Line of Sight enforced no matter what

This particular map is the top of a tower at night, it is walled so while the players can see all around, their movement should be blocked. Therefore, I have dynamic lighting, restrict movement, no line of sight enforcement and no fog of war. In the screenshot below you can see my settings, the DL DM view on the left and the player view on the right. As you can see, the burgundy lines I've drawn on the DL layer not only block movement - they also block LoS. I've refreshed the player browser to make sure, behavior persists. I don't get it. Isn't the point of unchecking "enforce LoS" so this doesn't happen? What am I missing?

Turn on global illumination. It not that vision is blocked above, it's just that there is no light shining on anything.

It's nighttime. Global illumination is intended to be off. There is light, it's emanating from the token itself and is what's blocked in the screenshot; if there weren't, the image would be pitch black.

You'll either need to put dim illumination outside, or accept that this is duplicating what you would see: no light, no sight. Again, it's not blocking token vision, just blocking the light, and tokens cannot see anything where there is no light. There are tricks to reducing the dim light as emitted by tokens if you want to go that route. I have done that to simulate moonlit landscapes.

Ok, thank you for explaining how the feature works, it seems counter intuitive to me but at least now it's clear. In this context, the token's "light" is not visible to other players and is meant to represent the character's darkvision. Ergo, requiring that I put an external source of light for that character to see past an obstruction that's not meant as a LOS blocker, defeats the exercise. Frankly, it's very strange to me that movement & LoS blocking haven't been split apart into two distinct layers yet. There are so many objects that require that distinction, forcing us to treat entire maps one way or another is necessarily restrictive. All that said, I'd love to hear your tricks to simulate moonlit landscapes - definitely a challenge right now.

You can start your dim radius with a negative number. From a post on this ooooold thread : The Aaron said: Brail  said: What does the negative light source number do exactly? Didnt see it mentioned on the wiki? It causes the light source to start out much dimmer.  Here's some comparisons (Radius/Dim Start):

PH said:  Frankly, it's very strange to me that movement & LoS blocking haven't been split apart into two distinct layers yet. There are so many objects that require that distinction, forcing us to treat entire maps one way or another is necessarily restrictive. Gathering from responses on similar issues, the addition of layers is not a simple thing at all. The devs are working to transition the underlying framework from Canvas to WebGL, which apparently will make this an easier process.

I've used that trick before to generic dim-only light - but "Dim Light Reveals" is an advanced fog of war feature, which isn't used here - fog of war is off.  Dynamic Lighting doesn't have a "Dim Light Reveals"-equivalent that relates to LoS. I must be missing something because I can't see a way to put an external lightsource that will reveal sight on the other side of a blocker meant for movement-only, without the light on the other side being bright. In other words, I can't have a movement-only blocker at night.

That thread I referenced has LOTs of cool lighting tricks. There are others on the Stupid Tricks thread. If you haven't read through that, it's worth your time. Here are a few, some of which even work without DL or a subscription: Black Aura Token for Night  - lordmage Mood Lighting Tokens  - keithcurtis  — ( Video  by Nick O,  timestamp ) Environmental Effects  ( download link ) - Kirsty Aura Effect to Reveal Hidden Objects or Markings  - reported by Gold ( Stephen S.'s original thread ) ( video  - Nick O.) Droppable Torch Token  - Gimblejam Make Doors on DL Layer Clear to Players  - godthedj Fine Tune 'Snap to Grid' Dynamic Lighting  - Ziechael Using tints for art compatibility (high level map design)  - gui8312 Light Crumbs  - keithcurtis

PH said: I've used that trick before to generic dim-only light - but "Dim Light Reveals" is an advanced fog of war feature, which isn't used here - fog of war is off.  Dynamic Lighting doesn't have a "Dim Light Reveals"-equivalent that relates to LoS. I must be missing something because I can't see a way to put an external lightsource that will reveal sight on the other side of a blocker meant for movement-only, without the light on the other side being bright. In other words, I can't have a movement-only blocker at night. The trick is to remember to click "Other Players See Light on the external light token. Here is an example of settings that will produce a very dim light for 100 feet. Adjust to taste.

Some great resources in there, though I've been using most of them already. I didn't have Kirsty's environmental PNGs though, those are nice. In any case, I appreciate the assistance. Ultimately for me it's an issue with how it's designed because there's no reason something not intended to block LoS should block light. The objects that require that distinction (low walls, fences, windows, elevation...) all allow both LoS & light to go through and so I always assumed "enforce LoS" would apply to both equally - it never even occurred to me until your explanation that it could block one but not the other.  Fundamentally, all these settings need to be object parameters, not map parameters. Any given location can feature walls (LOS & move blocked) windows (only move blocked) and curtains (only LOS blocked). If that'll require WebGL, then I'll patiently wait for that. Thanks again.

keithcurtis said: PH said: I've used that trick before to generic dim-only light - but "Dim Light Reveals" is an advanced fog of war feature, which isn't used here - fog of war is off.  Dynamic Lighting doesn't have a "Dim Light Reveals"-equivalent that relates to LoS. I must be missing something because I can't see a way to put an external lightsource that will reveal sight on the other side of a blocker meant for movement-only, without the light on the other side being bright. In other words, I can't have a movement-only blocker at night. The trick is to remember to click "Other Players See Light on the external light token. Here is an example of settings that will produce a very dim light for 100 feet. Adjust to taste. That doesn't impact this situation, unfortunately. I can produce dim light all over the map very easily. But dim light doesn't show you what's on the other side of a DL blocker, even with enforce LoS disabled - only bright light does. And there's no setting to change that, unlike with fog of war.

I don't know if that is an intended development specifically, only that the addition of new (specialized) layers will be easier to implement. There have been many suggestions for improvement to DL. Splitting those parameters is one. Part of the problem in why this current setup seems counter-intuitive is that nothing is actually emitting light in any sense. Dynamic Lighting is really Dynamic Masking, the controls only determines what parts of the map are revealed and by how much. This is why there are no colored lights, for instance.

That's fine, but I can't explain why the client would be expected to dynamically mask "light sources" at all when "Enforce LoS" is disabled. It implies that the player can see past the object, yet the object can somehow block light. I'm arguing that that scenario doesn't exist in the material world. Seeing is literally light reaching your eyes; DL blockers should either mask both LoS & light, or neither.

But it does work that way. DL blockers do either mask both LoS & light, or neither Turning off LoS does  turn off light and sight. Turning on LoS allows sight and blocks both sight and light. In the case you had above, you wanted no light blocking, but still wanted to use personal light. They can't be separated. Like I said, there are suggestions to separate movement and light blockers, as well as one-way blockers and more. In the particular scenario you wanted above, I would turn off movement blocking and get rid of DL lines altogether. That would perfectly model the scenario. They would have their vision limited by sight and light, but just like in the real world, nothing prevents them from jumping off the tower. It's not a real physical barrier, just a practical one. If they want to walk off a tower, they should be able to. Warn them and assign falling damage if they disregard. :)