same token in the same spot in the same dungeon... one game is LDL, and one has been converted to UDL. Each token has an equivalent vision setting: 60' with dim starting at 0' for LDL, and 60' with nightvision set to dimmed for UDL. Here's LDL: And here's UDL: As you can see, there's no question the UDL dimmed is signficantly brighter than LDL dimmed. Personally, as a DM, I prefer the LDL dimming because it creates a greater impact with light sources... and balances the utility of 5e darkvision by not giving too much away. It seems odd that the UDL version of dimming wouldn't be matched to the LDL version; I presume "how dim is dim?" is something that can be controlled on a dial... but I admit I'm no coder. If we can't get a dimness adjuster in UDL (under Advanced, of course), then I would ask our friends at Roll20 to consider setting the UDL dimness level to more closely approximate the LDL level. Thanks!

Dylan T. said: Erica said: Hello Katie, I would like to know how much longer we will have access to legacy lighting, and if roll20 can commit to not remove it until UDL is working.  I have invested a lot of time and money into this platform- like many, many others- and have tons of maps that will be ruined if you take away legacy lighting.   I'm not Katie, but I can field this one. We haven't set a date for sunsetting the Legacy System, as we'd like to make sure Updated Dynamic Lighting is in an incredibly solid place before we start that process. As evidenced by the bug reports and posts here, we still have some hurdles to clear before we're there, but know that we will definitely give you all  at least three months' notice before that happens. In the meantime, please keep sending us the feedback as you encounter bugs in your games. Thanks. I've updated the Community Wiki pages for Dynamic Lighting , UDL and LDL to include the latest info, along with a reference to this promise.

Simon G. said: Turk_SeSo said: If I use UDL and have two or more characters with night vision, the grid dissapears in the areas where the night vision overlap.  This makes NPC placement very difficult :/ Hiya, it isn't a fix but is a workaround for me - increase grid opacity on page settings and set night vision to dimming, starting at 0'.  As GM there is still some guesswork if 3 PCs are close, but 2 is more doable and for the players it is all good.  They certainly have to be closer than your tokens for it to matter Thanks, that is helping a bit =)  Even if those three chars are acutally closer together in real gameplay situations, the overshadowed area is way smaller this way! Still a fix for this would be awesome at some point I guess ;)

Have similar issue here.  When more than one token with darkvision are see map grid disappears from area witch they can see.

Craig M. said: As you can see, there's no question the UDL dimmed is signficantly brighter than LDL dimmed. Personally, as a DM, I prefer the LDL dimming because it creates a greater impact with light sources... and balances the utility of 5e darkvision by not giving too much away. It seems odd that the UDL version of dimming wouldn't be matched to the LDL version; I presume "how dim is dim?" is something that can be controlled on a dial... but I admit I'm no coder. If we can't get a dimness adjuster in UDL (under Advanced, of course), then I would ask our friends at Roll20 to consider setting the UDL dimness level to more closely approximate the LDL level. In the game I've been working with, there seems to be no difference between bright light and dim light. There is a small jagged line where the radius of bright light ends, but then the same intensity of light beyond.

Can some one point me to a link if this is a known issue. In our group of 5 we all use UDL. However UDL is not working as expected for one player and their computer. The DM has checked the lighting on his preview ability and the lighting works as intended for all players. However for one particular player it does not. When the player is given Low light vision, the player can see as expected. When the player is not given low light vision and the player had line of sight, only sometimes did the player see light that was being produced by other party tokens and sometimes not. All other players were able to see the lights from all sources as expected. The player was using chrome and had a new version of chrome book. The player cleared his cache but we were not able to locate the " Hardware Acceleration" toggle on his version of chrome (we searched for it in the search function). Any ideas what may be going on?

Dr DM said: Craig M. said: As you can see, there's no question the UDL dimmed is signficantly brighter than LDL dimmed. Personally, as a DM, I prefer the LDL dimming because it creates a greater impact with light sources... and balances the utility of 5e darkvision by not giving too much away. It seems odd that the UDL version of dimming wouldn't be matched to the LDL version; I presume "how dim is dim?" is something that can be controlled on a dial... but I admit I'm no coder. If we can't get a dimness adjuster in UDL (under Advanced, of course), then I would ask our friends at Roll20 to consider setting the UDL dimness level to more closely approximate the LDL level. In the game I've been working with, there seems to be no difference between bright light and dim light. There is a small jagged line where the radius of bright light ends, but then the same intensity of light beyond. This is a common complaint that the devs are ignoring. It is not even on their list of known issues. The separation between bright light and dim light is mechanically crucial in D&D 5E but maybe not so much in other game systems? 

Is the "Restrict Movement" option suddenly gone for anyone else? I was just setting up lighting on a new map and noticed there was no way to stop players from walking through walls now. I went back and checked older maps that explicitly had this option turned on, and it's missing there as well. Even checked a different campaign just in case my settings were funky. It just seems to be gone entirely, and I can't find anyone talking about it anywhere. Is anyone else experiencing this, or is it just me for some reason?

It's on the Page Details tab and you have to scroll all the way down.

Over the past few months UDL has gone from being a pain in the ass to being entirely non-functional to the point that even LDL seems to be broken (but that's for another post). But first what UDL does currently in my campaign. Here we have a blank character token setup with vision and 60 ft. of night vision surrounded by my other players in a blank default sized map with UDL and Explorer Mode on. I then use the explorable darkness reveal tool to reveal an area around the token. Then I go to join the game as a player with UDL on and as previously stated, a blank, fresh character token with UDL, the area around the character revealed, and vision setup properly and I get... this... I can add a light source and everything and still get this same crap. No light. No vision. Nothing. Daylight Mode does literally nothing, on or off. I remember the system failing on larger maps in the past but this is a default sized blank map.

Hobo H. said: Over the past few months UDL has gone from being a pain in the ass to being entirely non-functional to the point that even LDL seems to be broken (but that's for another post). But hey, Roll20, this is definitely the time to claim that UDL is at 1.0 and bring back the fear of sunsetting LDL, right? /facepalm

Doug E. said: This is a common complaint that the devs are ignoring. It is not even on their list of known issues. The separation between bright light and dim light is mechanically crucial in D&D 5E but maybe not so much in other game systems?  If they ignore it in the final release of UDL, I am gone, and I doubt I'll be alone. The issue isn't only that they haven't fixed it. As you mentioned, they haven't even acknowledged that this (very real problem) exists. Which is very on-brand for Roll20, I will give that to them. Maybe six months after releasing UDL with the same dim light boundary issue and sunsetting LDL they'll start claiming that being able to separate the two was never in LDL in the first place. I mean, it's what they tried to do for months when they broke AFoW. "We have always been at war with Eastasia."

I'm not sure if this is me misunderstanding how the system works, but having skimmed this thread I've seen enough similar complaints that I feel like this could be a bug, rather than a layer 8 problem. I've launched a sandpit game by using the Underworld Speculation from the XGE bundle, and have added a new page. On that page I have created a map - just a simple dungeon.  Because I don't want to have to position torches everywhere, I've enabled dynamic lighting, and daylight mode.  I've then drawn in walls on the dynamic lighting layer. This morning I tested with one of the pre-generated characters. I set the character to Token Vision -> Vison On.  I set that character to be controlled by a test user (not my DM user), dropped it into the dungeon, and lo, as the test user, the character could see as far as the corridors extended - everything worked just fine. This afternoon with my group, we created four new characters.  Once the characters were complete I did exactly the same - set the character to Token Vision -> Vision On, and dropped the tokens into the dungeon.  I set the characters to be controlled by exactly the same test user, but none of the characters can see. If I disable dynamic lighting, the whole map is visible.  If I re-enable it, the whole map goes dark, despite me ensuring that daylight is on, and the tokens have vision enabled. I've just tested it with another pre-generated character, and it works fine. Am I missing some subtle difference between the pre-generated characters and the ones I made?  They look identical in terms of settings and who can control them.

Not sure if I am not setting the Dynamic Lighting correct or if it is a bug. Figure A, I set the Darkvision setting as shown on DM screen(Right). Next, I set the char token as in figure B.  At which point everything looks to be working correctly, Figure C.  Until I move the token on player screen. This is were darkvision shuts off.  The fix I found is to go back into Map settings turn the DLing off , then save, and then turning DLing settings back on. I have looked around and understand that you are in the process of updating the Dynamic Lighting. I just wanted to make sure it was not me and if it is not me, then I wanted to report a bug. 

I think I saw some postings about this weeks ago, but I don't remember if there was a solution. I was using the January pro-pack of urban maps for a game, using UDL. The players' view looked like the top picture below, with a big black rectangle against the upper left corner and covering most of the map. This was on Firefox on a Mac and on Chrome on a PC. Nothing I tried made any difference - emitting light, dark vision, daylight mode, explorer mode -- the only way to get rid of it was to turn off dynamic lighting.  My GM view was OK, although also showing the rectangle as a semi-transparent black rectangle, as shown in the second pic below. Is this a known bug? What is causing it, and more importantly what can I do to get rid of it?

The tokens I had on the globe are well used for dynamic lighting, but now when I implement a new token, it doesn't matter what settings I put it on, its vision is messed up .

Mia a. said: Dynamic lighting is well used by the tokens I had on the map, but now when I add a new token, it doesn't matter what settings I placed it on, its vision is messed up. Hi Mia I found there was an upper limit to the number of tokens (15????) that could have DL set as on, across all maps.  So basically I had copies of the PC tokens on earlier maps and so once I went back and cleaned them off (you could just turn off their DL too though) and returned to my usual 5 PCs with night vision, things became a little better. Still the frustrations around overlapping circles of night vision causing loss of grid etc as mentioned in my earlier posts, but something more usuable at least.  Have to agree with other posts though that the Legacy Lighting produces much more atmosphere

Valerie M. said: I think I saw some postings about this weeks ago, but I don't remember if there was a solution. I was using the January pro-pack of urban maps for a game, using UDL. The players' view looked like the top picture below, with a big black rectangle against the upper left corner and covering most of the map. This was on Firefox on a Mac and on Chrome on a PC. Nothing I tried made any difference - emitting light, dark vision, daylight mode, explorer mode -- the only way to get rid of it was to turn off dynamic lighting.  My GM view was OK, although also showing the rectangle as a semi-transparent black rectangle, as shown in the second pic below. Is this a known bug? What is causing it, and more importantly what can I do to get rid of it? It's a bug from a little while ago. Go to the toolbar on the left, select the permanent darkness option, and reset permanent darkness.

Not sure if this was reported by anyone else here, i updated my game to the UDL and i am running into this issue everytime i switch to a new map page. Players view. appears to be working normally with Dynamic lighting. Dm's view with ctrl-l. If i do a browser refresh lighting seems to work again. If i turn off dynamic lighting and save the settings and then re-enable dynamic lighting i see the following but lose the player token on the map.

mike k. said: Not sure if this was reported by anyone else here, i updated my game to the UDL and i am running into this issue everytime i switch to a new map page. <snip> Yeah, I've been having this problem for a couple weeks now.  Initially The GM view was fine but players would go blind as soon as they moved their tokens, which was terrible. Now I have what you do, from my perspective the players are all blind as soon as they move their tokens - but they all report that they can still see things on their end.  Which is... disconcerting, but at least lets me keep running the game.

The new thread also asks for feedback on why people are still using LDL rather than UDL. Quote: " For those of you who are using LDL, how can we help you feel comfortable in making the switch?"

My thoughts are, great way to hide the issues but "Culling" them into a new thread and closing the old thread.  Only the issues Roll20 deems necessary will be memorialized in the new Forum.  Interesting how this coincides with the 1.0 Announcement.  Good luck Pro subscribers.  That's why I went to Foundry VTT, other than the fact that it is way more feature rich and actually works.

I've a small question: I've had a couple players with problems with the new Dynamic Lighting. In one case they could see the map and their icon but that is all, and the entire map was greyed out. I'm not sure about the other player, he just said he couldn't see anything. My group has had ongoing issues with Dynamic Lighting (which is a shame as I love setting it up, and it's better than the Fog of War system).  Is this possibly a Browser issue? I'm hoping to track down potential hiccups before my next game, seeing that without Fog of War, there are some maps that I can't conceal stuff without Dynamic Lighting, but players need to be able to see the map so... Thank you!

Can you add the bug where Grid vanishes under light/vision to the bug list in OP? Also when storing a token with vision set as the default token (which I do for PCs) all vision details are lost when dragged out (presumably lost when stored).

Acacia, Jim, you might want to post that in the new thread if you have not done so already. Katie Mae said: Hi folks, Our new UDL 1.0 Bugs and Feedback thread is live! I've spent the last week compiling the most recent issues you've reported into this thread, but please let me know if I missed anything. This new thread is set up to be more clear about what we're working on and why, but let me know if you have any questions! With that, this thread will be unsticked now, and closed out in the next day or so. I wanted to give you time to close out your thoughts and conversations if needed!  Thanks again, and I'll see you over there!!

Hello, I have a couple questions about Updated Dynamic Lighting. First, is there a way to set tokens so the lighting updates on dropping the token, so players must place a token to update their vision? Second, is there a way to prevent players from moving tokens through Dynamic lighting walls? In my testing, it seems like they can move right through and see what is on the other side. Thank you!

Preston G. said: Hello, I have a couple questions about Updated Dynamic Lighting. First, is there a way to set tokens so the lighting updates on dropping the token, so players must place a token to update their vision? Second, is there a way to prevent players from moving tokens through Dynamic lighting walls? In my testing, it seems like they can move right through and see what is on the other side. Thank you! There is a setting called "Update on Drop". Scroll down on the main properties tab for a page until you find the setting to Restrict Movement. It is not  on the DL tabs.

Brian C. said: Preston G. said: Hello, I have a couple questions about Updated Dynamic Lighting. First, is there a way to set tokens so the lighting updates on dropping the token, so players must place a token to update their vision? Second, is there a way to prevent players from moving tokens through Dynamic lighting walls? In my testing, it seems like they can move right through and see what is on the other side. Thank you! There is a setting called "Update on Drop". Scroll down on the main properties tab for a page until you find the setting to Restrict Movement. It is not  on the DL tabs. Thank you!  I found both. I was looking in the token options, but both are on the page settings.