Jumpgate Quality of Life & Feature Improvements

Jumpgate, Roll20’s Improved Tabletop Experience, is the largest overhaul and modernization of our VTT platform since we started. Alongside reworking the engine that powers our Tabletop, we took the opportunity to lean into the recent UI improvements that we’ve been making over the past year (such as the new Measure Tool and Page Folders). We’ve extended the effort to improve the Roll20’s Interface in Jumpgate, and we are going to continuing this effort in the future.

Here’s the incredible list of new features and quality of life improvements that Jumpgate offers thus far!

 

New Dynamic Lighting tool in Left Toolbar, letting you focus on gameplay and vibes, not troubleshooting:

  • Subscribers now have access to a fully revamped Dynamic Lighting tool accessible in Left Toolbar, which consolidates all relevant settings in one place.

  • You’ll see real-time updates to your map as you adjust things, with updated tooltips providing additional clarity. This eliminates the need to navigate to and switch between tabs in page settings.

  • Dynamic Lighting will also include Explorer Mode (formerly “Explorable Darkness”), enabling a map area to become and stay revealed to a player – in a neat sepia color – once their token has seen it. Explorer mode is still editable, but in a new context, so that users don’t get confused between explorer mode and hide/reveal! Learn more here.

  • To help troubleshoot lighting issues quickly, we’ve added a diagnostics section to the footer of the Dynamic Lighting tool (helping callout tokens with vision, and light sources on the map). When users mouse over the footer, "tokens with vision" and "light sources" are highlighted on the map to help diagnose and troubleshoot setup issues quicker.

  • Added animated darkness effects, such as Dark Fog or Pale Mist to create a more immersive experience.

Updated Hide / Reveal Mask tool to make GMing smoother and more intuitive:

  • All users can enjoy a simpler and clearer interface for hiding and revealing areas of the map during game play with Hide / Reveal Mask tool. Previously called “Permanent Darkness” within Fog of War, this tool allows for quick hide-and-reveal actions to manage map visibility on the fly.
  • We simplified the language and instructions to make things clear and more accessible, removing ambiguity around terms like “add” and “subtract.” We’re also retiring references to Fog of War, Permanent Darkness and Explorable Darkness to remove perceived overlap with Dynamic Lighting – just hide or reveal some stuff! Learn more here.

Play with Both D&D 5E Character Sheets in Your Game on Jumgpate:

  • You can now use both D&D 5E (2014) and D&D 5E (2024) Character Sheets on Roll20 when using Jumpgate - pick your preferred sheet for characters & NPCs! Learn more here.

Copy Mods (API) scrips on game copy:

  • We added a new capability to copy Mods (API) scripts when copying any game

Effects (FX) Tool  has uplifted UI and effects and is available to all users!

  • The Effects (FX) tool, previously exclusive to paid GMs, is now available to everyone as part of Roll20’s improved tabletop experience, Project Jumpgate.
  • This update includes a revamped pre-built Effects Library featuring and updated UI, enhanced visuals, new Effects, and a better interface featuring quality-of-life improvements like more precise click-and-drag gesturing and measurement. Pro subscribers can access advanced customization options, allowing for unique particle effects tailored to any scenario

Zooming is overall smoother and more refined:

  • Zooming will now zoom to the location of your cursor
  • Radial menus will remain in the correct position while zooming
  • You can hold down the Shift key while zooming to do precision zooming

Panning is more performant, smoother, and unrestricted:

  • Freely pan beyond bounds of the page, to focus attention anywhere and positioning your game however it suits your setup

Re-Center Map feature allows you to easily re-center your map view:

  • When pressing the new “Center the Map” button by the Zoom control, all it does is center the map.
  • If you hold Shift while clicking the button, it also resets to 100% zoom.

  • If you press the “Home” shortcut, it only resets the map.

  • If you press “Shift + Home”, it resets the map and resets to 100% zoom.

Place objects outside the bounds of your maps:

  • Objects that you place outside the page boundary will be visible to only the GM
  • Place objects outside the bounds of your maps, keeping enemy tokens, quick sketches, and more to the side, ready to bring in when needed.

Right-click context menu has been redesigned:

  • We surfaced many menu actions that were previously only available to players via keyboard shortcuts
  • You can now perform actions on groups of objects all at once with the right-click menu including locking their position
  • Players now have ability to flip tokens vertically and horizontally

Page Folders has additional features: 

  • "My Page" title in the top left corner of Page Toolbar is replaced by the user's current page, making it easier to identify where you are and access page settings

Fog of War and Dynamic Lighting systems has been closer integrated and improved to provide a more cohesive light and darkness interactions:

  • There's a new UI for the Fog of War tool that should make it more clear what it is that you're able to do with adding and removing fog
  • The basic Fog of War system is now integrated into the overall Dynamic Lighting system. So basic Fog of War and Permanent Darkness for Dynamic Lighting are now the same functionality
  • The Legacy Dynamic Lighting system has been removed and is not available in Jumpgate games
  • *Upcoming: we are working to further refine the Interface of Permanent and Explorable Darkness in response to user confusion, so be on the lookout for more updates!

 Undo & Redo is updated and applies to a wider variety of actions:

  • We’ve added Redo! The Ctrl+Y/Cmd+Y shortcut will now Redo if you Undo something and want to revert your Undo
  • There’s now support for undoing and redoing a wider variety of actions; we’ll continue to add more
  • Undo and Redo are now page specific – so if you change to a different page and press Undo, you won’t have something weird happen

Ping system had a facelift:

  • The default ping look & feel has been improved when you click and hold on the tabletop
  • We now have a new system for pings in the backend, opening the possibility to customize ping images in the future

Align/Snap to Grid works with resizing:

  • Snap to edge for all grid types works
  • We also improved snapping when resizing, and you’ll now see that tokens will snap at half and quarter size inside of a grid cell

Tablets & Touch Devices have improved support:

  • The performance is majorly improved
  • Panning and zooming now work well, long-press to bring up the context menu works better, etc
  • Multi-gestures are possible (i.e. start a marquee select, zoom or pan, keep selecting)
  • We’ll continue to work on making this a better experience, but this work is still in early development.

Hex Grids have been updated, enabling precise setting and measuring of distances:

  • Measurement distances when using hex grids should now work properly
  • Improved keyboard movement for hex and iso/dimetric grid types
  • We made update to grid labels to increase the maximum number you can have on a map
  • Hex Grids have the number of rows and columns consistent with Page settings where you specify the number of cells

Doors & Windows are easier to set up and maneuver for game preparation:

  • You can now Copy and Paste doors and windows
  • We’ve also enabled you to multi-select doors and windows alongside other objects by pressing Shift and clicking on doors and windows on Lighting Layer
  • On Token layer, you can now multi-select to open/close multiple doors & windows at the same time
  • On Lighting layer, you can Shift Click to multi-select and more multiple doors & windows at the same time

Objects Multi-Selecting & Pasting have been improved:

  • Pasting multiple times in a row will now spread out the objects you have pasted so you can easily see them and move them
  • When dragging to select multiple objects with the marquee tool, you will now see immediate feedback on what you’re selecting
  • When a group is a member of a multi-select, you can hold down the Shift key while clicking a group member to remove all group members from the selection. (You can hold down Shift + Alt to remove only a single member of the group from the selection)
  • You can now apply all actions (e.g. lock placement, bring to front/back, add turn, etc)  from the right click context menu to all of the objects in a multi-selected group

Token Extras, Token Movement, Token View have improved handling:

  • Token tooltips are more responsive to hovering and are easier to see
  • Auras resize dynamically with token and isometric circle auras are more accurately sized
  • There’s something here we may have also improved that’s missing (and not a bug)?
  • Pressing X to show previous token movement toggles into a mode where all previous moves will persist until deselected
  • You can use the V shortcut on your keyboard to view the tokens you control on top in the moment! If you would like to view your tokens consistently on top, you can also enable "Always display controlled tokens on top" in Graphics sections of your Settings. Players should expect to see only their name plates and token bars if darkness appears on the page, and can use the V shortcut or the settings update to view their token art on top.

Rotating & Resizing objects, maps and tokens is much easier:

  • Rotation resizing handle are always visible and easier to grab at any level of zoom
  • Token bars, nameplates, markers and auras smoothly and consistently rotate and resize with objects 
  • Token bars and nameplates now scale to half-cell and quarter-cell sizes

System Performance Improvements:

  • We’ll now automatically choose a default Frame Rate Limit for you based on the quality of your detected graphics card, enabling higher-end computers to see much smoother animation experience. You can override this setting and change it manually still under the Settings tab, in the Graphics section.
  • For Mac users, the CPU usage when joining a video call inside the Roll20 VTT using our Integrated Voice and Video platform has been greatly reduced, so you should have a better game experience. (We also rolled this out to non-Jumpgate games as well!)
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