Drawings, Fog of War, and Lighting

Drawings

The drawing toolbar gives you shapes, lines, and freehand strokes on the map: walls, rooms, markings, annotations.

How each tool draws:

• Pencil and brush: press and drag.
• Circle: click the centre, then click the edge. Rectangle: click a corner, then the opposite corner (hold Shift for a square). Cone: click its tip, then click its length and direction; between the clicks the mouse wheel turns its angle, and Straight edge makes it a triangle. The shape follows the cursor between the clicks; Escape or a right-click cancels it. On a phone, tap and tap.
• Line and wall: click each point; click the first point again to close the shape (a triangle, a room), or right-click to finish it open.
• Arc: click one end, then the other, then move to bend it and click to place it. Close to the line it is a gentle curve; at the corner of the square on its two ends it is a quarter circle; past that it becomes a rounded corner that squares off. On a phone, tap one end, tap the other, then touch and drag to bend it: it follows your finger, and lifting the finger places it (a tap without dragging places it where you tapped). A fill colour fills its slice, and Stroke the slice's sides draws the slice's two straight sides too.

Notes:

• Drawings can carry text inside the shape — useful for labelling rooms.
• Selected drawings show a moving dashed outline.
• Drawings snap to the grid, with a separate snap toggle from the one that controls tokens.
• Undo works on drawings (⌘/Ctrl + Z).
• If Delete does not remove a selected drawing, check whether a text editor inside the shape has focus — it takes the keystroke first. Click empty space and try again.

Drawings live on layers.

Vision-blocking geometry (VBL)

VBL is the invisible geometry that blocks line of sight: walls, doors, pillars. It is what makes fog of war and lighting behave like a real space.

You can draw VBL by hand, or have it detected automatically from a map image — see AI Features.

VBL is not visible to players. Drawing a wall as a drawing does not block sight; you need VBL for that.

Fog of war

Fog hides parts of the map players have not explored.

• Enable it per map.
• Reveal by sight uncovers what a token sees: within its vision, stopped by walls and VBL (secret doors too), and only what is lit or within its darkvision (with lighting off, everything in its line of sight). The GM can choose Reveal what (token) sees on any token's context menu. With fog of war on, the map panel's Fog of War section has Players may reveal by sight, which offers it to players for tokens they control, and under it Automatically: party tokens reveal when they stop moving and when their light is turned on, and turning it on reveals what every party token sees. The GM's monsters never reveal automatically.
• Reveal and re-hide areas manually with the fog tools: hold Shift while drawing a shape to restore fog instead of removing it.

The GM always sees through fog.

Lighting

Lighting has modes, from off to fully simulated, and a time of day that shifts ambient light.

• Light source types are defined per campaign — a torch, a lantern, a daylight spell — each with a radius and behaviour.
• Vision types describe how a creature sees: normal, darkvision, blindsight.

A token with darkvision in a dark room sees what a token without it does not.

Getting it working

A common setup, in order:

1. Draw or detect VBL for the walls.
2. Turn on fog of war, and reveal by sight.
3. Set the lighting mode and time of day.
4. Give tokens vision types and light sources.

If players see too much, the usual cause is missing VBL. If they see nothing, the usual cause is lighting with no light sources.