Line of Sight & Fog

Encounter+ has two ways to hide a map from your players, and they solve different problems.

System	How it works
Fog of war	You paint what is hidden and what is revealed
Line of sight	The app works out what each token can see, from walls and lights

Fog of war is manual and predictable. Line of sight is automatic and dramatic. Most maps use both.

Tip

For the performance and rendering options, see Battle Map Settings → Line of Sight.

Fog of war

Turning it on

1. Tap .
2. Enable Fog of War.

The fog tools appear on the toolbar, and everything starts hidden.

Revealing an area

1. Tap .
2. Draw a shape on the map.
3. Tap inside the shape to reveal it.

Hiding an area

1. Tap .
2. Draw a shape on the map.
3. Tap inside the shape to hide it.

Switching modes

Tap or a second time to reach the options:

• Swap between revealing and hiding.
• Choose rectangle or freehand drawing.

Rectangles suit rooms. Freehand suits caves.

Exploration

With exploration on, revealed ground stays revealed once the party has been there — the map fills in as they explore, like a video game map.

With it off, only what is currently visible is shown.

Line of sight

Enable Line of Sight in and the app computes what your players can see, live, from three things:

1. Walls — what blocks vision.
2. Lights — what illuminates the map.
3. Token vision — what each creature can see with.

Move a token and the visible area changes with it. Open a door and the room beyond appears.

Drawing walls

Draw walls with or on the wall layer. Draw along every solid edge — room walls, cliff edges, the outside of a building.

• Rectangle and Line styles suit rectangular corridors.
• Freehand suits caverns.
• Tap to snap to the grid. Freehand never snaps.

You do not have to be neat. A wall a few pixels off looks identical in play.

Wall types

Not everything that stops a creature stops its eyes. Each wall has a type:

Type	Blocks vision	Blocks movement	Use for
Normal	yes	yes	Ordinary walls
Invisible	no	yes	Windows, railings, force fields
Ethereal	yes	no	Curtains, fog banks, hidden passages
Terrain	at a distance	at a distance	Pillars, boulders, trees
Door	depends on its state	depends on its state	Doors
Secret door	like a door	like a door	Doors your players do not know about

Terrain is the clever one. A creature standing beside a pillar can see and move past it, but the same pillar still blocks vision from across the room — which is how a real pillar behaves.

One-sided walls

A wall can block from one side only. That gives you a balcony you can see down from but not up to, or a one-way window.

Doors

A door wall carries a state — closed, open, or locked — that you change during play. Tap it to open it, and everything behind it comes into view.

A secret door is not shown to your players until you reveal it. To them it looks like wall.

The walls generator

Drawing walls by hand takes time. The walls generator does it for you, based on the walkable floor you paint on the floor layer.

1. Paint the walkable floor of the dungeon.
2. Tap .
3. Tap Walls Generator.
4. Adjust the parameters and tap Generate.

Parameter	What it does
Wall Offset	How far the wall sits from the edge of the floor
Floor Color	Only use floor painted in this colour
Continuous	One unbroken wall per edge, instead of separate segments

It works best on dungeons with straight corridors. Run it as often as you like — each run replaces the walls from the last one, so experimenting costs nothing.

Lights

A light source lights the area around it, out to two radii: bright light first, then dim light.

Setting	What it does
Enabled	Whether it is lit — a torch can be put out without deleting it
Bright / Dim radius	How far the light reaches, in grid units
Color and Opacity	How the light tints the map
Always Visible	Show the light even in areas the players cannot see

Always Visible is for a campfire across the valley, or a lit window in a house the party has not reached yet.

A light can sit on the map, or be attached to a piece of scenery — a brazier that lights the room and moves with the furniture.

Daylight and vision limit

Two map-wide settings shape the whole scene:

• Daylight raises the ambient light level. Turn it up for outdoor maps, where nobody needs a torch; leave it dark for dungeons.
• Vision Limit caps how far anything can be seen, regardless of light. Use it for fog, blizzards and heavy undergrowth.

Token vision

Lights show what is lit. Token vision decides who sees it.

Each token has its own settings — see Tokens:

• Vision off means the token sees nothing and contributes nothing.
• Light is a source the token carries, which lights the map for everyone.
• Darkvision lets the token see without light, and reveals the map to that token alone.

A party in a dark corridor is the clearest example. The human carrying the torch lights the corridor for everyone. The dwarf with darkvision sees further, but only for themselves.

What your players see

Your players see the combined view of the party, and you decide how much is shared.

Shared Party Vision in External Screen Settings has three options — Never, Partial and Always. Partial shares vision while exploring but not during combat, which keeps a scout’s discoveries to themselves once the fight starts.

On your own screen, DM Darkness controls how dark the unseen areas look. Turn it down when you need to see the whole map while your players see only their part of it.

Making it faster

Line of sight is the most expensive thing the map does. Two settings help on large maps and older devices:

• Only Update on Drop recomputes once the token is dropped, rather than continuously while dragging.
• Soft Edges can be turned off for a small saving.

Both are in Battle Map Settings.

Common questions

My players see everything

Check that Line of Sight is on for the map, and that the map actually has walls. Without walls there is nothing to block vision.

My players see nothing

Usually no light and no darkvision. Give someone a torch, raise Daylight, or check that the tokens have Vision enabled.

Light leaks between rooms

A wall is missing or has a gap in it. Zoom in on the corners of the room — small gaps at wall joins are the usual cause.

A door does nothing

Check its type is Door rather than Normal, and that line of sight is on.

Where to go next

• Tokens — the vision settings each creature carries.
• Battle Maps — grid, layers and background.
• Remote Play — what online players see.