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pindercarl

A quick update on the Unity port

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During this long process of porting Fantasy Grounds to Unity there has been one caveat, "don't break Fantasy Grounds." In addition to the officially supported rulesets, there are countless modules, token packs, and community rulesets with which the new version must maintain compatibility. We're working hard to make sure that compatibility remains intact. To varying degrees (and depending on the day) Fantasy Grounds is running in Unity.

Attachment 14744

A long the way, we are adding new features and building support for future improvements. While working this past week on custom controls for map drawing, I've been putting in support for two of the most requested Fantasy Grounds features (FG Wishlist): dynamic lighting/line-of-sight and multiple map layers. You can look forward to LOS and n number of map layers.

https://youtu.be/do9BR7aJcLs

I'll be sure to post future updates to let everyone see we're making progress and give you a sneak preview of what's coming up.

Carl

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  1. lokiare's Avatar
    Nice, looking forward to getting to play with this.
  2. OTG_Wraith's Avatar
    LOS is my most anticipated feature, hopefully we'll also get individual PoV as well?
  3. Skellan's Avatar
    Fantastic LOS would be cool.

    I particularly like the 'don't break fantasy grounds' bit
  4. LordEntrails's Avatar
    Sweet Thanks for sharing!
  5. Nylanfs's Avatar
    One thing that was just brought up in a 5e FB group when I posted the video. In Roll20 the players can move their token without dropping it and the players can see the map and then drop it back without anyone the wiser. If the map is locked the FoW needs to depend on the GM approving the movement.
  6. Jerric's Avatar
    very nice! Keep up the excellent work and thank you.
  7. ddavison's Avatar
    Carl does good work! We are all very happy that he joined the SmiteWorks team.
  8. maugrim8866's Avatar
    Take my money !
    Looks great. Are you still on track for 2016?
    /crossfingers
  9. choyofaque's Avatar
    Awesome. Just bought Ultimate Edition. Keep up the great work!
  10. alexandyr's Avatar
    Will the support for multiple map layers expand "tile based" mapping capabilities? LoS/Lighting isn't really a selling point for me, but more flexibility and support for improvisation via flexible maps and whiteboarding would be most welcome.
  11. pindercarl's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by alexandyr
    Will the support for multiple map layers expand "tile based" mapping capabilities? LoS/Lighting isn't really a selling point for me, but more flexibility and support for improvisation via flexible maps and whiteboarding would be most welcome.
    Better support for map tiles is definitely something we have discussed and there should be significant improvement in tile mapping.
  12. Xydonus's Avatar
    Surprised to see a demo of the dynamic lighting. I'd figured something like that would still be sometime off, even in prototype stages. Good to see though that its coming along nicely.

    To be perfectly blunt, the dynamic lighting is needed, as well as an improvement over the existing FG masking feature which I think is more of an engine issue than anything else. As long as I've had FG Ultimate, I've had nothing but grief using the masking feature. It's laggy, its unresponsive and it causes FG to crash if you attempt to unmask too much. If your in the middle of masking/unmasking, it tends to freeze the client for everyone, and if someone 'clicks' on something, it causes their program to crash as well.

    So yes, I'm looking forward to hopefully a lag-free feature that will do away with the need of masking. But I would also like to see improvements done on the current masking.
  13. Xydonus's Avatar
    Surprised to see a demo of the dynamic lighting. I'd figured something like that would still be sometime off, even in prototype stages. Good to see though that its coming along nicely.

    To be perfectly blunt, the dynamic lighting is needed, as well as an improvement over the existing FG masking feature which I think is more of an engine issue than anything else. As long as I've had FG Ultimate, I've had nothing but grief using the masking feature. It's laggy, its unresponsive and it causes FG to crash if you attempt to unmask too much. If your in the middle of masking/unmasking, it tends to freeze the client for everyone, and if someone 'clicks' on something, it causes their program to crash as well.

    So yes, I'm looking forward to hopefully a lag-free feature that will do away with the need of masking. But I would also like to see improvements done on the current masking.
  14. LordEntrails's Avatar
    @Xydonus, how large are your images? The only time I've experience lag or instability using the current mask is when I'm using really large images. And then it's because I'm sharing so much info with multiple users that that the program stalls while it is sharing all of the unmasked info to all of the users. If using images less than 1MB you shouldn't see problems unless your network upload speed is poor.
  15. Xydonus's Avatar
    @LordEntrails

    Granted, most of my maps are over the 1mb threshold, usually around 6-8mb. I usually require a certain standard of quality for my maps and I make most of the maps myself so the size represents the detail in them. It's a small price to pay but one I'm willing to pay, and something that I've put to a vote to my players before.

    But the masking feature lagging for maps over the 1mb threshold is fairly poor. I'm hoping that the move to unity will improve all this and increase the usual limits and allow faster response for larger maps.
  16. seycyrus's Avatar
    One thing I'd like to mention regarding LOS is that different characters will most likely have different ranges on their LOS, whether it be due to a racial trait, or type of light source carried (torch, lantern, wand etc.). It would be useful if the GM could somehow "see" what the different LOSs are for different characters. Is this possible? Is it handled this way in roll20 pro?
  17. pindercarl's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by seycyrus
    One thing I'd like to mention regarding LOS is that different characters will most likely have different ranges on their LOS, whether it be due to a racial trait, or type of light source carried (torch, lantern, wand etc.). It would be useful if the GM could somehow "see" what the different LOSs are for different characters. Is this possible? Is it handled this way in roll20 pro?
    Variations of LOS are, I believe, handled in Roll20 by restricting the range of LOS calculations, as well as applying a mask to the rendered LOS. There are lots of options that can be applied to 2D LOS: falloff masks, color tinting, etc. I'm certain we will be implementing those types of features. 2D LOS is a solved problem, and part of the reason that I spent a weekend putting it together—to illustrate that we will be able to add new features in FGU, especially in image processing. I was also looking to take a break from whatever low-level feature I was working on at the time.

    There are other features, that I consider must-haves, that are not "solved problems." Rather they become applications of existing technologies to Fantasy Grounds given its unique requirements and characteristics. Using the LOS to "chip way" at the FOW, is a good example. Erasing the FOW based on player visibility is not difficult. However, it is important to consider that the FOW must be consistent between the GM and the players. Additionally, this raises the question of whether different players with have unique FOW based on their local LOS. Further, in this case, how does the GM visualize the combined, as well as separate, FOW overlays. All of this is doable, but each decision has a number of dependencies and cumulative effects.
  18. LordEntrails's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by pindercarl
    ... LOS is a solved problem, ....
    I'm not sure it's of much value to the community or if you are willing to share, but I'm very curious; have you decided what tools will be available for determining obstructions? i.e. using the alpha channel, or using a "fill" like tool, or drawing polygons, or...?
  19. pindercarl's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by LordEntrails
    I'm not sure it's of much value to the community or if you are willing to share, but I'm very curious; have you decided what tools will be available for determining obstructions? i.e. using the alpha channel, or using a "fill" like tool, or drawing polygons, or...?
    No decisions have been made on the exact tools that will be available. It will likely be a hybrid approach of polygons or image based. In the follow-up video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVppbivpWS0 an alpha channel is traced to create a polygonal mask.
  20. celestian's Avatar
    Dunno if you can speak on this yet but I am curious. Will there be improvements in the way people create sheets/etc? Currently it's all by hand through xml/lua. If your previous Tabletop project (Carl) you were able to take a scanned image of a sheet and then place input locations on that. I found that amazingly inspiring. That would make creating a "ruleset" very trivial IMO and well worth it in my book.

    Looking forward to seeing what you guys are doing.
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