trevorscroft said:
Also, What is your username in the forums ? I didn't see a Goonalan. Let me know and I'll go activate it.
My name is goonalan, I've tried registering three times now (again today) and I either get- username already taken/registered, can't remember the exact wording.
When I ask to change/resend my password I get-
Sorry, but your password cannot be retrieved because your account is currently inactive. Please contact the forum administrator for more information.
And yet I've tried registering three times and never received an e-mail from RPTools to activate my account.
Now this next bit is going to be embarrasing, what's IM or PM, I think IM is instant messenger, but I actually don't know what that is, there- how stupid am I?
So I guess I'll send you my campaign via e-mail, see what you think, although I have to say its the same map/campaign that works in the previous version of RPTools, all I've done is recreated it in the new version- no changes whatsoever.
To address the various suggestions-
1. To replace the fog, switch to one of the fog tools, hold the SHIFT key and draw a shape, it'll replace the fog. The CTRL-SHIFT-O is currently disabled because of some internal restructuring that's going on, it'll be fixed here in the next build or so.
Tried that- now I have a large blue square in the middle of the map which will not delete, and believe me I've tried to delete it.
Update- just gone back to map tools and all I've done is deleted a chunk of topo and the blue square I created above, the lights are still on though- and it took several minutes to perform the action.
2. The format of the image on disk doesn't really matter, except that the Java libraries are optimized for reading/writing JPEG and PNG. For the sake of argument, say your image is 4000x4000 -- it's going to take the same amount of memory to manage and display regardless of whether the disk format is JPEG, PNG, BMP, or anything else.
OK but the reason I did this was because the players were having problems receiving the map data, smaller files equals a quicker exchange.
3. We had this happen during our game session last Tuesday using 1.3b24. We determined that the slowdown was likely due to the LBL (light blocking layer, also called topology). When we simplify the topology, there was a definite speed up.
The Topology is fairly simple its the same one I was using on a previous version of RPTools and was working fine.
4. Hmm. There are a few things that are possible and it's not clear what you've tried. First, if there are no light sources attached to any tokens, it is assumed to be "daylight" and all areas will always be visible -- no fog-of-war or anything. (Before you complain, yes, this is considered a Bad Thing and is being changed.)
Second, add a light source to one token and then only tokens whose vision includes the lit area will be able to see it. If you haven't put down any LBL, that should be every token and everything within the light radius.
Third, tokens must be set as PC for this to work, since the GM can always see the entire map so light sources on NPCs are not 100% the same. Before trying to figure out the differences, just make sure that all tokens are PCs and experiment with that a little bit.
Paragraph 1- actually only the bits I visited with my PC token with light source are lit up, when the PC token goes to new places they light up fine, and then never go out, everytime I go into the campaign then the bits I've visited on previous runs are still lit up in players view, even when all the PC token has gone been deleated, they don't turn off at all and nothing I seem to do makes them go dark again, there are even places where lit objects that have had the radius of the light changed still show both radii. In short, once lit never to be darkened.
Para 2- done that, except none of them turn off anyway...
Para 3- yep, done that.
5. goonlan: you may try having fewer map layers for the campaign. That may help. Saving the campaign more often could help. Using the Topo only where absolutely necessary will probably remove some slow down too.
Honestly there's very little detail or layers to this map- Background for the dungeon floors, Object for a few doors, nothing Hidden, Tokens well some furnishings but not a lot.
The problem is I've had this map up and running, as is, in a previous version of RPTools, I've just redone it in the new version and its ponderously slow and doesn't turn the lights off.
6. I've run several maps with higher megs and it tends to slow depending on what computer I'm on. I've run it on vista, xp and windows 2000 and that doesn't seem to matter as much as how much crap I'm processing concurrently with the program.
I just ran a minigame for the kids over at the WotC chats and it seemed to work great (1.3b24). One guy noted he personally had some lag, but the rest of us didn't have any. My guess is that the problem was on his end as he tends to do 22 things at once on his computer.
However I too have run massively bigger maps, and multiple maps with much more detail on the old RPTools. As to the processing lag, well I'm writing this reply and have Maptools running, nothing else, most times I don't have anything else running, and my processor says its running at 3% usage at the moment. The problems I'm describing are happening out of game, I've just made the map, I usually wander around with one PC character with light sources checking the topography, make sure the players can't see more than they should, and wherever I go the lights stay on showing my passing.
I'll send the campaign to Trevor, sorry about all this, I'm committed to the cause, I just can't seem to make it work and neither can my players at the moment.
Despair.
