Some players can see through dynamic lighting

Hello, This has happened twice in my campaign once on each of our last two sessions. I think it is kind of random and don't really know what triggers it. But twice, one of my players suddenly told me that they can see the entire map, through dynamic lighting, as if they had DM rights or if there was no dynamic lighting in place. I did not expect it so did not ask them further questions, like if they could see something on the DM layer, to get more details. Refreshing the browser just fixed it both times. I should mention that each time it was a different player and as I said we can't really place a reason triggering it. If it happens again I will try to gather more information and post it, but for now I just wanted to point it out, maybe other people have encountered it or it is a known issue. Many thanks, Nick

I've frequently seen the issue where, when scrolling the map, the DL layer takes a half-second or so to catch up with the rest of the map, temporarily revealing ostensibly hidden features. I've also had occasions where one player did not see features on the map that everyone else did, which was also resolved by refreshing the page. However, a total lack of DL is new to me. Just chiming in with what little info I have. No idea what might cause that. -Phnord

It's happened for a couple of my players on a couple of occasions, tends to be the ones with the worst internet connection and refreshing usually fixes it. Seems to me that when i first move them to a map those whose connections are weak at best don't load the DL quickly enough (kinda like Phnord's reported lag on updating) meaning they can see ALL of the map layer, don't worry they have never reported seeing the GM layer so i could still drop that large monstrous spider on them without issue. As long as your players are honest players you'll be fine, the occasional refresh will be annoying but not much of a delay in play :)

Slow DL loading is where Fog of War becomes helpful, I think. Cover the whole map with it, with the exception of the 'landing area' where the characters start off, do a little mood setting with some prose/description/whatever, and then remove fog of war from the whole map (because that's quicker and easier than removing it bit by bit as they explore), and you'll have preserved the lighting for those with the slower connections. Total lack of DL is new to me too. I'm eager to hear what causes it so I can avoid it with my group! ^_^

I'm curious if this is happening if "Only update on Drop" is being used?

Nikolas, next time it happens can you have your affected player provide his console log?

Many thanks for your replies. Yes next time I will get the player to provide their console log. Slow internet connections causing this makes sense, as the affected player each time had a "bad internet day" and his connection was unstable. Thank you for the tip about using fog of war on top of DL, I hadn't really considered it but makes complete sense. Also, because it was mentioned "Only update on Drop" is indeed being used. Thanks again everyone.

One of my members also had this problem recently, but noticed that WebGL crashed. Reloading the page resolved the problem. I guess if WebGL was disabled as well that this problem would be apparent all the time.

I've had this happen to me a few times. My internet at home is at times quite sketchy. =/

I've had players mention being able to see everything by zooming in and out quickly.

Aaron? Your internet, sketchy? I decry the insanity of that statement, it simply cannot be true!

Sean G. said: Aaron? Your internet, sketchy? I decry the insanity of that statement, it simply cannot be true! It's to throw us off the scent... since Aaron exists outside of the matrix and can control it at will...

Just had more reports of this last night and the player didn't do anything unusual. He could see the entire map during two different times. Refreshing hid it again for him. This really puts a damper on using this feature, honestly.

If you are wanting to be sure of coverage in the meantime try putting FoW on too for each map, uncover the start area and a little bit beyond that too. Once players are on the page make sure that they can only see their light radius and not through walls and then remove FoW. It does rely on the players being honest but they are only screwing themselves over if they claim not to see the map when they can and you'll soon know since 1 player will be reluctant to enter the room full of Demons that everyone else is set to charge into lol. Kind of a hack/workaround which i agree, shouldn't be necessary. But short of getting your players to ensure they have decent bandwidth connections there isn't a lot that can be done... although it might be an idea if the devs could think of a way of forcing pages to load DL before map layer so that slow connections get the dark before the light?

This has happened on occasion, with me as a player, during an Iron Gods campaign I am apart of. It did not reveal stuff on the GM layer, though for me it was more like the map was blinking. WebGL was usually crashing when it did happen as well. I wasn't the only player in the campaign that had this happen, though the other player's reveals were all the vision blocking layers rather than the blinking I got. If it happens again I'll see if I can pass along some console logs.

Yeah, I'll have to resort to using FoW in addition to dynamic lighting. Unfortunately, this goes against my "if it slows down game play it doesn't belong" mantra.

I use a FOW to hid things even though dynamic lighting is supposed to take care of it. I have one user who consistently sees the entire screen. And he is on a very slow and unstable internet connection so perhaps something is being lost between the server and the web browser. I'm just glad he is honest about it and tells me.

Erich S. said: And he is on a very slow and unstable internet connection... That is basically it... from my 'research' i've found that low bandwidth users can be slow to load the DL layer and therefore have the entire map visible (but not GM layer obviously) open to them until either their internet catches up or they refresh allowing their cache to take care of the initial build and their bandwidth to pull through the DL. My hope is that some kind Dev has read this thread and may look into a way of telling the to send DL information first and then the map layer... that way the worst one could hope for is that a player would just have a black screen at the start and refreshing would then give them the map too... ...or at least thats how i hope it would work ;)

Zeichael, Devs always read the forums and especially the bug forum. If you feel up to it, skim the suggestion forum to see if there is a post that is similar to what you want and add your suggestion to it along with a vote or make a suggestion post if there is not one.

I know they are always lurking in between furious coding sessions etc... its one of the things i love most about roll20, nothing pleases me more than seeing the brightly coloured text of a visiting dev in a thread :) Perhaps i should take a look at the suggestions, i just wasn't sure what i 'think' to be the problem could actually be overcome at the server end... but you are right as always my guardian mod, it never hurts to ask!

I think I spotted a suggestion down there about the layer reordering which is what you kinda want. You seem to be suggesting the reorder of the layer loading aka what loads first then second, etc...

I've just looked through several pages and found lots of interesting things but not that one, could you drop me a link to have a look... it sounds about right... the only thing stopping me suggesting/searching for a suggestion thus far is a lack of knowledge about whether or not they can influence the way in which the layers are sent out or if it is managed at the receiving end and can they affect that? *wishes he knew more stuff!* ps. Thanks Pat :)

I will pm it to you if I find it again. We took the op's thread for a long enough joy ride.

All on topic at least and could ultimately lead to a resolution to the problem too :) If it is a potential solution i hope you won't mind me pasting a link here though, as the more visibility it gets under this threads header the more votes i believe it will accumulate.