Smart Pic overlay
 

I am a little confused on how this is going to work. I have a few questions.

1. Is this fully implemented or is this one of the items that has more to be added in latter update?

2. If the overlay is only viewable by the DM; how would this be useful for secret doors for example. It is very useful while the door is undiscovered, but useless after and you wish to reveal it.

3. I read in the release notes that the overlay was transparent, or could be. I could not find a way to do that. I only found on or off.

I am not being critical of this feature, in fact I would love for it to be expanded upon. I am curious what the delv's envisioned this feature being used for.

I was playing with this last night.
I found that the player version had to go first and the DM version second.
Not sure if that is the way it is supposed to work

Now I want to go and change all my maps, but they all have pins on them... anybody know if you can move pins ? Probably not... too much to hope for just yet.

Pins can definitely be moved. I think you use the Hand tool and just click-and-hold to drag the existing pins around the image.

Yes, the mechanism is fully implemented at this stage. There's more we plan to do, but what's there now should be highly useful and is not a partial implementation.

The overlay image is NOT for the players to see - ever. It is there for the DM's information only. You can label things specially, have visual indicators that speed up running the game, etc. For the players, there is still just the one image. If you note a secret passage specially on your overlay, it won't appear for the players and cannot be revealed via the overlay. The assumption is that you'd use a map pin to indicate the passage entrance and reveal that, just as you would have done previously. Having complex overlay layers with individual areas revealable to players is a LOT more work, and it's not something we've implemented yet.

The new overlay image definitely supports transparency. However, the overlay image itself MUST have transparent regions in it. If the overlay image is not transparent, then it will simply hide the image beneath.

You can remove and replace images without touching the pins. The pins won't move unless you move them or you replace the image with a smaller one. So just make sure that you replace the image with another that's the exact same size, then the pins will remain exactly where they are and everything will work great.

Hope this helps!

Rob first off thank you for making an incredible product. I know it is still rough around the edges, but I see where it is going, and it make me excited for the future of gaming.

I am still a little confused as to what YOU intended this feature to do. What real world example prompted LWD to implement this feature.

When I first saw it I assumed it would be for the player map to be the main image and the DM map to be the overlay. At first this sounds awesome. The problem I see is that eventually I am going to want to reveal the trap, secret door, rooms behind the concealed door, ect.

Knowing that anything is possible, just takes time, money, and desire. Based on the direction you are taking your product and the architecture you used to implement this feature; what is the possibility of getting the ability to add multiple overlays that are individually revealable?

The idea being you could add an overlay for the pit trap in room 10 and a different overlay for the secret door and room(s) behind it.

Another way this could possibly work is to have one overlay with a separate "fog of world" reveal so you could reveal any portion of the GM map. In fact this would probably be the cleaner way to do it.

Perhaps another way of looking at it... Add stamps

Secret Door, Traps, etc.

Variation of the pin icon that could be used to connect to content and be made visible to the players.

Differnet Pin icons that are selectable in the pin properties. Just select from i dont know 20-30 symbols. It would be nice if it would be possible for users to use own images as well if we desire so.

Pins could do some things but not all. If you are using RW to manage third party content, like I am, you will generally find that you have two maps. In the 31 years I have been gaming the maps have really come a long way. From simple black and white sketches to full color pieces of art. Some publishers have gone so far as to make the artwork on the Player map hide rooms so the the players can not meta game and look for a door over there as there is a void in the art.

At this point I have to choose to use either the Player map or the DM map. Both have pros and cons, but the reality is we need both....that's why they make both. We need to be able to put the DM map in the overlay and be able to reveal portions of it as needed. If the overlay had a separate "fog of world" you could easily and cleanly insert 90%+ of the maps by third party publishers.

I love the idea of having two layers that you could make bits and pieces visible but how would that work in reality? Your images would need to be the identical size, shape, layout, etc. Not a problem for the official modules but for many of the less popular variants that don't have professional maps this could be an issue. Any variation and you will have inconsistencies in the visible image.

Ultimately I think the ability to add layers to the image is the end goal. Add a secret door to layer 3 and a spike pit to layer 4. Make them individually visible as the player's encounter them.

That would be nice, but I think what we have now is possibly the first towards that.