Show portraits instead of zoomed tokens using the "Shift+Z" shortcut

Current state GMs have the ability to click on any object on the map (token, map assets) and by pressing Shift+Z zoom that object to have the players see it better. [this has been included thanks to this suggestion ] The GM clicks on the Carrion Crawler token and then presses Shift+Z Suggestion If the object zoomed is a token that is connected to a Character in the Journal (even if not visible to players), Shift+Z should show the Character portrait (a.k.a. avatar) instead of showing the zoomed token. The Carrion Crawler token is connected to a Character entry in the Journal that has an Avatar image set (note that the Character is not in any Player's Journal) If the GM selects the Carrion Crawler token and presses Shift+Z the Avatar is showed instead of the zoomed token Motivation The token is often a limited view of a character. This is true both when using chip-like tokens (like I do) or top-down tokens (like these ). The former usually show just a portion of the character (for example only the face, as in the case of the Carrion Crawler above), while the latter are usually taken from a premade set and do not often fit to the desired looking of a specific character: I want my players to imagine Gokst'gr, the orc king shaman like this , but the closest token I found was this ... I think you can see the difference in showing one or the other to the players

I understand what you're saying, and a clever part of your Suggestion that I'd support is where you said this would only pop the Avatar if the token is connected to a character sheet that has an avatar. That way GM's could still pop up the Token if it's a token/object/pic unassociated to a character sheet. However, of course, you can already do what you want to accomplish (popping the Portrait using Shift+Z), with a slightly different approach. Here is a tip for a way to accomplish it. Any picture on the Token layer can be popped with Shift+Z as it stands now. It isn't limited to tokens , it works for any kind of picture/object on the tabletop. In other words you can already show the Orc Shaman pic that you want, using Shift+Z. It just won't occur by clicking the Orc Token, but rather by placing the Orc Portrait somewhere on your screen and Shift+Z'ing that. Naturally you'll still put the Token version on the "map" where the Orc Shaman is standing (for position, flanking, tactical token), and put a small version of his Portrait on the token layer somewhere off to the side (either place it in the room he's in, or place the portrait off to the side, in the margins of your map). You can reduce the portrait down to a quite-small thumbnail so it doesn't take up much room on your margins. When you want to pop the portrait, just click the portrait and Shift+Z. I do this frequently in my games. Every monster, NPC, or encounter. For that purpose I maintain a large margin at the side or bottom of every map, and fill that margin with the portraits that you might want to pop with Shift+Z during the game.

Thank you for your suggestion, it is a clever workaround and I'm going to start using it immediatly. However I still think this feature might be interesting to implement since it avoids the overhead of the "portrait token" that you have to remember to place and to find in the map border. I usually build a bestiary with all the monster and NPC my players might encounter a few weeks ahead and their appearance in a certain spot might be something I decide at runtime, so the "portrait token" placing as well is going to be done at runtime... which is a little annoing, altough totally doable. As a note: at the moment if you open a Character from the Journal and drag its avatar on the map it generates a token of the avatar. So this make things a little easier, but still I would rather see this implemented.

Good points and nicely described, Hakan. Now, just to make sure, you also know about the Show To Players button, of course? That is on Journals. It shows actually the Avatar pic, and also the window that can have free-text (the "Bio"). Since it shows the bio-window, it's a little more than the Shift+Z to pop up the picture-only. Also this has more of a window effect, rather than the darkened lightbox effect of the centered & full size image that Shift+Z provides. Show To Players Wiki documentation, <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Journal#Character_Options" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Journal#Character_Options</a> As before, this is less quick-and-convenient compared to your Suggestion, so it's not a replacement for your Suggestion. Just another way of doing something similar, but with perhaps a few more clicks and a different appearance effect.

Thank you Gold for this other suggestion, I know I can do that as well. The thing is that usually I don't want to reveal to my players the name of the monster/NPC nor any bio or infos about it. Maybe the name of someone is a clue for their quest I don't want them to have yet, or the name of a monster, since they are veteran players, can immediatly hint them in the right direction to kill it. The tipical scenario, for me, plays like this: I describe to them the general looking of a monster/NPC they face without revealing anything about the name or the specie of the creature (it's not like their PCs can know every creature on the planet) and in that moment I'd like to show them the portrait. After some time spent in doing knowledge checks, combat or diplomacy I might give them access to the Character entry in the journal, as their PCs know some lore about that particolar creature/NPC. I guess this is not the way everyone plays an encounter out, but I think many GMs do the same as I do. Therefore, I'm still into thinking that my suggestion can be useful :)

Alright, that's awkward, but how do I drag images from my Journal to the map so that I can use this trick?

I don't believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that you can drag anything directly from the journal, rather, you would have a the portrait in your art library, drag it from there on to the map, then when you wanted to pop it up similar to the way @Gold described, you just highlight the image and press shift-Z. I'm curious if the image still pops up for the players if it's set to the GM layer...

Calion said: Alright, that's awkward, but how do I drag images from my Journal to the map so that I can use this trick? Open a character entry from the journal, then drag the "avatar" to anywhere on the map. It should create a token with the avatar art.&nbsp;

I would like any image to be sharable like the Shift + Z method. There's a lot of content that you get from purchased modules that we don't have direct access to the image for. For example, the Monster Manual Compendium entries often have the full size image. Today, you have to copy the image, then import it into your library, then place it on the tabletop to share it in this way. This method is quite cumbersome. I would really like to add my vote for this, but I am out of them at the moment. I'll subscribe to this thread and if I get any back, it will go here.

Jeremy said: Monster Manual Compendium entries often have the full size image. Today, you have to copy the image, then import it into your library, then place it on the tabletop to share it in this way. This method is quite cumbersome. I would really like to add my vote for this, but I am out of them at the moment. I'll subscribe to this thread and if I get any back, it will go here. I don't have the monster manual to test it myself, but doesn't this work? Hakan said: Open a character entry from the journal, then drag the "avatar" to anywhere on the map. It should create a token with the avatar art.&nbsp;

You can't drag the avatar off from a character sheet, only the token.

Jeremy said: You can't drag the avatar off from a character sheet, only the token. You should be able to, by opening the character bio and dragging the avatar onto the map. I'm able to do it.

I believe this will only work if character sheets are not popped out into their own browser window.

Yes I also believe that to be the case.