Im going to be DMing for a group of friends soon. I am 100% going to use a tv with a chromecast to use ANIMATED battle maps. Ive found a nice handfull of them on youtube. I learned that you can loop a video if you're watching on mobile. Cool! I learned that you can buy printable shrink plastic to use for minis. GREAT!
Here's where it gets complicated.
I want to incorporate darkness and fog into the campaign. I don't want to use foundry, roll20, etc for their lighting effects because we'll be using minis. Ive read that most people just put pieces of paper on the screen to block out the map until the players get there. Meh. Sounds annoying. Im trying to figure out if something like obs and an overlay would be more my flavor. Maybe some software I havent heard of?
I have a good laptop. I have the means to get more hardware or materials. What do you suggest? Any clever ideas?
When you use a VTT online, each player only 'sees' what their character does. Line of sight and lighting are taken into account, fog-of-war lifted according to their tokens.
You could just use digital tokens to represent the minis and place the minis on top. It would be double effort to move tokens and minis, but will give you a good representation for light sources. However, line of sight or fog-of-war will be more difficult, as you only have one screen for *all* PCs. That means that overlapping visibility will reveal everything that *any* PC sees to *all* PCs.
Maybe try owlbear.rodeo or AboveVTT and use the manual fog-of-war feature. I'm not sure if that's more effort than using paper to cover the screen or less, though.
If money is not a concern, it's possible to track the tokens in real-time. Either through a capacitive contact on the bottom of the token, or via a mounted camera. However, that's not a very accessible option for most people.
If you're going with a digital map, I would recommend just going ahead and using an existing option like Roll20 and controlling the lighting and fog yourself from a laptop. Rather than having a digital token for each mini, just use one or two "Player" tokens that can move with the group. Focus on revealing/concealing whole chambers, instead of fussing over individual lines of sight.
Dynamically revealing parts of a map is definitely a pain and solutions tend to be all-or-nothing, since there isn't much incentive to design and maintain something like a dynamic light overlay for someone else battlemaps.
Maybe you could use something like Powerpoint to "Build" your map on top of the animation room by room as the players explore. Have a library of map assets that you can copy over as needed.
I might help you to find one! I used to do shopping from an online store named as Reecoupons. Every time they offer very good discounts on their every item. They have such a huge category of products. I hope you will find here what you wanted to!
I mean, rather than paper, since that does sound annoying, perhaps you can get some nice fabric? Or a blanket? That way you can just pull to reveal more of the map rather than constantly fussing with little bits of paper, cardboard or coloured cellophane? It might be easier than fussing with software every session, if having everything done quickly is your priority?
For darkness you could even get a dark transparent mesh fabric and layer it? For fog you could also get a light grey transparent fabric and place it between the minis and the map - and maybe even an extra (light) layer to go over the minis ? For mystical fog, you could even change the colours of the fabric you use. All you'd need is to visit a fabric store and get the amount of fabric you need, no special crafting skills necessary. Could also mean for larger minis that you plan on having on the map, you could reveal them that way?
You could even do spiderweb themes with a spiderweb transparent fabric. Fire could be represented by a transparent flame fabric, being underwater could be represented by a transparent blue fabric.
If you wanted to go extra, for fog you could use a fog machine or some dry ice? But it might be a lot, and you've have to double check no one at your table suffers from breathing conditions for the fog machine.
If you wanted to go extra, for fog you could use a fog machine or some dry ice?
just a wild guess but i suspect blowing dry ice vapors directly onto electronics probably isn't a recipe for success...and you're on the right track about running a smoke machine in a room for an entire gaming session with everyone's face about a foot away from the table that you're pointing the smoke at - although everyone will end up with breathing conditions - not just those who already had them when you started.
OP-i would start here and see where that leads you
Im going to be DMing for a group of friends soon. I am 100% going to use a tv with a chromecast to use ANIMATED battle maps. Ive found a nice handfull of them on youtube. I learned that you can loop a video if you're watching on mobile. Cool! I learned that you can buy printable shrink plastic to use for minis. GREAT!
Here's where it gets complicated.
I want to incorporate darkness and fog into the campaign. I don't want to use foundry, roll20, etc for their lighting effects because we'll be using minis. Ive read that most people just put pieces of paper on the screen to block out the map until the players get there. Meh. Sounds annoying. Im trying to figure out if something like obs and an overlay would be more my flavor. Maybe some software I havent heard of?
I have a good laptop. I have the means to get more hardware or materials. What do you suggest? Any clever ideas?
That sounds tricky.
When you use a VTT online, each player only 'sees' what their character does. Line of sight and lighting are taken into account, fog-of-war lifted according to their tokens.
You could just use digital tokens to represent the minis and place the minis on top. It would be double effort to move tokens and minis, but will give you a good representation for light sources. However, line of sight or fog-of-war will be more difficult, as you only have one screen for *all* PCs. That means that overlapping visibility will reveal everything that *any* PC sees to *all* PCs.
Maybe try owlbear.rodeo or AboveVTT and use the manual fog-of-war feature. I'm not sure if that's more effort than using paper to cover the screen or less, though.
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If money is not a concern, it's possible to track the tokens in real-time. Either through a capacitive contact on the bottom of the token, or via a mounted camera. However, that's not a very accessible option for most people.
If you're going with a digital map, I would recommend just going ahead and using an existing option like Roll20 and controlling the lighting and fog yourself from a laptop. Rather than having a digital token for each mini, just use one or two "Player" tokens that can move with the group. Focus on revealing/concealing whole chambers, instead of fussing over individual lines of sight.
Dynamically revealing parts of a map is definitely a pain and solutions tend to be all-or-nothing, since there isn't much incentive to design and maintain something like a dynamic light overlay for someone else battlemaps.
Maybe you could use something like Powerpoint to "Build" your map on top of the animation room by room as the players explore. Have a library of map assets that you can copy over as needed.
Hi,
I might help you to find one! I used to do shopping from an online store named as Reecoupons. Every time they offer very good discounts on their every item. They have such a huge category of products. I hope you will find here what you wanted to!
Happy shopping! :)
I mean, rather than paper, since that does sound annoying, perhaps you can get some nice fabric? Or a blanket? That way you can just pull to reveal more of the map rather than constantly fussing with little bits of paper, cardboard or coloured cellophane? It might be easier than fussing with software every session, if having everything done quickly is your priority?
For darkness you could even get a dark transparent mesh fabric and layer it? For fog you could also get a light grey transparent fabric and place it between the minis and the map - and maybe even an extra (light) layer to go over the minis ? For mystical fog, you could even change the colours of the fabric you use. All you'd need is to visit a fabric store and get the amount of fabric you need, no special crafting skills necessary. Could also mean for larger minis that you plan on having on the map, you could reveal them that way?
You could even do spiderweb themes with a spiderweb transparent fabric. Fire could be represented by a transparent flame fabric, being underwater could be represented by a transparent blue fabric.
If you wanted to go extra, for fog you could use a fog machine or some dry ice? But it might be a lot, and you've have to double check no one at your table suffers from breathing conditions for the fog machine.
just a wild guess but i suspect blowing dry ice vapors directly onto electronics probably isn't a recipe for success...and you're on the right track about running a smoke machine in a room for an entire gaming session with everyone's face about a foot away from the table that you're pointing the smoke at - although everyone will end up with breathing conditions - not just those who already had them when you started.
OP-i would start here and see where that leads you
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/best-free-software-to-draw-on-screen-in-windows-10-pc
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