Happy New Year!

The year 2023 for us was a down year for us, but a year of big investments. Our team has been working on several cool features and we are close to releasing one of these major features - First Person View.

How does First-Person View work in a world of 2D flat RPGs?

The best thing I can do is show you two small sneak peek videos I put together. The first is from the D&D Dragonlance module. It shows an encampment and the occupants that the players would face within. The 2D map of the area is provided within the module and placed at the feet of the players, complete with rendered line of sight, lighting effects, and even special Fx layers. The NPCs all use the provided art from the book and these are rendered as transparent stand-ups that face towards the camera. They are scaled relative to other creatures and positioned in a way that makes sense. The result is a sort of psuedo-3d environment that allows players to look around (up, down, behind, etc.), target foes and move within this space. [previewyoutube=Jg8YyH0LbLw;full][/previewyoutube] This second video is from the Fallout 2d20 ruleset. This ruleset has been lighter on maps in general, but it has great NPC artwork we can tap into. We plan to support all rulesets with this new mode. [previewyoutube=-l_GWmMTcWA;full][/previewyoutube]

Is this going to be time-consuming to set up?

We don't think so. We plan to work with internal community developers and module developers to prepare the art from the books to have transparent backgrounds and all the necessary metadata that is needed to properly scale and position everything in first-person view. When that is done, you simply click on the view mode to toggle between 2D and 3D modes.

What if I don't use a map at all? Will this support theater of the mind style play?

Yes! This was my original impetus for developing the mode. In planning for that, it turned out that it also supports modules that already have good maps. In some ways this made it more complicated, and in other ways it made it easier. We plan to support it with additional features that let you quickly generate a scene with some NPCs and players in it when you don't have a map at all. Essentially, these automation functions will build a quick and basic map by painting some graphics on the map floor and auto-positioning NPCs and players to save GM time.

Can I still use 2D mode if I don't like this feature?

Sure. There is a toggle to switch modes. For now, we are undecided if we want the GM to control that toggle exclusively or if we want it to be a per-user toggle. Testing and feedback from our community will help us make that determination.

What are some other future plans for this feature?

We want to support props, terrain, and other objects rendered into the 3D space that are not NPCs. We still need to finalize the UI and data retention for these objects, but it is on our roadmap. We also want to start looking (probably much later in 2024) into other 3D assets. Perhaps we can allow for full 3D content, walls that extend up from the floor, 3d special Fx, and maybe more.

[ 2024-01-02 14:40:44 CET ] [ Original post ]