| dragonlady January 31st, 2010 8:25 PM Join date: November 23rd, 2009 Posts: 13 | So when you create shadow walls, the default is that they lower the light by one level, going from full to dim (and therefore dim to none) , or from dim to none. So you have to goto the Lighting mode, and then select your wall, and you can change (toggle) the wall between "Full (L)ight to darkness" and "Full (L)ight to shadow" right? So this is what blocks lights that are outside a room from penetrating the walls and illuminating the wall. Is there a correlation between lighting and LOS? It seems that when I have a torch or light source in the room for my NPCs to see that the characters also see the room interior even though they have no LOS and have not explored that room/area yet. As a GM is is not "quick" to turn these lights off until they reach the area, but my players should not be able to see the illuminated room behind that door until I open the door for them (this requires me as a gm to do two steps, 1. deactive the door shadow wall, opening the door and light and vision is now active both ways, and 2. turn on the lights in the room. As a GM, who is trying to provide details of the scene to the players, these are extra activites that distract me <sigh>. |
| Pygon January 31st, 2010 8:45 PM Join date: May 22nd, 2009 Location: Fenton, MI Posts: 261 | TTop does not make use of line of sight at all. The lights just cast as they are. If you have a reason to hide an area of the map because the players can't actually see it yet, then use the Reveal/Hide function. Also, I do NOT recommend allowing lighting to replace having to hide or reveal parts of the map as players explore. If you don't want players to know what is on the map, you should absolutely Hide it. And make sure any creatures they don't know about yet are invisible, because if they hold SHIFT, it lights up all visible creatures - and if they accidentally mouse over the creature, that will also light it up. Generally, when PCs first enter a map, all creatures should be invisible, and most of the map should be Hidden. Use the See as PC checkbox at the bottom of the screen to double check what PCs can see. Hold the SHIFT key to make sure creatures are invisible. |
| dragonlady January 31st, 2010 8:47 PM Join date: November 23rd, 2009 Posts: 13 | ok, more play, given a light source, full light, 20 foot radius. You actually have to set up two wall to block the light? the first wall, tones it down to dim. The second wall tones it down to darkness? I set both walls to "light to darkness" am I observing this right? |
| Pygon January 31st, 2010 8:50 PM Join date: May 22nd, 2009 Location: Fenton, MI Posts: 261 | The basic rules for setting up lighting walls are... If you want the simplest setup, just make every wall "Light to Darkness". That way you know light will be blocked by every surface. You only need one wall to block light. If you want to get fancy, place shadow walls around the wall edges, and place darkness walls just inside the shadow walls. Then you get the halo effects around corners. Placing two shadow walls isn't intended to fully block light, even if that's its accidental result. If you want to block light, use a darkness wall. If you want to dim it, use a shadow wall. Also note that a quick tap of the V key will turn a light on and off. |
| dragonlady January 31st, 2010 8:59 PM Join date: November 23rd, 2009 Posts: 13 | It seems that lighting is working a little differently for the PCs, versus me as GM. The darkness walls do not block the light unless they are double lined, while as PCs, it seems that the light is blocked by only one layer of darkness wall. Is this intentional? |
| Pygon January 31st, 2010 9:07 PM Join date: May 22nd, 2009 Location: Fenton, MI Posts: 261 | I would have to see what is happening on your map to understand. The GM's true darkness levels have a slight see-through effect so that the GM is never entirely blocked from knowing what is there. |
| dragonlady January 31st, 2010 9:47 PM Join date: November 23rd, 2009 Posts: 13 | Map as seen by GM map As seen by players map As seen by GM on Lighting wall screen; map |
| Pygon January 31st, 2010 9:52 PM Join date: May 22nd, 2009 Location: Fenton, MI Posts: 261 | Yes, that looks normal. As long as the See As PC is how you want it to look for the players, then there shouldn't be a problem there (but you still need to Hide what you don't want seen and make sure creature icons are invisible) I'll note that lighting radiuses will increase if the last icon you moused over has low light vision. That's why the GM light radiuses are so much larger (on the first map). |
| dragonlady January 31st, 2010 9:59 PM Join date: November 23rd, 2009 Posts: 13 | Figured, but you asked, so I obliged!  I'm just messing with the maps at this point, since the scenario been played, its all messed with already! |
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