Update 0.9 Feature Prioritization Vote!

Hello dear Patreon supporter community. I hope you have been enjoying all of the festivities as we celebrate our birthday with our "Anniversary Week Celebration"! With the stable release of version 0.8.6 arriving this coming Monday, we are turning our attention toward the future and considering which major features we will develop and include in 0.9.x.

During our past two votes on feature prioritization, our awesome patreon community made their voices heard. The community selected priority for 0.7.x brought us the Active Effects (V1) system, which provided an official structure and mechanism for Actors to be modified by temporary effects which change their attributes. For 0.8.x the community poll led to the prioritization of the popular Overhead Tiles system, which added a new canvas layer above Tokens that can be used to display overhead obstacles like building roofs, tree tops, overpass bridges, or other obstacles.

As we now look toward the future of the software and 0.9.x specifically, we are going to once again call upon all of you great people to help guide and steer which one feature we should elevate above the others and focus first. Just a reminder that this poll is not for deciding whether a feature will be implemented or not, but rather which one of these features we should work to include at this time. We greatly appreciate those of you who give back to Foundry Virtual Tabletop, and we’re always thankful for direct input and feedback from the community.

We have 9 exciting options to vote on, and we can't wait to see which major feature the community champions as its choice for 0.9. To participate in that decision-making process, please choose the feature which you feel to be most important to you from the below list of options. The options are presented in alphabetical order.

The poll will remain open until Friday, June 11. Join the discussion in the comments section and let us know what you're voting for and why!

Feature Choices and Descriptions

Advanced Measured Templates which will improve upon the Measured Template system to add advanced template animations for common elemental and damage types with support for effects like fireballs, ice blasts, lightning bolts, and more. Additionally, there will be support to attach a Measured Templates to a Token which can allow it to be rendered as an aura effect which moves in sync with the Token that created it.

Advanced Wall Types which are made possible by the advancements in wall detection and vision handling in 0.7.x. This feature will implement new wall functionality like curved walls which allow a wall segment to be transformed into an arc which can smoothly connect two points with a curved segment. This will allow for rounded building or terrain shapes to be made using far fewer line segments which will improve the accuracy of dynamic lighting as well as (potentially) improving performance by reducing the count of Wall objects in each Scene.

Card Decks and Hands which will extend the Roll Tables system to include a special type of table represents a Card Deck. A Card Deck will have a special UI, and which cards have been drawn from the Deck will be tracked at the User level in the concept of a Hand as well as API to support typical operations like shuffles, draws, discards, and more. This feature will add official API support to use card decks as well as an interface for users to create their own custom decks.

Event Triggers (V1) which will add the foundation for a comprehensive system for scripted or triggered events. You will be able to define trigger regions on a map with a variety of triggering conditions including (but not limited to) tokens moving into or across the region. When the trigger condition is activated, the event trigger will execute a linked Macro which will be executed for all users, allowing for the configuration of sophisticated scripted events like revealing enemies, warping between linked locations, toggling lighting conditions, or activating a trap.

Improved Canvas Interaction Tools which will provide GMs and players a broader selection of ways to indicate their actions, where their attention is, and how they interact with scenes. Potential include the ability to ping position on the canvas, change the way canvas zoom works to be mouse-oriented rather than centred on the scene, mark the starting position for tokens at the beginning of a turn, and indicate which actors are on deck during combat. Additionally, GMs would gain new tools such as the ability to pull player vision to certain areas of the canvas (including changing zoom levels), and limiting a player’s view to be centered upon their controlled token.

Improved Weather and Special Effects which will expand and iterate upon the initial Weather Effects and Animations framework already included in Foundry VTT using advanced WebGL shaders (like the new ones used for lighting). This will incorporate a wider variety of built-in visual weather effects, and improve weather performance for large maps by optimizing the particle emitters used for weather. In addition to this, existing shader and weather effects will be expanded with greater customization options, and the ability to apply shader animations to tiles, templates and drawings.

Journal System (V2) - An overhaul of the Journals and map note systems to improve the UI and UX for Journal entries, including ability to dynamically link to specific sections of Journals, additional fonts, collapsible sections and more. Map Notes would be expanded to allow creation of notes directly on the canvas, include ability to use any image as a Map Note, and limit the visibility of map notes based on controlled token.

Placeable Items which will allow Item entities to be placed inside a Scene. Placed items can be activated or picked up by an Actor, potentially triggering scripted actions. Placed items will be able to use image or video artwork and to have their appearance customized with color tinting or other image manipulations, having many of the features of the Actor Token framework applied to them.

Simple Fog of War which would provide an alternative to the default dynamic fog of war system. Simple fog of war would provide GMs with options to manually manage fog exploration by concealing or revealing areas with a brush or polygon.