Lights without using Fog of War?

[PalasX]

I think i am misunderstanding how Auras and Lights work when "Fill map with FOW" is disable. I have a Token setup for control by a player, and that token has a Torch Aura, with 20 feet bright light and 20 feet dim light. The "lightbulb" and "eye" are both enabled for this Aura, meaning it is a light source and can be seen by others (aka, its not darkvision).

Everything works as expected while "Fill map with FOW" is enabled. When i disable "Fill map with FOW" or move to a map that is not filled with FOW, i get a "darkness aura" from this token, and i have to turn the light source off to see:

When i turn the light source off, i get what you would expect a light source to do in bright daylight, slightly color the area around it:

Can lights just NOT be used unless the FOW system is used too?

[Kruptein]

Hey, sorry I didn't get a notification for the discussions, so missed this one.

It is currently indeed kinda implied that you use lights in combination with the FOW system.
The effect with the black circle you see is definitely a bug.

I have kept pushing the fix further back because it's somewhat related to something else I would like to fix and that is to provide some proper solution for day scenes with proper token vision. Right now it's not possible to have a day scene (i.e. fill map with FOW disabled) and have areas that are obscured (e.g. buildings) but work properly with the vision system.

That said, the actual fix for the lights that turn black can be fixed sooner.

[dthv]

Uh, that's actually nice. "define inside area" as a bool for a shape to let it switch… 🤔

It would be a bit of a hassle UI-wise, because it would only be applicable to closed shapes and we would need to find an intuitive method to have it stack with walls without being obstrusive. We would, also, have the problem of doors, where interaction with other objects would be necessary.

But as far as I understand the system, it might just work… 🤔

[Kruptein]

I'll take time this weekend to go through this discussion :D

[dthv]

(I generally should replace all "we"s with "kruptein" and hope they get not pinged anytime I do. Would be so much more honest. 😁 )

[Kruptein]

Some good ideas being thrown around.

Something like a "ceiling" object.

This is interesting because it's something I've been toying with myself but for other reasons.

additional layers being heavy in computing resources

I'm starting to warm up more to this idea, given that they indeed don't need to actively be rendered at all times compared to the fow layer. The nice thing about separate layers is that it has clear intent, there is less risk of confusion compared to say one layer that contains multiple objects but different interactions. The one downside is that it does cause some decoupling, for example walls drawn on the fow layer right now won't move along with your map if you move it. But this is a different topic entirely :D

I'll see if I can find time to focus on some brainstorming time with all these ideas!

[dthv]

One thing that has to be taken into account with "ceiling" objects is height.

With the introduction of floors, PA has gone vertical. Yet, if I understand correctly, floors are calculated horizontally, i.e. walls block vision on the current floor but are ignored for heigher floors. With "ceiling"-objects, this is problematic, because anything below a ceiling would be considered "indoors", while one could actually stand on a ceiling (i.e. roof) which would be outdoors. Also, one would expect to be able to look down on roofs from heigher buildings.

Thus, if we integrate additional layers, these would need to be coupled to floors, to allow buildings of different heights on the same map and also to allow standing on roofs. This, in turn would mean the introduction of up to n additional layers, n equalling the number of floors on a location.

Meh.