MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I'm looking at VTTs again. I'm mainly looking for something that will allow me to throw up a map and character token and clear fog as characters explore the map. I don't have time to prep maps for dynamic lighting so progressive reveal and dynamic lighting don't matter to me.
Roll20 is at the top of my list as it is dead simple to add a map. But I find the reveal features clunky. After using RealmWorks for sharing maps, it is hard to live without paintbrush reveal, especially since I have a touch screen. I can reveal parts of a map by simply smudging away parts of the mask layer with my finger. This is a good send with circular rooms or natural caverns. Using Roll20s polygon tool is slow and annoying to use in game an the results look terrible for rooms or caverns that are not made up of straight edges.
I have not installed Fantasy Grounds yet. I like that I can use FG for in-person games and also like that it offers a freehand mask reveal. That may be what leads me to go with FG, even though I found it difficult to use, with a steep learning curve, when I first looked at it a few years ago.
Astral is beautiful, but has no mask reveal at all, only dynamic lighting and setting up maps for dynamic lighting is very clunky and frustrating.
I just joined the Foundry VTT Patreon and installed the software. It is wonky and doesn't work great with high-resolution displays. I had to change my display setting just to make it usable (important buttons would be off screen and not reachable). Also, I just could not figure out how to add a map and documentation is almost non-existent. I posted for help on the Patreon site but I'll probably cancel my Patreon. If just getting a map into it requires contacting the developer, I'm not very excited about bothering to learn any of its other features.
Map tools has freehand mask reveal. Not as nice as paintbrush reveal but better than polygon reveal. But I find it to be fussy. I'll play around with it some more as it is open source and why pay for Fantasy Grounds if Map Tools will do? Yes, map tools makes adjusting the grid to match that of the map image difficult if you use pre-gridded maps. Well, not difficult, really. Just not as quick and convenient as Roll20, FG, or Astral.
Roll20 is at the top of my list as it is dead simple to add a map. But I find the reveal features clunky. After using RealmWorks for sharing maps, it is hard to live without paintbrush reveal, especially since I have a touch screen. I can reveal parts of a map by simply smudging away parts of the mask layer with my finger. This is a good send with circular rooms or natural caverns. Using Roll20s polygon tool is slow and annoying to use in game an the results look terrible for rooms or caverns that are not made up of straight edges.
I have not installed Fantasy Grounds yet. I like that I can use FG for in-person games and also like that it offers a freehand mask reveal. That may be what leads me to go with FG, even though I found it difficult to use, with a steep learning curve, when I first looked at it a few years ago.
Astral is beautiful, but has no mask reveal at all, only dynamic lighting and setting up maps for dynamic lighting is very clunky and frustrating.
I just joined the Foundry VTT Patreon and installed the software. It is wonky and doesn't work great with high-resolution displays. I had to change my display setting just to make it usable (important buttons would be off screen and not reachable). Also, I just could not figure out how to add a map and documentation is almost non-existent. I posted for help on the Patreon site but I'll probably cancel my Patreon. If just getting a map into it requires contacting the developer, I'm not very excited about bothering to learn any of its other features.
Map tools has freehand mask reveal. Not as nice as paintbrush reveal but better than polygon reveal. But I find it to be fussy. I'll play around with it some more as it is open source and why pay for Fantasy Grounds if Map Tools will do? Yes, map tools makes adjusting the grid to match that of the map image difficult if you use pre-gridded maps. Well, not difficult, really. Just not as quick and convenient as Roll20, FG, or Astral.