Pre-defining the scale and positioning of images in 3D space

[ddavison]

Note: This is meant for community developers, Forge crafters, and people who want to create their own homebrew content that interacts with the 3D camera view mode that is currently in our TEST channel build for Fantasy Grounds Unity version 4.5.0.

Fantasy Grounds uses xml metadata files to predefine the scale, position, and clipping of images that are shown in the 3D Camera View Mode. You can use the same tool to predefined any images you want to use. Just place these in the same location as the original image file.

Walk-through


Download for image metadata tool:
Windows Version
Mac OS Version
Linux Version

[Vass_Dts]

Yeah, unfortunately that's not gonna run on a Mac. :P

[rhagelstrom]

An issue I see with float is it gives the appearance that a creature is somewhere it is not. For anything that is floating, it looks airborne but in game mechanically it is at token height 0. Since setting the token height also moves the image up/down, wouldn't a better solution be to use that float value to set the default token height when added to the map and not offsetting the image instead of offsetting the image position artificially to give the illusion of flying when it is actually not?

I see this scenario coming up:

Player: "Oh its flying, how high up is it?"
GM: "It's not it's right in front of you"
Player: "Why does it look like it's flying?"

or

creature is flying.
Player: "I cast fly and fly up to attack it"
Player: Moves token to the image
Player: "Why am I getting disadvantage on this roll?"
GM: "Because you are too far away, the creature is actually down here, it just looks like it is up there"

[ddavison]

Depending on the image, the float offset is normally about 1/4th if a grid square. It just means it won’t draw the beholder laying on the ground.

If it is flying up 5’ or more, there will be a height indicator shown that players will see.

[Vass_Dts]

But it seems off in some cases:
(Can’t seem to be able to post an image right now)
An ancient red dragon appears to be well above the reach of medium sized character even though it’s supposed to be grounded.

[ddavison]

But it seems off in some cases:
(Can’t seem to be able to post an image right now)
An ancient red dragon appears to be well above the reach of medium sized character even though it’s supposed to be grounded.

What is the source for the ancient red dragon? Ruleset and module name?

[rhagelstrom]

But it seems off in some cases:
(Can’t seem to be able to post an image right now)
An ancient red dragon appears to be well above the reach of medium sized character even though it’s supposed to be grounded.

I had the same issue in that I can't post an image. Forums uploads seems broken again

[ddavison]

I see the issue with the D&D Monster Manual version of the Ancient Red Dragon. (S)he is in a flying pose, but (s)he seems to be up very high off the ground.

[rhagelstrom]

Depending on the image, the float offset is normally about 1/4th if a grid square. It just means it won’t draw the beholder laying on the ground.

If it is flying up 5’ or more, there will be a height indicator shown that players will see.

This probably would be easier to explain if I could post an image but we will try it without.

Why not display the image of the beholder on the ground if it is actually on the ground? If the beholder should be floating, then its token height should be set, which would make the image then look like it is floating and not on the ground.
It looks like you guys have gone through and defined with that tool everything that should be hovering/flying, so why not make it actually hover/fly within the game by setting the token height? That would be a very nice add because then every time I have something in my game that hovers, I don't have to go and set the token height to 5 or whatever because everything defaults to 0, you just set the token height for me. Also if I set my token height to 5 to hover it, with the way you guys have it now, it'll just push the image up even further.

With that dragon in particular or anything that floats really, If I want it to look like it's coming in for a landing/on the ground, I'd have to set the token height to negative. I don't understand why the graphical representation of the game board isn't consistent with how the game board is actually set up.

[ddavison]

We want it to be consistent with how it looks for minis. They have flying stands for floaters that are not standing. I have never seen a beholder sitting on the ground. The assumption is it is floating above the ground in the 5’ space.

What you are describing doesn’t match with my experience gaming.

That said, large floaters do appear to be hovering higher than intended but n the current build.