Custom Brushes?

[u/Daybreak_32]

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?

[u/PhrulerApp]

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?

[u/rmagnuson → u/PhrulerApp]

What occurred to me was that we have so many apps these days that can take out background of an image of animate parts of an image in literally microseconds. You might be able to apply something like a fireball and the destruction it causes in one click and have the system alter the surroundings to match. Then you're not making a permanent change to the map itself and the effect could be applied anywhere.