Dynamic Lighting - Updates, Bugs, & Feedback

Hi Freelancer! I can think of two things to try off the top of my head. First, the strange diagonal line is usually the symptom of using the freehand tool to draw light blocking walls. This tool produces too many points and odd angles and can lead to poor performance and especially the mysterious diagonals you mention. I would suggest checking the DL layer and redrawing any such lines using the polygon tool. You don't really need too many points to make an effective wall. The legacy lighting system can also create odd diagonals, but does this also when closed paths are used. The second thing to check is to see if you have Hardware Acceleration turned on in your browser. Even if you have turned it on in the past, it is worth checking, because browser updates have reportedly toggled this setting. Here is a general checklist for Dynamic Lighting Performance .

Just piggybacking some definitions/corrections related to what Keith said about Legacy Dynamic Lighting (LDL) and open paths: Open path: a polygon whose end point does not connect to the start point. Use these with LDL. Closed path: a polygon whose end point connects with the start point. In LDL, this will create the annoying diagonal line so should never be used.

David M. said: Just piggybacking some definitions/corrections related to what Keith said about Legacy Dynamic Lighting (LDL) and open paths: Open path: a polygon whose end point does not connect to the start point. Use these with LDL. Closed path: a polygon whose end point connects with the start point. In LDL, this will create the annoying diagonal line so should never be used. Thanks, I incorrectly remembered which was the problem in LDL (closed or open). I've edited.

As of yesterday (Thursday April 27th), I have not been able to fully utilize the dynamic lighting barrier tools as normal. I can no longer select their color, or their function (wall, one-way, transparent) on the dynamic lighting layer. I can still change the color and thickness of drawings on the other layers (map, token, DM), but the toolbar for dynamic lighting barriers is gone. I'm using the latest version of Firefox on Windows 10. Also, door toolbars are not appearing, cannot set doors as hidden, locked, etc UPDATE - Clearing my cache resolved the issue.

I finished running a game about a month back and I'm starting to set up my new one. After about an hour of map making I noticed that adding a single source of light or really doing anything with the dynamic lighting system causes my graphics card to max out its usage and the whole thing becomes sluggish and unpleasant to use. It runs absolutely fine if I'm viewing it through specific characters using the  Ctrl+L feature though, so I don't fully get what's going on. I've cleared cache. I have hardware acceleration on. It's clearly a bug that's not present when I'm in the player view.  I'm using Google Chrome by the way.  Edit: Think I might have figured it out... what if all the floors and furniture had vision turned on?... Would that cause slow downs like this? I've noticed they do and they deffo didn't in my previous game. Edit Again: Figured it out but I'll leave this up in case anyone else has the same issue. I pulled settings from a game I'd left unused for ages and it turned out upon creating tokens it defaulted to having them have vision. When I populated rooms with lots of crates and floor tiles, it was giving them eyes through which to render all the lighting multiple times, hence the graphics bloat. Switched off that setting and blinded all the chairs and tables and now it's running like usual again. 

In my experience from some time ago, DL went all pear shaped once the total number of tokens with vision in game exceeds 15 - and that is spread across maps, so I am very careful to copy tokens when moving the party and then deleting from the old map as well as making sure only the player tokens have vision

Hi Simon! In theory , the number of tokens with vision is not supposed to be a performance issue any more. I'm not certain that is actually the case. Regardless, it's generally bad practice to give sight to all since it can create areas of the map that look brightly lit to the GM, if a number of creatures with night vision are in the same area.

I am having trouble with the Alien Chariot of the Gods adventure I purchased. The screen for the Cronus map displays fine for DM but is in total darkness for players.  The Montero map and other screens don’t do this. The map remains dark even if I set the settings to daylight mode. Revealing darkness doesn’t seem to work either. 

Phil C. said: I am having trouble with the Alien Chariot of the Gods adventure I purchased. The screen for the Cronus map displays fine for DM but is in total darkness for players.  The Montero map and other screens don’t do this. The map remains dark even if I set the settings to daylight mode. Revealing darkness doesn’t seem to work either.  Hi Phil! I cannot duplicate this. If I turn on DL and Daylight mode, place a token and give it sight, and give the player control permissions, It displays for both me and my  Dummy Account  player on that map. My best advice is to verify: Player and GM are both on the same map, with player flag (The Split the Party function has not been used) The Player controls the character the token represents. (not just "In Journal" permissions) The token has sight The token is on the token layer and the player can grab and move it. The map has DL and Global illumination active. Here is a more thorough checklist: Here's a "why can't my players see anything?" checklist. The important thing is to verify. Don't assume. This list is written with GMs in mind, but can help players work through issues with their GM. The token is on the VTT It is assigned to the character The player has control over the character The token is on the Token/Object layer It is not blocked off by DL lines from seeing the immediate surroundings Make sure the player is looking at their token's immediate area. Shift-Click and hold on the token to pull the player's view to that area. If Fog of War is being used, that the area the token is in has been cleared The player has not been Split from the Party (Check the Help Center if this is unfamiliar) If Dynamic Lighting of any kind is being used: The token has sight turned on The token has a light source, or Nightvision (UDL) or personal light (LDL) In UDL it may be necessary to move the token one square to get everything working, or in extreme cases, refresh the (user's) page. Can you see a rotating cube in  this URL ? If not, the browser needs to be WebGL compatible (99%+ are). If you are a Pro User, the  Dynamic Lighting Tool  script has diagnostic functions that will check many of the points above and give a report on likely causes, along with quick fix buttons. Finally, here is a guide to best practices for  Dynamic Lighting Performance .

Hi, and first, sorry for my english :( i have some issues whit dynamic light when i try to configure a large map for example when i use dinamic light on rocks , in the other sections the map becomes darknes or dynamic not work correctly look imatges and need tu use circles or other forms beacause if i try to draw whit a line, this problem appears on all the map and need to use a combination draw forms :(

Hi Francisco C., You are using freehand, don't do that as freehand can have artifacts. Freehand shouldn't be an available tool for dynamic lighting.  Use polygon/lines instead. You will have to go through deleting freehand walls and replacing them with polygon/line walls until you fix all the artifacts.  

Hi Francisco! The solution is to use the polygon tool instead of the freehand tool. The freehand tool draws too many line segments and odd angles and is very bad for Dynamic Lighting performance, producing bad light blocking. There have been requests to have the tool removed while on the DL layer. In some cases it does not show, but it is not universal. The whole interface should have an upgrade this week and hopefully that tool will be disabled for the dynamic lighting layer.

Hi guys, been a while since I set up a map with dynamic lighting, so I just wanted to talk a little about what my plans are for it. I am very excited to use many of the new tools. First off I will do all my simple stuff, walls and such with poly lines. I plan on using another color for all my columns and stalagmite and stalagtites. I want to do a thing for iron bars wear I use a group of fine line colomns next to each other as a group for jail like doors, which I plan on being able to move. I plan on using another color for obstacles in the room using the transparent line to make barriers. Although, I am considering using simple wall lines so they also become obsticales that are hidden behind and produce cover. Last but not least, I hope to go to another color for the one way lines to create different elevations. Oh yeah, and let me not forget the new doors and window stuff. That looks like a great option as well. Curious what use text in dynamic lighting does. I have played withit but cannt seem to figure it out or how it can be manipulated, any ideas. Also the new light sources dont seem to be able to be manipulated as in direction, throw and just general luminosity. Any suggestions, thoughts, concerns, possible problems I may run into. I have one I want to try for tall grass that I think will rock, but that will be for a different game and map. Feedback welcome

Only use I can think of for text is to remind yourself of the intent of any special solutions, like  "Move this line when illusion drops". It does not affect the Dynamic Lighting experience in any way.

Thank you Keith!  It was the lack of tokens on this map that caused the problem, it appears.  Thank you for helping me troubleshoot this.   keithcurtis said: Phil C. said: I am having trouble with the Alien Chariot of the Gods adventure I purchased. The screen for the Cronus map displays fine for DM but is in total darkness for players.  The Montero map and other screens don’t do this. The map remains dark even if I set the settings to daylight mode. Revealing darkness doesn’t seem to work either.  Hi Phil! I cannot duplicate this. If I turn on DL and Daylight mode, place a token and give it sight, and give the player control permissions, It displays for both me and my  Dummy Account  player on that map. My best advice is to verify: Player and GM are both on the same map, with player flag (The Split the Party function has not been used) The Player controls the character the token represents. (not just "In Journal" permissions) The token has sight The token is on the token layer and the player can grab and move it. The map has DL and Global illumination active. Here is a more thorough checklist: Here's a "why can't my players see anything?" checklist. The important thing is to verify. Don't assume. This list is written with GMs in mind, but can help players work through issues with their GM. The token is on the VTT It is assigned to the character The player has control over the character The token is on the Token/Object layer It is not blocked off by DL lines from seeing the immediate surroundings Make sure the player is looking at their token's immediate area. Shift-Click and hold on the token to pull the player's view to that area. If Fog of War is being used, that the area the token is in has been cleared The player has not been Split from the Party (Check the Help Center if this is unfamiliar) If Dynamic Lighting of any kind is being used: The token has sight turned on The token has a light source, or Nightvision (UDL) or personal light (LDL) In UDL it may be necessary to move the token one square to get everything working, or in extreme cases, refresh the (user's) page. Can you see a rotating cube in  this URL ? If not, the browser needs to be WebGL compatible (99%+ are). If you are a Pro User, the  Dynamic Lighting Tool  script has diagnostic functions that will check many of the points above and give a report on likely causes, along with quick fix buttons. Finally, here is a guide to best practices for  Dynamic Lighting Performance .

First time trying to play since buying dynamic lighting, on the 5E Storm King's Thunder Module. I'm have a problem where all my players can see anywhere illuminated on the map. When I command+L the map looks as it should. When I rejoin as a player, or look at any of the player's screens they see into other rooms that have light. Chrome, Mac Big Sur 11.7.4, UDL.

Hi William,  What is the page name in the adventure? 

Hi William! Few things to check: What characters do the players have control over? They can simultaneously "see" through any token they control that has sight Similarly, when rejoining as GM, make sure your permissions only include characters you are testing. Otherwise you will see through all characters that specifically list the GM as a controller. Switch to the DL layer and make sure that nothing has happened to the light-blocking walls If you wish, you can post screenshots of any token vision settings you are suspicious of.

NPC/monster tokens have their controls read "determined by character settings" as they are tired to a stat block in the journal. The stat block in the journal does not have them assigned to anyone.  Character each have a single token I've given their account access to with DL and night vision turned on I considered that maybe the token had to be set up as a player by having them in the journal. So I attempted that for one character token, but it did not help. What I see in command+L What I see what I rejoin as a player. This is also what the players see, plus the sight of their individual tokens.

The page name in the adventure is Ironslag Lower. I also experienced this on Ironslag Upper. Haven't tried other pages. While the module is the official Storm King's Thunder from WotC, I renamed the game Murder Machine. DL layer walls are set as walls, and without gaps. Nothing on the DL layer has sight.

I was not able to replicate what you are seeing.  Some thoughts:  1) When you switch to player mode as a GM you may still have control over things. This is especially true as many GMs naturally assign themselves control over things.  Best practice is to switch to a dummy account, not your GM account in player mode. 2) Regarding Ctrl+L (Cmd+L), historically it does not check what the DL conditions are for your token. Instead it checks line of sight.  With the new UI update that has changed, but you are using the legacy UI so I don't know if the update to CTRL/CMD+L applies to the legacy UI or not. 

Why do you say I have legacy lighting on? The game settings show everything as converted. The page settings and token settings show DL on and Legacy off.

William H. said: Why do you say I have legacy lighting on? The game settings show everything as converted. The page settings and token settings show DL on and Legacy off. I didn't, I said Legacy UI. As of now the UI you are using is the old, or legacy, UI (the toolbar to the left of your screen).  Ctrl+L was updated with the new UI to provide a more accurate view of what a token sees. However, I don't know if that also applies to the Legacy UI.  Edit: I did a test and the updated Ctrl+L does appear to apply to the legacy UI, so that isn't the issue.  If you could send me an invite to your game I could come take a look at what might be going on. 

This almost looks like what would be seen if the map image was set up as a player character. I'd highly recommend taking Gauss up on his offer. This is almost certainly a procedural error somewhere, since it is not a common report.

William H., I don't know what caused that as nothing appears to be granting sight that shouldn't be. I checked all sources of light, the map image, etc. but none of them are assigned to any players or the GM. However, I do know how to fix the issue: duplicate any page that is experiencing this problem, the duplicate will not have the problem.  There is something else wonky on the problem page(s) too. When pinging that page all tokens that should be hidden by the DL layer appear briefly. That does not happen on the duplicate.  If this happens again I suggest leaving the problem page intact and filing a bug report with the Devs via the Help Center . 

In all 3 of my campaigns, Dynamic Lighting seems to be fubar. Light sources are blowing out the light and overexposing so badly that my players can't even see their own tokens. These are all commercial maps (like Wild Beyond the Witchlight or Shadow of the Dragon Queen) and I haven't messed with the lighting settings on those maps at all. I'm not sure what's causing the overexposure or how to resolve it short of turning off dynamic lighting on the map.

There are several possibilities: 1. Check to make sure that NPCs do not have sight turned on, particularly night vision. This can give confusing results, even though it is supposedly not particularly taxing on the system 2. If using Exploration Mode, make sure that you as the GM are specifically listed as a controller on sighted tokens. This can prevent tokens from seeming to fade into the background. 3. Avoid tinted light and vision if at all possible. Those are whiz-bang features when used in extreme moderation, but do not play nice with each other at all. If none of these suggestions help screenshots of the map, along with token vision and light settings would help figure out what's going on.

Gauss, Thank you! I wish I understood why, but duplicating the map has in fact resolved the issue. 

I'm having an issue where when i place lights, they give off no light and any character with just vision can't see anything.  Dynamic lighting is turned on for the page, the token has vision.  Tried adding the lights to different layers, changing the light radius.  Nothing seems to work

TJ M. said: I'm having an issue where when i place lights, they give off no light and any character with just vision can't see anything.  Dynamic lighting is turned on for the page, the token has vision.  Tried adding the lights to different layers, changing the light radius.  Nothing seems to work Since you have a Pro subscription, I'd suggest installing the Dynamic Lighting Tool script. It has a "why can't this token see?" diagnostic function. However, I just worked for the better part of an hour helping someone with a very similar problem, and we were unable to really solve it, even with dev help. Eventually they recreated the page, but later found out that deleting a few "bad tokens" also solved the issue. Was this page transmogged in?  Try creating a brand new page, if so.

Are the thin vertical lines still not fixed for dynamic lighting? I made a map with dozens of doors, many of which were vertical, using thin lines so that the door art would actually be visible to my players. However, I can't remove the vertical ones to open the door at all, which is a serious issue. The door function is really annoying to use for more than a couple portals on a map because each one takes forever to set up, it's way easier to just delete the line I put over the doorway (~20 seconds to set up a door vs about 1 second to draw a line and 1 second to delete it). Even if the door function was easier to use, it still doesn't work with the thin line.

Not able to stretch single polyline lines on the DL layer. The grips are not selectable . Switch ing to token layer tokens work (though grips are STILL too small for large tokens and should scale with the token size at least IMHO)

Just a "Yep, still a problem" post: Explorer Mode is breaking and showing the entire map (even after resetting it).  Map is 150x100, with quite a few images (though I'm always cautious to reduce image size where I can), so I'm not especially surprised, but in a choice between UDL "Your entire map, secret areas and all, for the final section of your campaign, is entirely visible" VS LDL "It's gonna go slow, but work", I'd choose the latter.  I finally switched after two (three?) years because I thought at least this was fixed.

Majuba said: Just a "Yep, still a problem" post: Explorer Mode is breaking and showing the entire map (even after resetting it).  Map is 150x100, with quite a few images (though I'm always cautious to reduce image size where I can), so I'm not especially surprised, but in a choice between UDL "Your entire map, secret areas and all, for the final section of your campaign, is entirely visible" VS LDL "It's gonna go slow, but work", I'd choose the latter.  I finally switched after two (three?) years because I thought at least this was fixed. My understanding is that Explorer Mode (EM) has never been fixed so that it does not reveal the map when a player's system fails to display it.  As a result I won't use it with players that have potatoes. Some alternatives:  1) Use light tokens the players control to see areas they have been to. Although on particularly large maps that could get problematic. And it requires things being hidden on the GM layer.  2) Try using Permanent Darkness in concert with EM. It *might* work to conceal what they haven't seen when EM fails, more testing is required so you might want to give that a try. 

There is so many posts and threads about the lighting system, so if this is a repeat question then remove as required or link me to where I can get some help I am trying to use UDL with the explorable mode enabled. But whenever I turn on the explorer mode and I have my players in the lobby (4-6) with their cameras on + an animation or two and ~10-15 tokens, on a ~50x50 ish map, my player's browser tabs keep crashing to a point where its unusable.  I use only polygons for the walls I draw, and I use one-way to allow them to see the trees/walls/obstacles. I realize that the answer is probably don't do that, but the explorable darkness is the closest I can get to keeping players in the action while still allowing for lighting and field of view.  Is there anything I can try that might help alleviate the crashes? It doesn't happen when I turn off explorable darkness. It happens on various player's computers, and they are all using Chrome with hardware acceleration. Thanks in any case.

The performance of Roll20 seems to vary greatly from table to table, and does not seem to have a 1:1 correspondence with computer specs. That setup sounds perfectly reasonable and would run for our group. I'm not sure about the animations though. They have always had spotty performance. Maybe try without those and see if you get the same results.

(lol I accidently posted my reply with my dummy account, whoops). Apologies. I'll play around with the animations to see if they are the source of my issue. Thanks!

Hi, all.  I've been offline for a few weeks, and I'm noticing some really strange new behavior with maps and dynamic lighting. I first noticed it when I was using a custom map that I built using marketplace items.  The first issue is: When I use Daylight mode, there is now a slider that allows me to set brightness (I believe this is new).  If I reduce it to less than 100%, my screen looks like this: There are no tokens that intentionally have visibility enabled on them.  The various marketplace tokens (trees and such), I have reviewed the settings and none of them have vision enabled.  If I turn the brightness back to 100%, it goes away. The next issue, seems to be related.  I created a new map, and uploaded an image for the map background.  This map does not have daylight mode enabled, and has no tokens present on it at all.  But there is a a red bloom in the middle of the screen that I cannot figure out.   If I turn on "Daylight mode" it goes away, but I can't figure out what's going on.  Any ideas?

Hi Mac! Check the lighting settings on any of those images (including the map image). It looks like they have red-tinted night vision turned on. Other possibilities include tinted light or possibly a red aura. But given that 100% daylight brightness makes them disappear, my guess is tinted night vision. Since all of your graphics share this behavior, once you identify the cause, I would suggest looking at your campaign settings. It is probably that those are set (somehow) as defaults for new graphics for that game.

Thanks, Keith.  I actually had to go in, pull everything through to the token layer, and then check -- and yes, every single image had vision and nightvision turned on.  Ugh. I was able to turn it off by going to Settings/Game Default Settings/Dynamic Lighting and turning off Token Vision and night vision as default settings for tokens. This fixed it without having to use the "Convert Lighting" option to make changes. I was also able to replicate the error, by going back into the same section and turning those items back on.  It appears as if my game, at least, is treating every new art asset as if it is a token, regardless of what layer you are attempting to insert it on. This is a new problem for me, as everything seemed to be working just fine previously.  The only change I can identify is the addition of that slider to the daylight settings.  Hopefully, the above solution will help if anyone else gets the same problem.   If anyone else *does* run into this, and/or can replicate it, hopefully, we'll hear about it.

FWIW, that slider to the daylight settings has been there likely as long as UDL has had a daylight setting. For instance, the Dynamic Lighting Tool script allows you to set the value digitally.

Huh.  I thought the slider was new!  Goodness knows what I messed up in that case.  :)

Hi! For a month now, one player (but no other) of my party has very weird interactions with dynamic lightning. Basically, it does not work for him as intended. For example, this the map + lightning walls: With closed doors above them, the player (He has vision for the right most token in the screenshot and no other token, we checked) has the following line of sight: He went through the recommended setting resets multiple times, without success. Neither the other players nor I could reproduce that. Afaik he also tried multiple browsers, but not different hardware. We also changed tokens multiple times, adjusting their vision settings as well. As far as we can reconstruct it, the problems first came up a month ago, on a map he had no issues on before. He has that problem for nearly all maps and doors/windows don't seem to be the problem as he also has weird interactions with "only" vision blocking walls. Strangely enough, it appears that having doors/windows on a map guarantee that effect while maps with dynamic lightning and no doors/windows can work, but not all of them. Can somebody help me? :)

Thanks for the reply Gauss - for some reason didn't get any notification of it when you made it. Gauss said: Majuba said: Just a "Yep, still a problem" post: Explorer Mode is breaking and showing the entire map (even after resetting it).  Map is 150x100, with quite a few images (though I'm always cautious to reduce image size where I can), so I'm not especially surprised, but in a choice between UDL "Your entire map, secret areas and all, for the final section of your campaign, is entirely visible" VS LDL "It's gonna go slow, but work", I'd choose the latter.  I finally switched after two (three?) years because I thought at least this was fixed. My understanding is that Explorer Mode (EM) has never been fixed so that it does not reveal the map when a player's system fails to display it.  As a result I won't use it with players that have potatoes. Some alternatives:  1) Use light tokens the players control to see areas they have been to. Although on particularly large maps that could get problematic. And it requires things being hidden on the GM layer.  2) Try using Permanent Darkness in concert with EM. It *might* work to conceal what they haven't seen when EM fails, more testing is required so you might want to give that a try.  FYI, Tried disabling Daylight Mode (since there's other issues with having UDL+EM+Daylight) and then using Permanent Darkness - it didn't do anything at all.  Basic fog of war sort of works, but not for what I need.  Will use the bread crumbs (though I'll have to wait a bit since a room "respawned".)

Majuba said: Thanks for the reply Gauss - for some reason didn't get any notification of it when you made it. Gauss said: Majuba said: Just a "Yep, still a problem" post: Explorer Mode is breaking and showing the entire map (even after resetting it).  Map is 150x100, with quite a few images (though I'm always cautious to reduce image size where I can), so I'm not especially surprised, but in a choice between UDL "Your entire map, secret areas and all, for the final section of your campaign, is entirely visible" VS LDL "It's gonna go slow, but work", I'd choose the latter.  I finally switched after two (three?) years because I thought at least this was fixed. My understanding is that Explorer Mode (EM) has never been fixed so that it does not reveal the map when a player's system fails to display it.  As a result I won't use it with players that have potatoes. Some alternatives:  1) Use light tokens the players control to see areas they have been to. Although on particularly large maps that could get problematic. And it requires things being hidden on the GM layer.  2) Try using Permanent Darkness in concert with EM. It *might* work to conceal what they haven't seen when EM fails, more testing is required so you might want to give that a try.  FYI, Tried disabling Daylight Mode (since there's other issues with having UDL+EM+Daylight) and then using Permanent Darkness - it didn't do anything at all.  Basic fog of war sort of works, but not for what I need.  Will use the bread crumbs (though I'll have to wait a bit since a room "respawned".) One other note: 150x100 is a pretty extreme page size. I would consider limiting page size to half that if using DL. Roll20 recommends a limit of 100x100 just for displaying the map etc. (ie: not factoring in DL).