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Dynamic Lighting Question

Surprise! Another question about DL!!! So my question is probably a stupid one, but here goes. First, a little background...I run a BECMI game, and one of the characters is an elf with infravision. Now, because of that the elf does not need a torch, while the others in the party carry torches when in darkened caves, dungeons. The player with infravision is setup for Vision>Night Vision 60ft. Works great. The players with torches are setup like this... Vision>Emits Bright Light 10ft>Emits Low Light 20ft. Works great for those players. Now, here is my question... Am I wrong in thinking other players should also be able to see the light a token emits? For example, the elf can see up to 60ft in the dark, but can only see his companions if they are in his field of view. He cannot see the light they emit. Am I missing a setting, or is it not possible for a player to see light that another player is emitting?
If dynamic lighting is turned on for the page (map), then any token that has  vision enabled should see any other token that either emits light or is within the area illuminated by another light source. Is the token with nighvision the only one not able to see the light emitting tokens? Is there a dynamic lighting barrier between the tokens? It might help if you could post screen shots of the token's vision settings and the page's dynamic lighting settings.
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keithcurtis
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Hi zyplexer! Just making sure that you are not using the old, defunct legacy lighting system*, in which this was possible. In the current lighting system, all player tokens with vision see all light sources, unless they are obscured by a barrier. Have you verified that the night vision token is not seeing the light source? If so, how? *The old system is well hidden, so this is not likely, but it might match what you are reporting.
@RIck A Thanks for your reply. I will get some screen shots and post them shortly. @keithcurtis - I am fairly certain I am up to date. I have converted all my maps, they say "Converted" I have created a second account that I use for testing and as a player  (this profile is where I DM from) I loaded the test account to use the nightvision token and this account to use a "torch using" token.
Here are a couple screenshots of what I am seeing (or not seeing in would be more appropriate...) This is what the token that emits light sees. I set bright light for 10 feet, dim light 20 ft for a total of 30 feet. You can see it dimming after the second square. The token below is using his nightvision, therefore does not require a torch so does not emit. This is what the token that uses nightvision sees. As you can see, the token cannot see any of the light the other token is emitting.
For testing, I switched the nightvision token to a regular "Torch carrying" token...removed nightvision, set to emit light. The minute the separate beyond that 30 feet, they can no longer see each other. Again....this could very well be performing as advertised and I am just missing something...it just seems like if light is being emitted, other players should be able to see it.
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keithcurtis
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It is difficult to see a problem, based on the screen shot. There is a dynamic lighting blocking path, of course, but the token with night vision (Lower right) is seeing the light emitting token (upper left), just fine. The only vision being blocked is around the corner, out of their line of sight. Maybe test on a map without dynamic lighting blockers, since that might be confusing the situation.
Sure, it's seeing the token itself...but not the light it's supposedly emitting. Am I wrong in assuming that emit light in Dynamic Lighting is the same as something emitting light in real life? Even when the tokens are in a straight hallway this is a problem. So every token in a party cannot see one another unless they are in a tight nit pack. They do not see each other's emitted light at all. If you and I were walking down a darkened hallway and we each had lanterns that emitted light, I should be able to see not only from my lantern but yours as well. Pretty frustrating having to keep the party in a tight 6x6 area so they can see each other even though they are all carrying torches
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keithcurtis
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What you are describing as the desired behavior is the way that Roll20 works. Put a token with 60 feet of darkvision 100 feet away from a token emitting light, and they should see everything illuminated by the token. I am not seeing anything in your screen shots that contradicts that. The token on the right here has Night Vision, but no illumination, the token on the left has illumination but no vision. This shot is previewing from the perspective of the token on the right. The Night Vision token sees darkness revealed as dim light. Beyond that is darkness,  except for the area illuminated by the token on the left.
zyplexer said: Sure, it's seeing the token itself...but not the light it's supposedly emitting. Am I wrong in assuming that emit light in Dynamic Lighting is the same as something emitting light in real life? Even when the tokens are in a straight hallway this is a problem. So every token in a party cannot see one another unless they are in a tight nit pack. They do not see each other's emitted light at all. If you and I were walking down a darkened hallway and we each had lanterns that emitted light, I should be able to see not only from my lantern but yours as well. Pretty frustrating having to keep the party in a tight 6x6 area so they can see each other even though they are all carrying torches Light being emitted is transparent by default.  You can change the color of the light being emitted in the settings if you wish (which makes it easier to see), but it can end up making your maps look really messy.  In the below example, the left token is emitting blue light and the right token is emitting magenta light.  This allows you to clearly see where each token's light begins/ends.  Both tokens are set to emit 10 foot bright, 20 foot dim.  The left token can see the right token even though its own blue light doesn't stretch that far because the other token's magenta light allows it to be seen. HTH -Adam
I'm not understanding the issue either. It might be helpful if you (temporarily) reduced the radius of the light to help explain what is happening versus what you expect to happen.  Showing a screenshot of the DL layer and the token setting screens would also be helpful. If you have Dynamic Lighting turned on for a page, and a token has vision enabled, and there is a light source within line of sight to the token, then any controlling player will see whatever is within line of sight on the Objects Layer and Map Layer. There is no 'maximum viewing distance' for a token. If you want all of your players to see from each other's characters, then you need to give control of each the tokens to all of the players. The other thing that Dynamic Lighting doesn't do is any kind of 'reflected' light, as you would see in real life.  A token has to have direct line of sight to an area where light is being emitted.  Normally if you were in a dark hallway, and there was light down a corridor that had two bends in it, you would still see some reflected light, but that isn't simulated in Roll20. Here's my standard Dynamic Lighting Troubleshooting checklist.  Troubleshooting General: ⁠The game creator needs to have a Roll20 Plus or Pro account to use Dynamic Lighting. Make sure you are using Chrome or Firefox. ⁠Make sure you are set to only use either Updated Dynamic Lighting or Legacy Dynamic Lighting, not both. ⁠Do not use the Freehand tool to draw Dynamic Lighting lines. Only use the Polygon tool, and make sure that you don't have any lines that create 'sharp' corners. This is the cause of unexplained/invisible lines about 99% of the time. ⁠You should use a ' Dummy Account ' in order to see changes live/instantaneously when you make them as GM. There are other benefits as well (streaming, testing macros and other tricks, resetting the game URL). ⁠ Ctrl-L does not give you a player's view from a token. It shows you the token's 'Line of Sight' as GM. You will see everything on the GM layer, but players will not see anything on the GM layer from the same token. ⁠ 'Rejoin as player' is difficult because it requires logging back and forth into the game. A Dummy Account is free and can be readily toggled between two browser windows or tabs. ⁠ ⁠A player may control several tokens, and may see more or less than the GM sees when using Ctrl-L or 'Rejoin as player'. Do not use colored or tinted lighting effects. Colored light is currently bugged due to how those lighting effects are rendered. ( Here's a good example of Explorer Mode , which is probably similar to how colored light works.) If you want to have a colored/tinted area, use an  invisible token with a colored aura instead . ⁠Do not use .webm animated tokens. They are currently bugged and often will not work correctly and prevent visibility. ⁠Check random other page settings, such as 'Restrict Movement' ⁠Clear your browser cache. ⁠Clear the game chat archive. My players can't see: ⁠Token and light source need to be on the correct layers. ⁠Token must have vision enabled. ⁠Token must be 'controlled' by the player who is checking vision. ⁠There needs to be a light source. ⁠ Tokens always emit light from the center of the token -- in LDL it comes from a small point in the center of the image, and in UDL it comes from a circle that is some small percentage of the image size -- so if you set the map image as a light source, you'll get some funky behavior. ⁠Ensure that a token's vision is not blocked by Dynamic Lighting lines. ⁠If a player cannot see, move their token. There was a bug with UDL that prevented player vision from 'activating' until after one of their tokens is moved on a page. ⁠Make sure you don't have a Fog of War/Permanent Darkness layer on. ⁠Make sure you don't have Advanced Fog of War/Explorable Darkness blocking vision. ⁠Make sure the view is centered on a token that has vision enabled and a light source. ⁠Make sure you/your players are on the correct page. Double check that they have not been split from the Party ribbon. My players see too much: ⁠Make sure you don't have 'Daylight' turned on for the page. ⁠Walls need to be placed on the 'walls' (lighting) layer. ⁠ ⁠If a token has "line of sight" to an area illuminated by a light source, then they will be able to see that area. The only thing that blocks line of sight are Dynamic Lighting lines (walls). ⁠ ⁠Tokens cannot block light. ⁠ ⁠Fog of War/Permanent Darkness only cover an area, but do not prevent light from passing through. ⁠Explorable Darkness and Advanced Fog of War are saved for each player. So if a player has control of a token, they will see all of their 'explored area' in greyscale. ⁠Look on the 'walls' (dynamic light) layer for any unexpected light sources. They will show up as small rectangles there. ⁠Confirm which tokens the player controls. Try moving all tokens to the GM layer temporarily and moving individual tokens back to the Objects layer one by one. ⁠Page 'Cell Width' settings can have an affect on a token's vision, especially if the 'light multiplier' is set to something other than 100%. Switch the Cell Width to '1' and see what happens. Token vision isn’t correct when pulled out of the journal: ⁠Make sure to set up a token’s vision how you want it to be, and have the very last step be to save it as the default for that character sheet. ⁠Any changes made after saving as the default token will not be saved as the default unless the default token is saved again. This is intentional to allow for temporary changes. ⁠Make sure you do not have any duplicate character sheet names. ⁠Also check the Journal Archive. ⁠After pulling out the token, check which character sheet it is linked to. ⁠A character’s default token can be linked to a different character sheet.
In your second screen shot, the one from the viewpoint of the token with nightvision (lower right) I can [barely] see the radius of bright light around the light-emitting token (upper left). There's not a lot of contrast between bright and dim light in the picture. Remember that the token with nightvision will see any dim light  within their range as bright light. It might be more useful if we could see the two tokens separated by more than the range of the lower-right token's nightvision, like the screen shot that @kiethcurtis posted. zyplexer said: This is what the token that uses nightvision sees. As you can see, the token cannot see any of the light the other token is emitting.
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keithcurtis
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Since we are throwing in diagnostic tools, the Mod script Dynamic Lighting Tool has a diagnostic button called "Why can't this token see?" That systematically tests for a lot of common problems and provides solutions, often with clickable buttons.
It seems something was amiss with the nightvision token. I don't know if something odd happened during conversion...that was the one token that has been on the map the entire time... pre and post lighting conversion. I noticed something was off when I tried to change it from night vision to emitting light and it didn't change even though the settings had. I removed the token and re-added it... seems to be working just fine now.
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keithcurtis
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I'm glad it's sorted. :)
LOL! When in all else fails, reboot. :D zyplexer said: It seems something was amiss with the nightvision token. I don't know if something odd happened during conversion...that was the one token that has been on the map the entire time... pre and post lighting conversion. I noticed something was off when I tried to change it from night vision to emitting light and it didn't change even though the settings had. I removed the token and re-added it... seems to be working just fine now.