Here’s a little preview of what I’m working on right now, using cut-outs for the standup miniatures in 3D Virtual Tabletop. This short video shows the screen where you add our own minis, now letting you set the outline as well.
The image used for the miniature in the video is from Robert E. Howard’s Tabletop RPG Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, from Modiphius Entertainment.
I’ve added a Delete button in the Maps and Miniatures screens so you can more easily delete maps and minis you’ve imported. This is great if you made a spelling mistake when you brought it in, or if the grid wasn’t lined up correctly on a map.
Deleting a map in 3D Virtual Tabletop Online
You can try it out now at 3DVTT Online (3dvtt.com/game)
A new version of 3D Virtual Tabletop that includes scenario saving and miniature naming has been submitted to the iOS App Store and is awaiting review. When it is approved I can release the same update on Google Play. It also contains numerous other little tweaks here and there to make the experience smoother. One of which is a new feature to lock miniatures to the tabletop, so that they will be the only ones that stay around when a scenario is loaded or the map is changed. This is great for having a party of player characters visiting different areas with different maps, or prepared encounters saved as scenarios. The group will stay together as the environment around them changes, with other enemy miniatures in the previous scene automatically removed.
Most of my time since the last update has been focused on finding a workaround for what was apparently a bug in Unity for 64-bit iOS devices, so I haven’t been able to make much progress on the web version. Now that I have been able to get the iOS version to work, the web version will be getting some love again. I’ll also be paying some attention to the Android variant for the Amazon Appstore too, hoping to get that out in the near future as well.
Here’s a screenshot of the new miniature naming and locking in Castle Ravenstein.
I mentioned last time that the iOS update was undergoing final testing before release. During that process I discovered a problem that occurred when testing on an iPad Mini 3, but worked fine on an iPad 2, and also works OK on my Android Nexus tablet. I’m still trying to work out how to fix it. There is a possibility that it has something to do with Unity’s new system for 64-bit iOS apps (the iPad Mini 3 is 64-bit, as are all recent devices, the older iPad 2 is 32-bit), I’m going to cover all possibilities. I’ll let you know when I’ve made some progress on that. I want to get this new version out as soon as possible because it really is the best one yet, with lots of little improvements everywhere.
In the mean time, I’ve been working on the web version of 3D Virtual Tabletop, and I’m going to catch it up with the mobile versions.
I’ve now got Miniature Naming fully working in 3D Virtual Tabletop. Before releasing the new version I’m running through to the app to make sure everything works as it should, tweaking things here and there, to smooth over any rough edges. That should all be done in a day or two.
Using miniature names is new for the multiplayer connection, so I need to release the Android and iOS updates at the same time, so that they can talk to each other properly. This means it’ll be another week or so before Miniature Naming is available. I’ll let you know when I’ve submitted it to Apple so you can count down the days.
The Scenarios iOS update has been approved by Apple. I’m reluctant to release it though, as in the mean time I have discovered certain situations around fog of war and multiplayer games where it doesn’t quite work as it should. Those issues have been fixed in the new Miniature Naming version and since I’ll be uploading it soon, I’ll use that one as the next public release for iOS. You’ll get Scenarios and Miniature Naming at the same time.
Here’s a screenshot of the new Miniature Naming that I’m working on for 3D Virtual Tabletop. It’ll be great for keeping track of different monsters and make it easier for players to say which enemy they are attacking. I could have really used this in a past encounter where I ambushed the party with 28 orc-like creatures. It would have made it much easier to identify each adversary.
The names are saved with scenarios so you can set them up beforehand. I like to do this to give monsters descriptive names like “Bugbear with Torn Left Ear” rather than just a number. Everyone in the game can see the name, so you can’t use it for private info, but if you’re making notes, you can use it as an identifier. Names can also be changed on the fly to reflect conditions, which is especially helpful if you end a session halfway through a combat.
Good news for iPad and iPhone users. The update for 3D Virtual Tabletop that has loading and saving of scenarios, is now waiting for approval by Apple for the App Store. In the past it has taken them somewhere between 7 and 10 days to let it through.
Great news! I’ve just finished uploading the latest update for 3D Virtual Tabletop to Google Play. The big new thing is loading and saving of scenarios. There’s a new button on the right for it. Saving a scenario stores the map with fog of war, and the locations of all the minis, along with the “Show Grid” and “Snap to Grid” settings that you’re using on the tabletop. This makes it really easy to pick up where you left off last session. At the moment, the scenarios are just stored locally on the device. A future update will sync them with your account so that you can access them anywhere. As with all updates, it may be a few hours before it appears on Google Play for you.
I still have a little work to do to get Scenarios working on iOS. Hopefully it’ll only be another day or so, but I’ll let you all know when that’s out too.
I’ve got scenario loading and saving working well. Before I release it though, I need to take care of handling the GM permissions correctly with the scenarios. Whatever your GM wants hidden, should stay hidden. Also, what’s the right thing to do when you’re a GM in a multiplayer game and you load a scenario where you were a player? There are a few things like that to sort out. I’ve also been doing some tidying up around fog of war, so that will work better than before.
Here’s a preview of the new Scenarios screen that I’m working on. From here you can take a snapshot of the tabletop and load it again later. It saves the position and facing of the minis, and the fog of war. It’s great if you’re in more than one regular game, or if you just want to play around with 3D Virtual Tabletop in between sessions, and be able to pick up right where you left off. It also lets you prepare encounters ahead of time, so you can bring them in instantly when you’re in the middle of a gaming session.
A significant bunch of my time since the last update has been spent on making fog of war work better with really large maps. It seems that every time I update the app to handle bigger maps, at least one of you wants to you use one even greater in size. The latest version which went out a week ago on Android (and is still waiting for approval for the Apple App Store) has been tested with maps up to 250x250 squares. It’s a struggle for me to find maps that are that big, and that’s also about 10x bigger than the flipmat I use at the in-person game I play, so I hope that works for just about everybody. That update also fixes a few other things, including saving of the tabletop when you leave the app, which should now work all the time.
There is one more thing needed for Scenarios, and that is an icon for the button to get to the Scenarios screen. I really appreciated your help last time with your ideas for the fog of war buttons. Have you got any suggestions for what I could put on the Scenarios button?
You can freely place your miniatures anywhere in 3D Virtual Tabletop, or you can have them automatically snap to the square grid to get them lined up just right. Turning snap to grid off is great for playing on hex maps.
Since the fog of war release came out I’ve had some great feedback about it. Much of my time has been spent refining the way it works and there will be another update with a few finishing touches.
I’ve also been laying the groundwork for saving of scenarios/encounters. This becomes especially important with fog of war, as you want the app to remember which areas have been explored so far. It’ll make it much easier to pick up where you left off, and will be the next major feature you can expect to come out.
Someone sent this to me and I just had to share it with you, I still get a kick out of seeing these things. It’s the largest map I’ve seen used in 3D Virtual Tabletop and proves you can use big battlemaps even on a phone, with multitouch making it so easy to zoom in and out. Most of the map is dim because this is the GM’s view and those parts are hidden by fog of war. The illuminated area shows what the players can see. Even with the resolution limit on a map this big, it’s still very playable when you zoom right in.
It’s finally here, available now on Google Play and the Apple App Store. There are still a couple of rough edges around fog of war that I need to smooth off, but I hope you’re pleased with how it’s working at the moment. Unfortunately the one on the Apple App Store does have some significant bugs still as it’s a few weeks behind due to their long approval process. There is, however, a new update for iOS waiting in the wings, so feel free to wait 2 weeks before trying it out, you’ll be happier with it then. I’m also trying to get a video made to explain how to use fog of war, it’ll likely be a week or so before that’s available. I have, though, tried to make it simple enough to work out by just playing around.
Here’s something we haven’t seen in a while, 3D Virtual Tabletop running in a web browser!
While waiting for the fog of war update to be approved and released, I’ve resumed work on the web version. It’s not ready for release yet, but as the next few mobile updates come out, I’ll also be improving the web version to catch it up with them. Notice the on left toolbar, the extra button at the bottom for manipulating the fog of war. It can do that, but you can’t add your own maps and miniature yet, that’s one of the few things left to do.
In other news, I upgraded my Nexus tablet to Android 5 and discovered that the fog of war update fails to start on the newer version. It worked fine on Android 4. I don’t know what’s causing it yet, so I’m not sure how long it will take to fix. This is going to hold up the general release of the fog of war update. There have been a few issues reported by other users of the Unity engine on Android 5, at least some of which have been fixed. I hope it’s something simple, rather than a Unity issue, because then I can get the fix out and release the new version sooner. Luckily this does not affect iPad/iPhone so no need to wait for that approval process, I can get the fix out immediately after it is done.
