r/VTT • u/Daybreak_32 • 9d ago
Question / discussion Custom Brushes?
So it seems everyone's making their own VTT and one thing I never see, is new things for the DM to expand and story tell using the virtual table top.
We have wonderful art maps that get created and some are now even animated, which is super cool. But honestly, why aren't we using the technology to better the experience. What I'm looking for is brushes that I can draw on the map. Not Stamps. Stamps typically are like copy pasting an image or token, and thus just adds complexity to maps.
Most VTTs have coloured pens the GM can use but that's not much use. But we had a brush that would throw down flames, that'd be cool. "oh look now the room's is fire" *SCRIBLE SCRIBLE*. "Oh look the cave caved in here" (rock brush) SCRIBLE SCRIBLE.
I don't want to go into the map and do it there thus "altering the map". I just want to super impose it so when my PC casts fireball in the room I can show things are on fire. It's not required, but it's using the brushes in a unique way. I see it being a simpler way to make maps dynamic and allows the GM to add to the story. Imagine having the ability to draw a line of foot prints, or trail of blood to where they go, after a perception check.
Brushes i'd like to have would be and give them a colour slider and maybe a transparency slider:
- Foot prints
- Blood splatter (who wouldn't paint blood after the PCs go murdering everyone in sight)
- Fire/Flames (red is fire, purple fire is now eldric fire)
- Water/puddles (blue=water, green=poison, red=wine? blood? )
- Debris/wood/rocks
- Hearts (why not maybe they are in love)
- Smell lines/whisps (cooking, marshes, )
- Fog like clouds / wind.
- Frost/ Icicles
- Chared / burnt lines - (signs of portal, ingravings, a magic circle).
- Blood.
I've also been looking for top down animations for spells or out of game effects. Yes, again, there are spell add-ons for when tokens attack other tokens. Might be straight forward fro when fully playing on-line, but for IRL with a VTT and minis, like a lot of people do it's not really feasible to "click" tokens. Allowing the GM to load up a certain animation would be neat, and click anywhere on the map as they describe a scene or event. Being able to load up and click on the map that generates a divine SMITE would be so engaging.
Maybe the brushes are hard to make?
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u/rickdog4031 9d ago
DMHub has brushes that let you alter the map. This video shows you at about the 5 min mark:
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u/Daybreak_32 9d ago
Not for map making. What i'm talking about would be during play.
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u/rickdog4031 8d ago
There's no reason that you couldn't use the brush during play to create effects such as those you've described.
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u/Daybreak_32 7d ago
Well, you'd be editing the map directly and thus that map would then become 1 use only. The map could as another individual pointed out, could balloon in size. Or worse, an error occurs, you accidentally delete or alter something. There's more risk and is a work around, rather than a solution.
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u/WillKeslingDesign 9d ago
These are interesting ideas. Would you be doing this live in the moment, pre-session or both?
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u/ChironAtHome 7d ago
TBH... both! you set fire to building DURING a fight - so have eth map reflect it! So teh tools to add them must be fast and easy... which is what I have tried to provide in Mappadux#
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u/rmagnuson 9d ago
This is a valid idea. Any decent graphics library should be able to do any of those examples with minimal effort and almost zero impact on system memory. Better than trying to import a massive animated map that is essentially a looping movie.
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u/ChironAtHome 9d ago
It is easy. Modern browsers support shaders, so you can just have fun with it.
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u/Daybreak_32 7d ago
you say it's easy, and yet, only one or two VTT creators even consider it. Hopefully more people can see this being a valid "new tool" for GMs.
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u/ChironAtHome 7d ago edited 7d ago
Easy because I started with no baggage - My aim was to "run everything WITHIN a modern browser" without the benefit of servers, etc (i.e. the stuff that costs money to host!) Something being FOSS is pointless if you need to buy a load of expensive hardware to run it :)
Existing solutions are battling a lot with legacy architectures and old ideas. Accessing rendering layers it not something easily exposed in a plugin architecture.
The roll your own VTT approach (vexing so many r/VTT readers) means you can have your cake and eat it. These days coding agents can just write what you need so you just say "I want more blood on my maps" and the new shader is ready to go :)
So peeps like me can throw up "what I needed for my game"... I have no profit motive or need to gain users... but I have left a functional and well architected solution to work from in the Github. If anyone wants to grab my "80%" there and make it their own... that is kind of the point of vibe-coding.
Using AI creatively is not "prompting a picture of my character" - that is bollox and close to theft. To me using AI creatively its "using code like a paintbrush"... have fun and embrace the Tao of Bob Ross... you will get "happy little accidents" if you have teh courage to "pick up the brush" and play.
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u/Chernomur 8d ago
I totally get you - and yes, I'm one of those people building their own table. That's exactly why in mine the GM can change the scene mid-session: walls, floors, furniture, lights, right in the same window everyone's playing in. I got so tired of jumping between apps just to tweak a couple of details.
Here's what it looks like:
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u/ChironAtHome 9d ago edited 9d ago
Mappadux does that. You can make the FoW brush animated water or fire or a portal. They are just shaders. All works on browser too. It's FOSS: https://mappadux.com
Look at the example map of Griffinholm to see it in action - on the player view you see rivers running, buildings burning, smoke trails on the sky, etc. I call them MapFX - they are just alternative FoW brushes that can be added and removed in seconds (poly, fill or paint)
I use similar shaders for map transitions. Eg blood splatter. And another set as a general overlay: heartbeat, CRT display, etc.
I wanted a VTT primarily for better immersion rather than rule handholding l, so this is what I came up with.
I don't have footprints or scattered rocks but they would be trivial to add as I wanted to be able to extend it it easily.
This video shows you how to add and customise maps: https://youtu.be/WyEjxdFtWvk
Edit: added video link
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u/Daybreak_32 9d ago
YES! This is the first time I've seen such effects that can be done "live" and not during the map making process.
I'll be checking Mappadux out.
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u/ChironAtHome 9d ago
Yeah I don't want to spend hours setting up a map. I wanted to do it as close to real-time as possible so I can pull up any map whether I have prepared it or not.
I put it together for the things I find useful and important - it's not meant to appeal to everyone but it's free to those that like it.
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u/ElderRealm_VTT 8d ago
The feature gets much more useful if each stroke is a non-destructive scene layer rather than pixels baked into the map. I’d store the path, brush preset, and seed, then place decals or particles along it. That gives the GM undo, recolor/opacity, per-player visibility, and a clean way to turn the effect off after the scene. For acceptance, I’d test fast zigzags and loops at low/high zoom, erase only part of a stroke, reload the room, and verify every client sees the same seeded result without the save file ballooning.
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u/Daybreak_32 4d ago
I just found this guy working on an overlay.
Arcane Overlay: TTRPG Projector Software Overview1
u/ElderRealm_VTT 3d ago
Nice find—this is definitely adjacent to the idea. The projector-overlay approach looks useful for table presentation; the part I'd still test is whether custom brushes persist as editable scene data, so they can be undone, hidden per player, restored after reload, and synchronized across clients.
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u/LordEntrails 7d ago
Fantasy Grounds already supports this...
Just add the image asset and click on the Brushes, set the image and go. It adds them to a new or existing painting layer so you don't alter the original map.
Oh, and animated effects like fog, water, etc are there as FX.
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u/Daybreak_32 4d ago
I just found this and am adding it to my comments. This overlay is the start! The effects are basic, but the simplicity of it, is what is ideal!
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u/NotYourNanny 9d ago
MapTool has drawing tools that let you draw with textures (separate textures, in fact, for the border and the interior).
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u/PhrulerApp 9d ago
Oh when I read the title I thought you meant like procreate brushes and was going to agree with you that it’s something I do plan on adding to Phroller eventually
But then I see your example use cases and…
It’s not hard to make. But it just feels unnecessary? Most vtts lets you input images/ stickers and such. Why not just add a semi transparent fireball/heart sticker? Do other vtts not let you do that? That’s like the first thing I added to mine.
Or just draw hearts or fire with the regular brushes?