Advanced Fog of War Feedback Thread 2.0

Godsbane said:

Can we please (if this is going to take more than four months now to fix) have a rollback to before the "dark times" of the animations update?

We could call it "Roll20 Classic" or something. Would it be possible to have it running on a different server, like the Dev servers are separate. Where we could migrate a game back to Classic, until such time as this enjoyment destroying issue is resolved? I took mapping for my games very seriously. I made sure that mood and well timed reveals of secrets was part of the fun of my games.

This current version of Roll20 is hardly worth paying for. Please, just give me what you provided, what we loved, last year - until you truly have something new that works. I for one would be happier playing on a Classic server and never getting another update for years, rather than lose the functionality I've come to rely on as a Pro subscriber for (four? Five?) years.

That's an interesting idea, but I doubt we'll ever get something like that since they don't have the files to do a rollback.

Update on Ooze Grotto, light layer and AFoW. Even with a redrawn light layer, we had to abandon AFoW and go to FoW to have a smooth game. Looking at my own PC while AFoW was on, I saw GPU at 4-6% and CPU at 30-40%, in the browser process alone. Which suggests that AFoW is still heavily CPU-bound.

Moving most of that work onto the GPU, maybe by way of WebAssembly, would make a world of difference. And that’s my feature request: Look into shifting AFoW from being mostly CPU to mostly GPU, on supported systems. Maybe it’s a client-side toggle for folk who play on aging Intel GPUs that couldn’t do AFoW if they tried.

Thorsten said:

Update on Ooze Grotto, light layer and AFoW. Even with a redrawn light layer, we had to abandon AFoW and go to FoW to have a smooth game. Looking at my own PC while AFoW was on, I saw GPU at 4-6% and CPU at 30-40%, in the browser process alone. Which suggests that AFoW is still heavily CPU-bound.

Moving most of that work onto the GPU, maybe by way of WebAssembly, would make a world of difference. And that’s my feature request: Look into shifting AFoW from being mostly CPU to mostly GPU, on supported systems. Maybe it’s a client-side toggle for folk who play on aging Intel GPUs that couldn’t do AFoW if they tried.

Hmmm, when I run a map with 100 light emitting objects and a bunch of obstacles, My CPU is <10% and my GPU hits 80-90% while I move something around. In other words, I am getting GPU acceleration. It sounds like GPU acceleration is off for you.

@Brian C. - and GPU is off for everyone in the game? Light is fine, it's AFoW that's causing issues specifically. If you're game for spending 5-10 minutes to help corroborate, I can invite you into a reference copy of Dead in Thay and we can see how AFoW handles on your device - CPU or GPU bound?

My own PC is old, there's a 3rd gen i5 and an NVidia GTX 1080 in here. The rest of the players have a mix, but mostly even less powerful systems. Some got browser warnings about their tab having stopped responding, even with the redrawn light layer - until we moved to FoW and then everything was fine.

The light in Ooze Grottos is simple: Global Illumination.It's AFoW combined with the size and shape of the map that appears to be the issue.

"Accelerated 2D canvas" is enabled in my browser. https://get.webgl.org/ shows me a spinning cube. Everything seems to be set up right.

Thorsten said:

@Brian C. - and GPU is off for everyone in the game? Light is fine, it's AFoW that's causing issues specifically. If you're game for spending 5-10 minutes to help corroborate, I can invite you into a reference copy of Dead in Thay and we can see how AFoW handles on your device - CPU or GPU bound?

My own PC is old, there's a 3rd gen i5 and an NVidia GTX 1080 in here. The rest of the players have a mix, but mostly even less powerful systems. Some got browser warnings about their tab having stopped responding, even with the redrawn light layer - until we moved to FoW and then everything was fine.

The light in Ooze Grottos is simple: Global Illumination.It's AFoW combined with the size and shape of the map that appears to be the issue.

"Accelerated 2D canvas" is enabled in my browser. https://get.webgl.org/ shows me a spinning cube. Everything seems to be set up right.

I don't really have the time at the moment, but thanks for the offer. If some time opens up, I will send you a message. :)

I double-checked my test rig with AFoW, and I still had it spike GPU a lot more than CPU on a Surface Pro 4 i7. I will send you a PM.

Fingers crossed on today's update!

Is this a joke? It has gone 13 weeks since the Update that broke so many features (29 of January) and you are just telling me that tomorrow you just going to tell me that I have to wait for some x time until things get fixed? 19 Issues still lingering and no fix in sight. I have tried to keep my anger in check but this is just a joke. I have been a pro member for years and have period that I have paid even if I use sparely the site. But at least I knew that when I get back I could just use it. Instead in the last 13 weeks. 13 WEEKS! I have to tell my players to bare with me, because roll20 is still broken. At the same time you have us as hostages, since we have put alot of time and energy. What is the compensation? You are getting paid at full and this is not working in many cases. Week after week, the same fucking lame excuse that you are sorry, that you will fix stuff soon, that you listen to us. But this is just Bullshit. How can it go 13 Weeks and the thing still broken. I didn't ask for the damn gifs, Everything was working and you just went in and broke it for fucking greed. You keep updating and selling stuff in the marketplace and the platform still broken, and after waiting 13 weeks, you are just going to update to me tomorrow that you are working on it? Can you please be honest and answer then? Do you even value me as a customer or I am just a fucking money bag that because is invested in the platform you can milk?

Can I get answers to this simple questions?

-Can you guys do a rollback to when the page was working and the features that you promote as part of my subscription are working?

-Can you give me a date when the platform would be working as intended?

-What steps are you taking so this shitshow dont happen again?

-How are you going to compensate me as a customer for the long waiting and for the time lost with the things broken?

I dont understand why the fucking GREED of selling us more shit goes as a priority, I dont care of fucking gifs, I didnt need it. But I do need the Ctrl-L Working, I need the AFoW working, I need the auras working again.

This is just unacceptable. Zero fucking customers service. I dont want to write a mail to team roll20 asking how you going to compensate me as an individual, when alot of people are having the same problem. Stop being so fucking Greedy and fix the god damn site. PLZ PLZ PLZ!

Okay, so I don't think the Release Notes for today are completely accurate.

• Advanced Fog of War bug fixes:

• VTT now refreshes properly after switching Dynamic Lighting off

• Dynamic Lighting now reveals Advanced Fog of War

• Turning off Dynamic Lighting clears the canvas

Emphasis added.

In the following picture, the left side is the GM view with DL lines shown. The page settings and player token settings are displayed. The light source is on the token layer so the player can see it, and it sheds bright light 10 feet and dim light another 10 feet after that. The right side is the "Rejoin as player" view.

The player token can now see all the way up to the dynamic lighting lines. That is an improvement. If that is what the release note was referring to, then it needs to be reworded. When the player moves the token up and to the right around the bend, they can no longer see the light.

You can just see the last bit of dynamic lighting that the player token can see around the bend, but the fog of war has only cleared for squares the token has directly passed over. None of the squares the token could see with dynamic lighting have been revealed.

Hey folks!

As promised, we have a progress update for you! We pushed out our weekly code release yesterday with two major Advanced Fog of War bug fixes: the VTT now refreshes properly after switching Dynamic Lighting off and Dynamic Lighting once again takes precedence over Advanced Fog of War.

Why those two fixes? We are maintaining a list of all the bug reports we’ve received from our users and sorting them by frequency. From there, we identified those two issues as being at the root of multiple bugs. For example, due to Advanced Fog of War overriding Dynamic Lighting, players were not able to see Dynamic Lighting sources at a distance, they were unable to see some partially concealed cells, and more. This one change should fix multiple issues as we keep moving through the list to address issues such as the ones mentioned in this thread.

We are continuing to compile and test all bug reports to figure out causes, prioritized by severity and number of users affected. As always, please report further issues here so we can be as thorough as possible on these fixes.

Thank you all so much. We will share another progress update in this thread on May 8!

@Cavni, Brian C. just tested Dead in Thay Ooze Grottos (improved light layer) with me after this fix, and the issue with extreme sluggishness of moving tokens is confirmed, CPU-bound not GPU-bound. It might be this requires a fix to the size of the Ooze Grottos map, in addition to the light layer fix, or it might be this map exposes an area of improvement for AFoW.

It's a little odd this is CPU-bound, not GPU-bound. Can you add that to the list, please? I'm happy to share the redone map with the roll20 team, in any way that works for you, including transmogrifying it into a campaign, or making someone DM in the test/reference campaign I'm using.

Still not fixing the aura mess. Well, at least this update will somehow fix some minor stuff, that's cool. Guess we'll just have to wait more I suppose.

Thorsten said:

@Cavni, Brian C. just tested Dead in Thay Ooze Grottos (improved light layer) with me after this fix, and the issue with extreme sluggishness of moving tokens is confirmed, CPU-bound not GPU-bound. It might be this requires a fix to the size of the Ooze Grottos map, in addition to the light layer fix, or it might be this map exposes an area of improvement for AFoW.

It's a little odd this is CPU-bound, not GPU-bound. Can you add that to the list, please? I'm happy to share the redone map with the roll20 team, in any way that works for you, including transmogrifying it into a campaign, or making someone DM in the test/reference campaign I'm using.

Moving a token around in that game was unlike anything I had experienced before. It took several seconds when dragging a token for it to even start moving, and the movement stuttered, for lack of a better word. Where my page (described below) would see CPU increase to 90% and GPU to 100%, in this game the CPU was maxing out and the GPU stayed under 5%. As far as I understood (and Thorsten can correct me), the settings were:

My token: Has Sight only.

The page: AFoW, DL with enforce LoS, restrict movement, and global illumination

I took that knowledge back to my test page that has 100 light-emitting tokens controlled by the player and rejoined it as a player. This page has the following settings:

Tokens: Has sight, Emits 20/20 light

Page: size 100x100, has a few DL boxes on the map, has 100 of the player tokens spread around the map.

This setup yields CPU 90% and GPU 100% when the player moves one of the tokens. So I had an idea. The main difference between my map and Thorsten's (aside from a lot more DL lines) was that global illumination was on. I switched global illumination on for the page and it instantly locked the page for both the player and GM browser tabs. When reloading the page, it took minutes to get back in. The page showed the same behavior as in Thorsten's game: very slow for a token to start moving and stuttering movement. I had to go into another page as the GM and turn global illumination back off for that page to get the page working again.

I then tried this with a simpler 32x20 page with the same settings and only 1 light-emitting player token. CPU/GPU was 70%/80% with global illumination off and 70%/40% with global illumination on. It seemed strange that GPU utilization would go down when I could see more of the cavern map with global illumination on. I set the AFoW view distance on the token to 20 feet to match the token's light. As soon as I did that, the CPU/GPU utilization matched whether global illumination was on or off.

My theory is that a workaround introduced in March is the culprit. Normally, a token with vision but no AFoW view distance has the view distance silently set to 0. To make at least some maps work with AFoW and DL, a behavior was introduced that those tokens would instead have the blank view distance interpreted as infinite (or very long) when global illumination is on. It seems like having the AFoW algorithm search the entire map is having the Ooze Grotto's page grind to a halt.

Confirmed that Global Illu + AFoW is the culprit here. When I switched off Global Illu in Ooze Grottos and dropped some torch tokens onto the light layer, the issue resolved and moving tokens was buttery smooth.

Thank you for reverting the Dynamic Lighting/Advanced Fog of War interaction.  It mostly works now, and my game maps are playable again.  There is still an aesthetic issue with it, which I can describe in the following screenshots:

Map settings are as such:

The Dynamic Lighting set up by the GM for this cave is as such:

The initial player view (GM rejoined as player in control of the player token) is as follows.  The player can see other light sources in the world, and they reveal the Advanced Fog of War for them [this is the main fix and now behaves as we expect].  Based on the dynamic lighting, the player can see the light-barriers the GM has placed.

In this case, they can see a few feet into the cave because the "sunlight" is lighting up the outdoors area.

When the player goes beyond a wall which blocks light while their token is also acting as a light source, they are able to see roughly as expected.  However, rather than revealing a circular radius around the token, they actually reveal a square of the same radius.  You can see in the below image that the player reveals a 40-ft. square (20ft. radius Bright Light is set on their token), while the other token to their left, the "campfire", is visible as a circle, as expected.

Also, the player can still see a foggy version of the "outside" area thanks to the "sunlight" object revealing it for them.

Finally, if the player leaves the area, they can see what their own token uncovered.  Monsters are hidden again as expected.  The other lights (the campfire) are also hidden.  I am not sure if hiding other visible lights is intended - it seems unexpected.

The main issue here is that the Advanced Fog of War reveals in squares.  Currently, it's playable, just ugly.  Thank you for making it playable again!  Hopefully a fix for the aesthetic part can come soon.

If I am correct AFOW has always revealed in squares, not ideal, but at least we are back to where we started.

Bekradan said:

If I am correct AFOW has always revealed in squares, not ideal, but at least we are back to where we started.

Maybe I've never noticed because I usually DM?  Lol.  If you're correct, then I suppose that's good - agreed that being back to where we started is a great step.  :)

Yeah the way to view distance on AFoW works is not great. This explains why players in Dead in Thay commented that they could see the entire map, and was that really intended?

Additional snag: All NPC tokens in Dead in Thay have sight, and no AFoW view distance. Our best bet is not to use AFoW, or to drop light tokens onto the light layer and not use Global Illumination.

A return to "AFoW clears up to the token's sight" would be much appreciated.

Definitely agree that we need to return to AFOW clearing up the token's sight within the DL of the token. That is the normal behavior I expect from any fog of war mechanic. 

Brian C. said:

Unfortunately, we are not quite back to where we were previous to the Jan 29 rewrite.

Previously, AFoW cleared the fog of war based on what a player token could see with DL that was inside the token's AFoW View Distance. In your scenario above, if your player token had a nominal view distance of 60 feet, then the fog of war would be cleared for the cavern chamber. After leaving the cavern, the player would still be able to see the desaturated map, but all tokens (such as the monster) would no longer be visible.

With the rewrite, the token's AFoW view distance clears the fog of war all the way up to the view distance regardless of whether that area is illuminated or not. So your character with a 60-foot view distance would have the map revealed for the cavern even if the campfire was not there. They would not be able to see the monster without the campfire, but they would see the entire layout of the map. And there's the rub with the current state of things: if you use the AFoW view distance on a player token, the player has the entire map up to the view distance revealed even if they cannot see things (i.e. all or part of that area is in the dark), but leaving it blank means that the DL vision works correctly, but fog of war is not revealed outside of light the token generates itself.

I see what you are talking about -- I think I've never actually used the AFoW View Distance option in my games.  Usually I leave it blank - I assume any well-lit distance is short enough that they'd see the full range with no issue, or if it is dark, they simply have the range of their personal light source/darkvision, which I use the "Emits Light" fields for.

I just tried switching things around so I am using AFoW View Distance instead of Emits Light, and I was able to confirm what you describe.

Danny C. said:

Is this a joke? It has gone 13 weeks since the Update that broke so many features (29 of January) and you are just telling me that tomorrow you just going to tell me that I have to wait for some x time until things get fixed? 19 Issues still lingering and no fix in sight. I have tried to keep my anger in check but this is just a joke. I have been a pro member for years and have period that I have paid even if I use sparely the site. But at least I knew that when I get back I could just use it. Instead in the last 13 weeks. 13 WEEKS! I have to tell my players to bare with me, because roll20 is still broken. At the same time you have us as hostages, since we have put alot of time and energy. What is the compensation? You are getting paid at full and this is not working in many cases. Week after week, the same fucking lame excuse that you are sorry, that you will fix stuff soon, that you listen to us. But this is just Bullshit. How can it go 13 Weeks and the thing still broken. I didn't ask for the damn gifs, Everything was working and you just went in and broke it for fucking greed. You keep updating and selling stuff in the marketplace and the platform still broken, and after waiting 13 weeks, you are just going to update to me tomorrow that you are working on it? Can you please be honest and answer then? Do you even value me as a customer or I am just a fucking money bag that because is invested in the platform you can milk?

Can I get answers to this simple questions?

-Can you guys do a rollback to when the page was working and the features that you promote as part of my subscription are working?

-Can you give me a date when the platform would be working as intended?

-What steps are you taking so this shitshow dont happen again?

-How are you going to compensate me as a customer for the long waiting and for the time lost with the things broken?

I dont understand why the fucking GREED of selling us more shit goes as a priority, I dont care of fucking gifs, I didnt need it. But I do need the Ctrl-L Working, I need the AFoW working, I need the auras working again.

This is just unacceptable. Zero fucking customers service. I dont want to write a mail to team roll20 asking how you going to compensate me as an individual, when alot of people are having the same problem. Stop being so fucking Greedy and fix the god damn site. PLZ PLZ PLZ!

Hey Danny, 

I was in your boat a week ago. I felt angry and confused and like I should be getting what I paid for, especially with regard to what I've been using for years. I've been a member since 2013, and Pro since 2016, and specifically bought pro to work with dynamic lighting and create maps which heavily focus on what tokens can see. I feel your pain, my man, trust me. 

That said, I encourage you to email Team@roll20.net, and ask them about a refund on the months that the system has been broken. They are very friendly over there and completely understand the feelings you have on paying for a broken service. They refunded me 3 months, and the team is taking this very seriously. I don't think anyone expected their refactor to cause as many problems as it has. But they've showed me and others here, they are taking responsibility for this mess, making sure to talk to the community about their progress, and delivering so far on promised deadlines. There's not much more you can expect out of a company after they mess up so badly, and the fact that roll20 is doing all this speaks volumes of their respect for their patrons. 

Fayne said:
That said, I encourage you to email Team@roll20.net, and ask them about a refund on the months that the system has been broken. They are very friendly over there and completely understand the feelings you have on paying for a broken service. They refunded me 3 months, and the team is taking this very seriously. I don't think anyone expected their refactor to cause as many problems as it has. But they've showed me and others here, they are taking responsibility for this mess, making sure to talk to the community about their progress, and delivering so far on promised deadlines. There's not much more you can expect out of a company after they mess up so badly, and the fact that roll20 is doing all this speaks volumes of their respect for their patrons.

You shouldn't have to email support and go through that process to get money back for a broken product, roll20 should be offering a rebate for the past several months across the board for everyone who is paying for their (again, broken) product.

Thanks for the continued reports, folks - I'm reading through and adding them to our list as we prioritize the next set of changes! I'm glad to hear that the most recent release has made things work better for some of you. For those who are still waiting: I see a few issues that are already on our radar (e.g. the rendering issue brought up by Serbaayuu), though it's still helpful to report them if you haven't before so that I can update our tracking on how many people are affected.

Thorsten, it seems you've resolved your issue with the map from Dead in Thay. Happy to hear that! As a general rule, Global Illumination and Advanced Fog of War are like oil and water: they do not like each other. Dead in Thay came out (March 2017) before the release of Advanced Fog of War (September 2017), so Global Illumination was enabled by default at the time! Our Production settings have changed since. We do need to update that map (and check others) now so thanks for bringing it to our attention. Trivia created a ticket when you brought it up in the other thread.

Keep the feedback coming, and look forward to another progress update on May 8!

Cavni said:

Thorsten, it seems you've resolved your issue with the map from Dead in Thay. Happy to hear that! As a general rule, Global Illumination and Advanced Fog of War are like oil and water: they do not like each other. Dead in Thay came out (March 2017) before the release of Advanced Fog of War (September 2017), so Global Illumination was enabled by default at the time! Our Production settings have changed since. We do need to update that map (and check others) now so thanks for bringing it to our attention. Trivia created a ticket when you brought it up in the other thread.

This was not an issue before the March 29 patch set blank AFoW view distance to infinite when global illumination was turned on for the map. That behavior was changed because the March 19 patch caused AFoW view distance to block vision of anything beyond the view distance, even if it was illuminated. Since view distance defaulted to 0, it caused tokens to be unable to see anything on a map, even one with global illumination turned on.

Now that AFoW view distance no longer blocks DL vision beyond it's range, a better fix would be to revert the behavior for a blank AFoW view distance to always be 0, even when global illumination is turned on for a page. Then you don't have to patch Dead in Thay and all the other products that use global illumination and AFoW because it won't try to automatically check the entire map by default.

Once AFoW view distance no longer automatically reveals the map on unilluminated squares, we will be able to once again have a nominal view distance set on those tokens which should clear fog of war and it will work with external light sources, including global illumination, as it did before Jan 29.

I'm not really sure how to report it as a bug, but advanced fog of war on the Dungeon of the Mad Mage maps is unplayable purely because of the lag issues. I've had my the game crash and I've had to leave and quickly change to another page to get it to restart, when I can see a map without it breaking, the tokens take 30 seconds to a minute to actually update.

Is this a known issue or just something I'm experiencing. It worked fine before the update.

I have the same issue, the browser hangs for minutes at a time and sometimes crashes completely. In both Firefox and Chrome. Also the animated tokens lag too much when dropped into a DOMM map. I can't use any of the new features with the content Roll20 produces. 

Botley said:

I'm not really sure how to report it as a bug, but advanced fog of war on the Dungeon of the Mad Mage maps is unplayable purely because of the lag issues. I've had my the game crash and I've had to leave and quickly change to another page to get it to restart, when I can see a map without it breaking, the tokens take 30 seconds to a minute to actually update.

Is this a known issue or just something I'm experiencing. It worked fine before the update.

Brian C. said:

Botley said:

I'm not really sure how to report it as a bug, but advanced fog of war on the Dungeon of the Mad Mage maps is unplayable purely because of the lag issues. I've had my the game crash and I've had to leave and quickly change to another page to get it to restart, when I can see a map without it breaking, the tokens take 30 seconds to a minute to actually update.

Is this a known issue or just something I'm experiencing. It worked fine before the update.

Do the pages having trouble have global illumination turned on?

They do not have global illumination on,but they are large maps with a lot of tokens. The tokens all have sight and a light radius for darkvision.

Botley said:

I'm not really sure how to report it as a bug, but advanced fog of war on the Dungeon of the Mad Mage maps is unplayable purely because of the lag issues. I've had my the game crash and I've had to leave and quickly change to another page to get it to restart, when I can see a map without it breaking, the tokens take 30 seconds to a minute to actually update.

Is this a known issue or just something I'm experiencing. It worked fine before the update.

I'm running the mad mage maps too, and I've already DOUBLED the size of the current map and, tokens, Gm layer and dynamic lighting layer. - To help with the awful scaling at 0.5. The health bars and icons don't take up 2/3 of the tokens anymore. I still do not use Advanced fog of war because the lag alone is awful.

However, a few things that I did do were:

Turn OFF light sources coming from any torches in any room
Turn OFF any 'has vision' applied to any monsters

I also use Chrome Beta, in incognito mode for use on roll20.

All of these things combined seems to have removed lag completely.

--

I did try leaving 'breadcrumbs' (player controlled 'torches' that 'have vision', so the players could still see the map of where they had been). But as they progressed through the dungeon, and dropped torches along the route, the game got slower and slower as more and more 'lightsources' were dropped onto the map.

Brian C. said:

Once AFoW view distance no longer automatically reveals the map on unilluminated squares, we will be able to once again have a nominal view distance set on those tokens which should clear fog of war and it will work with external light sources, including global illumination, as it did before Jan 29.

This, x100. The way AFoW works now is not only broken but completely counter-intuitive. I move a token into a square on the map, I expect to be able to see what that token sees from that point, but only if external light sources permit. Please implement Brian's suggestion ASAP! 

I've been trying to use Roll20 with just DL and not AFoW. However, there is a huge bug that I never saw before the January update, and honestly would have probably seen afterward when I was trying out each new "update" since.

I have turned Enforce Line of Sight on and off, and at one point when I turned it off it froze the "shadows" so that when I turn back on the old shadows were still there and disregarded line of sight for my test token. It's difficult to explain and even a screenshot may not help.

The three largest "columns of shadow" that start near the center are correct and move as the token on the right is moved. However, The "shadows" indicated by arrows are all left over from before a DL on/off. These remain stationary while the others move, and it doesn't matter if Enforce Line of Sight is off. They are still there.

Here's a screen shot with Enforce Line of Sight turned off, but DL still checked "on." You can see there is no line of sight enforcement, but those old "shadows" are still there from before.

Exiting the game does not clear these, and neither does resetting the AFoW - that was a long shot, but I had to check.

Now I see that Advanced Fog of War and Dynamic Lighting are game-breakingly broken. I really don't know why I continue to pay for this service except that I'm a closet optimist.

P.S. I have sent an email to the suggested address, but nothing has been done about refunding any part of the last 4 months. This is ridiculous and unacceptable.

Ben L. said:

Does the player token your using have its own light source or dark vision?

If not the darker areas will be the shadows cast from the fire in the center which wont be revealed unless you have another light source. While the new "shadows" are not shadows but just an indication of blocked vision from the tents.

At least thats what im guessing based on what im seeing. Im not sure what other settings you have on, but if its a daytime scene you may want to turn on global illumination. if its nighttime and u still want an ambiance dim light. I sometimes throw around a few lights with "X, -5" to add dim light to the areas.

Tim G. said:

Not sure if this fits into this thread, feel free to remove it from here if it shouldn't be here. It does relate to dynamic lighting and changes thereof.
One thing that has repeatedly come up for me and my group when using dynamic lighting (since long before the update that broke a lot of things) is that sure, my token has 60ft of dim light darkvision! Buuut I can only see maybe 40 or so feet of that 60 feet before it gets so dark that I really can't see anything...

Is there any way that we can either have it be brighter, further, or have some option for where it starts to drop off so we can adjust this to our personal liking? Would be nice to be able to actually see things for the full 60ft when you have 60ft of darkvision...

What are the token settings you are using for darkvision?

Brian C. said:

Tim G. said:

Not sure if this fits into this thread, feel free to remove it from here if it shouldn't be here. It does relate to dynamic lighting and changes thereof.
One thing that has repeatedly come up for me and my group when using dynamic lighting (since long before the update that broke a lot of things) is that sure, my token has 60ft of dim light darkvision! Buuut I can only see maybe 40 or so feet of that 60 feet before it gets so dark that I really can't see anything...

Is there any way that we can either have it be brighter, further, or have some option for where it starts to drop off so we can adjust this to our personal liking? Would be nice to be able to actually see things for the full 60ft when you have 60ft of darkvision...

What are the token settings you are using for darkvision?

Super difficult to see any tokens after 40 or so feet, as you can see in the images provided.

Tim G. said:

Brian C. said:

Tim G. said:

Not sure if this fits into this thread, feel free to remove it from here if it shouldn't be here. It does relate to dynamic lighting and changes thereof.
One thing that has repeatedly come up for me and my group when using dynamic lighting (since long before the update that broke a lot of things) is that sure, my token has 60ft of dim light darkvision! Buuut I can only see maybe 40 or so feet of that 60 feet before it gets so dark that I really can't see anything...

Is there any way that we can either have it be brighter, further, or have some option for where it starts to drop off so we can adjust this to our personal liking? Would be nice to be able to actually see things for the full 60ft when you have 60ft of darkvision...

What are the token settings you are using for darkvision?

*snip*

Super difficult to see any tokens after 40 or so feet, as you can see in the images provided.

Yeah, I have run up against this in the past. Maybe make a new post in the suggestions forum to make the dim light more uniform all the way out to the edge of the radius?

Disclaimer: I only glanced at the last screenshot here....

You have the 'Start of Dim' start at 0. This means that it's starts getting dim STRAIGHT away. If you remove this 0 and leave it blank, the whole room will suddenly light up like someone turned the lights on!

i think I have my tokens set to 60ft vision, but it begins to dim after 30ft. - This means that the players can still see up to 60ft fine, but it's not a super harsh 'line' where their vision stops.

The appearance is also greatly dependent on the background image and the monitor settings. I see a huge difference between my mac monitor and my cheapie Acer external. I don't think there's a programmatic one-size-fits-all adjustment.

If you want to avoid that bright circle around the token and have darkvision out to 60ft, a setting that works well for us is:
70 / -5

70 feet out, dim starts at -5 (in the token itself). That gives you about 60 feet of dim vision with the way things work out in roll20.

"Can see in dim light as if in bright" sorta works. roll20 does have additive lighting, but it's not additive the way darkvision in 5e works. 2xdim is brighter than dim but not as bright as bright, 3xdim gets you bright. Good enough for our group.

godthedj said:

Disclaimer: I only glanced at the last screenshot here....

You have the 'Start of Dim' start at 0. This means that it's starts getting dim STRAIGHT away. If you remove this 0 and leave it blank, the whole room will suddenly light up like someone turned the lights on!

i think I have my tokens set to 60ft vision, but it begins to dim after 30ft. - This means that the players can still see up to 60ft fine, but it's not a super harsh 'line' where their vision stops.

Right, because if you remove the 0, you get bright light. But the darkvision feature doesn't give you bright light in pitch darkness, so that won't work.

keithcurtis said:

The appearance is also greatly dependent on the background image and the monitor settings. I see a huge difference between my mac monitor and my cheapie Acer external. I don't think there's a programmatic one-size-fits-all adjustment.

True, but I have yet to see a map where this issue doesn't occur to at least some degree. (most maps are dungeon maps, after all)

Thorsten said:

If you want to avoid that bright circle around the token and have darkvision out to 60ft, a setting that works well for us is:
70 / -5

70 feet out, dim starts at -5 (in the token itself). That gives you about 60 feet of dim vision with the way things work out in roll20.

"Can see in dim light as if in bright" sorta works. roll20 does have additive lighting, but it's not additive the way darkvision in 5e works. 2xdim is brighter than dim but not as bright as bright, 3xdim gets you bright. Good enough for our group.

Yeah we've tried this as well, but while it's slightly better visually, it also comes with the issue that if you squint and really try to see, you can see a little further than you're supposed to (since you do have 70 feet of vision)

You're right about the additive lighting though. which is good at least.
I also didn't realize negative numbers worked for the lighting, so that's good to know!

Or do what I do in my campaigns and ban darkvision for all creatures that don't live in, or are native to, the Underdark. And if you are one of those creatures, you will always have sunlight sensitivity! Instead, above ground creatures that have "darkvision" in vanilla instead have "lowlight" vision, which means they treat dim light as bright light, but still don't see in complete darkness. 

(I realize this is not a fix. Just trying to be jovial in here.)

This is an old page, but it has a lot of clever Dynamic Lighting tips. You might find something useful there.

Just seen Stephanie B's update re AFOW...

• Advanced Fog of War now reveals in a circle if both Dynamic Lighting and AFOW are both on.

I have just tried it and looks as though AFOW still reveals in a square.  Has anyone else noticed this or do I have got the wrong end of the stick?  I tried the usual turn it off and on again, but the same results appear.