Community Forums: Sketching suggestions | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

1336787822

KS Backer

Our players were using a lot of the drawing features to mark up spells/etc. They generally had problems that their drawings made it hard to select their tokens. Furthermore, when using it for writing/etc, you get a lot of little fragments of lines (using the freehand). So I'd suggest: - Players have access to the Text tool (I'm not sure why they don't, but my players say they don't have it) - Players have a special layer for their markup so it doesn't interfere with tokens. - One player suggested a Google Earth-like pin feature, where you can place down a pin and associate a note with it, so that the text doesn't sprawl across the map but the info is still there.

1336829997

Ken Bauer

KS Backer

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Ooh, I like the pin idea. Click on it, and a little fly out bubble wit the text pops out.

1336939673

Broda

KS Backer

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This could be merged with my notecard idea I posted the first couple days. I wanted a popup/flyout notecard available from tokens. Just a simple, multi-line textbox. It could have an icon on the radial menu that will actually open it like the markers are handled now. You could just use a token with whatever graphic you wanted with this scheme.

1336966019

Mr G

KS Backer

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Oooh, I like these suggestions. iTTv1 (not the current version) had a "Post-It" function that was very cool and very handy. You could slap a post-it note of any size on top of, well, anything. A map, a graphic handout, a PDF, a web page (you could embed webpages as a page in your game under v1).

1337023462

Daryl P.

KS Backer

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This thread is probably my top priority of those changes not yet implemented.

1337028543

Nicholas G.

KS Backer

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Another suggestion was that when doing freehand drawing, you could automatically associate multiple strokes until you changed tools, so they became a single object that could be moved a round/deleted/etc as a whole. So if someone sketches 'A' its one thing, rather than 3 strokes.

1337174920

WI Gaming Group

KS Backer

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A dedicated layer for players text and free hand drawings would definitely be useful to keeping things organized on screen and between GM and players.

1337180722

Riley D.

Roll20 Team

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A dedicated layer for players text and free hand drawings would definitely be useful to keeping things organized on screen and between GM and players. I've been thinking about doing it this way. But the problem I keep coming to is: where would this layer be? Is it above the tokens layer, under the GM Layer? On top of all the layers? In addition, if we move the drawings to their own layer, that takes out the ability of the GM to draw on the GM Layer so that only they can see it. Or we'd have to add two more layers and now you'd have to have another menu to choose from so you can choose what layer you're drawing on. The nice thing about the current way of doing it is that you can choose to draw on any of the 3 layers. So if you want to draw on the tokens layer, go ahead. Draw on the map layer? Fine. Only want the GM to see it? Draw on the GM Layer. Of course players only have access to the tokens layer so their drawings are all going there. It also allows you to use the move to front/send to back functions to position your drawings on top of or below other objects on the same layer as needed. If the issue is really one of "I keep selecting my drawings instead of my tokens", then maybe the answer is to just have some sort of way to only select drawings when you actually mean to, like you have to choose a special "drawing selection" tool instead of the main selection tool?

1337180829

Riley D.

Roll20 Team

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In addition to the above, the same question applies to the board "sticky notes/Post-It notes" that I'm thinking of doing. They sound great in theory, but I assume most people don't want to clutter up their board and start selecting them by default...so where do I put them? Now we need a "board sticky notes" layer, too?

1337181208

Ken Bauer

KS Backer

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I never really considered that. I like to be able to draw in the GM layer, so I can outline traps, trigger areas etc. I'd vote for keeping it on the three layers, like it is now. The drawing selection tool seems like the best option to avoid accidentally selecting any artwork/post-its that may be on the board.

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Nicholas G.

KS Backer

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I'd say make a single additional layer for player notes of all sorts. This is below the GM layer and above the token layer. No special mechanics for it, other than perhaps the ability for its visibility to be toggled individually per-user (to avoid graffiti annoyance). But thats not really necessarily honestly, since the point of it is organizational. Then allow the postit notes to be placed on any layer, just like all the other graphic objects. They're just another sort of drawing 'primitive'.

1337190079

WI Gaming Group

KS Backer

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Perhaps what we need is a "function" to lock-down tokens temporarily so the only thing that can be selected, moved, edited is the freehand drawings...unless of course the drawings count as tokens in which case this wouldnt work lol

1337192211

Deightine

KS Backer

Sheet Author

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In addition to the above, the same question applies to the board "sticky notes/Post-It notes" that I'm thinking of doing. They sound great in theory, but I assume most people don't want to clutter up their board and start selecting them by default...so where do I put them? Now we need a "board sticky notes" layer, too? What about shifting the paradigm somewhat? Make layers view-toggleable (taking a lesson from layer-based photo manipulation software like PhotoShop or Gimp) for when people want to look under or around particular ones, but make the FoW the very topmost layer of the whiteboard, with only Handouts, Characters, and the TokBox API above it. Then, you could insert any number of layers you wish to add for whatever reason, between the Tokens layer and the GM layer. So, for a visual.    Map Layer    Tokens Layer    GM's Layer    Fog of War Layer    TokBox API    Handouts/Characters/etc. Then, make Maps, Tokens, and the Modular layers all view-toggleable for players, but give the GM a toggle selector for everything but the TokBox API and Handouts/etc. Mind you, that's just how I'd do it. Without looking at the working bits, it's an educated guess.

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Ezra

KS Backer

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At one point Riley mentioned that adding layers is a performance issue. So we may need to be somewhat conservative about how many layers we ask the system/browser to render.

1337192592

WI Gaming Group

KS Backer

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Yeah i think the issue here is adding more layers means, performance hit...

1337193831

Nicholas G.

KS Backer

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In some sense, the point of having the player-draw layer is so that things can be toggled/avoided when clicking/etc. It might not actually be necessary for it to be a 'true' layer in the underlying engine, so much as a flag that determines how that graphic object is interacted with. I mean, the basic problems are: - When players sketch on the token layer it interferes with selection/movement of tokens - Players may end up placing visual graffiti when bored that is distracting/annoying, so toggling visibility is desired. Player sketches don't really need to be rendered differently than other things, made translucent, etc. So if performance is a big issue here, you could have something that appears as a 'layer' in the GUI but inside the rendering engine isn't actually a separate layer.

1340636521

LM

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Here's a re-attack for this topic. I haven't had a problem with selecting things since selection is done by either drawing or token. (Well, except when I forget to make it the right one...) Having text on the screen is still a visibility issue for me, though. I tried adding my GM notes onto the map, and I quickly realized that screen real estate is prime. Right now I use number and letters to identify items of interest on the GM layer, and I have the list in a document. The ability to add a pin instead of just text would save me a lot of alt+tabbing (or printing) in the long run, even if I had to switch to the GM layer to view things. Of course, if I could pin things on the GM layer and view them (GM only) on any layer, that would be better. A parallel option would be to add pins to the background layer so that players can reference notes that they have found. [Edit: Or, have a flag that identifies visibility. That could be a handy way to give a clue to a single player, too.]

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