Add AoE sizes/shapes to drawing tools

It really slows the game down when someone tries to draw a circle/sphere or cone and can derail the speed of combat. As DM I often have to draw them myself to get them properly accurate and get the job done quickly due to players' unfamiliarity with the drawing tools. This of course leaves me being the only one who can control that shape as drawings can't be changed to be controlled by another. This detracts from the fun of the sorcerer who is casting a fireball or dragons breath every combat.  Cubes are considerably easier to draw, but once again, for the initiated it's another thing they have to learn with respect to grid snapping. To resolve this it would be amazing to be able to drop cones, circle/spheres and cubes of various lengths straight into the battlefield (in the same basic configuration that the existing toolbar dice roller works).  It would also be good (though let important) to be able to set the fill colour of the shape to separate persistent AoE effects, but a transparency slider when deploying a shape would be critical. EDIT: Massive bonus point for being able to choose a texture/animation fill in conjunction with a colour.

Not sure about drawing tools but additional Ruler shapes for cone, circle, line etc would be handy

As a workaround, you could create a template image in something like Gimp, and then set up decks of cards that people can draw from. The nifty thing about Decks is you can set the size they are played at, so you set the template with the proper dimensions and let anyone draw them and play them. Additionally, some people create a character sheet with the template name and set the default token to the proper size and then make that character visible and controlled by everyone so they can just drag the character to the VTT to get the default token. Personally, I prefer the deck of cards...

Finderski said: As a workaround, you could create a template image in something like Gimp, and then set up decks of cards that people can draw from. The nifty thing about Decks is you can set the size they are played at, so you set the template with the proper dimensions and let anyone draw them and play them. Additionally, some people create a character sheet with the template name and set the default token to the proper size and then make that character visible and controlled by everyone so they can just drag the character to the VTT to get the default token. Personally, I prefer the deck of cards... How does that work if you work on maps of different scales? I presume you need a different set for each different scale you want to work with.  Sounds like a fairly universal issue!

Callum F. said: Finderski said: As a workaround, you could create a template image in something like Gimp, and then set up decks of cards that people can draw from. The nifty thing about Decks is you can set the size they are played at, so you set the template with the proper dimensions and let anyone draw them and play them. Additionally, some people create a character sheet with the template name and set the default token to the proper size and then make that character visible and controlled by everyone so they can just drag the character to the VTT to get the default token. Personally, I prefer the deck of cards... How does that work if you work on maps of different scales? I presume you need a different set for each different scale you want to work with.  Sounds like a fairly universal issue! I guess I'm fairly unique in that I always use a 1:1 scale... I play Savage Worlds so 1 square = 1 inch = 6 feet and the AOEs are expressed in inches (table top inches)...Never have to worry about scale. However, chances are your scales are going to be within a certain range, so you could have a set of decks for 1 square = 5ft, one for 1 square = 10ft, etc.  A single image is sufficient, just size it to the largest scale, because shrinking it won't lose anything.  If your normal is 1 square = ft, then the deck for the 1 square = 10ft would simply half the dimensions of the normal deck. You could either have a separate deck, or just update the deck when you're on page with a different scale. It's done in pixels, so the math shouldn't be too difficult. However, bringing scale into this, that will also greatly increase the complexity of this recommendation, because each game system may have different AOE sizes...coupled with scale now... There would need to be some sort of configuration per campaign/game. Then there would need to be some configurations for what types of AOE (Small, Medium, Large, Cone, Column, etc). It's a neat idea, but for a "system agnostic" VTT, I see this getting HUGE really quickly.

Finderski said: Callum F. said: Finderski said: As a workaround, you could create a template image in something like Gimp, and then set up decks of cards that people can draw from. The nifty thing about Decks is you can set the size they are played at, so you set the template with the proper dimensions and let anyone draw them and play them. Additionally, some people create a character sheet with the template name and set the default token to the proper size and then make that character visible and controlled by everyone so they can just drag the character to the VTT to get the default token. Personally, I prefer the deck of cards... How does that work if you work on maps of different scales? I presume you need a different set for each different scale you want to work with.  Sounds like a fairly universal issue! I guess I'm fairly unique in that I always use a 1:1 scale... I play Savage Worlds so 1 square = 1 inch = 6 feet and the AOEs are expressed in inches (table top inches)...Never have to worry about scale. However, chances are your scales are going to be within a certain range, so you could have a set of decks for 1 square = 5ft, one for 1 square = 10ft, etc.  A single image is sufficient, just size it to the largest scale, because shrinking it won't lose anything.  If your normal is 1 square = ft, then the deck for the 1 square = 10ft would simply half the dimensions of the normal deck. You could either have a separate deck, or just update the deck when you're on page with a different scale. It's done in pixels, so the math shouldn't be too difficult. However, bringing scale into this, that will also greatly increase the complexity of this recommendation, because each game system may have different AOE sizes...coupled with scale now... There would need to be some sort of configuration per campaign/game. Then there would need to be some configurations for what types of AOE (Small, Medium, Large, Cone, Column, etc). It's a neat idea, but for a "system agnostic" VTT, I see this getting HUGE really quickly. I presumed it would be pretty simple, given the ruler can always draw the right distance no matter what scale. I figured it could use the same measurement technique to determine size. 

Callum F. said: I presumed it would be pretty simple, given the ruler can always draw the right distance no matter what scale. I figured it could use the same measurement technique to determine size.  Right, but the D&D AOE templates may be different than the Blades in the Dark AOE may be different than the Dungeon World  AOE templates, etc.  And if the scale is different on the page, then there may need to be adjustments made.  For example, let's say the Cone Template is 15ft long and 5ft wide at the widest point, if the page scale is 1 square = 5ft, then that template would be 3 squares long and 1 square wide at the top.  If the page scale 1 square = 10ft, then the template would be 1.5 squares long and .5 wide at the widest. That's where the complexity comes in.

Finderski said: Callum F. said: I presumed it would be pretty simple, given the ruler can always draw the right distance no matter what scale. I figured it could use the same measurement technique to determine size.  Right, but the D&D AOE templates may be different than the Blades in the Dark AOE may be different than the Dungeon World  AOE templates, etc.  And if the scale is different on the page, then there may need to be adjustments made.  For example, let's say the Cone Template is 15ft long and 5ft wide at the widest point, if the page scale is 1 square = 5ft, then that template would be 3 squares long and 1 square wide at the top.  If the page scale 1 square = 10ft, then the template would be 1.5 squares long and .5 wide at the widest. That's where the complexity comes in. Right, I get you now! Hopefully it could leverage the page scale as a multiplier to calculate units (and therefore pixels) - the maths *seems* easy, but it's obviously not working in isolation so might be more complicated than I seem to think. 

Finderski said: As a workaround, you could create a template image in something like Gimp, and then set up decks of cards that people can draw from. The nifty thing about Decks is you can set the size they are played at, so you set the template with the proper dimensions and let anyone draw them and play them. Additionally, some people create a character sheet with the template name and set the default token to the proper size and then make that character visible and controlled by everyone so they can just drag the character to the VTT to get the default token. Personally, I prefer the deck of cards... I have just come across this, which utilizes your method of creating character sheets, but reduces the workload on an individual to prepare the shapes outside of roll20.&nbsp; <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/3262/spell-templates-magic" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/3262/spell-templates-magic</a> It best positioned to fill the gap I have so I'm excited to get it, but would still love to see a basic version that's part of the basic R20 infrastructure :)