Creating Pages and Adjusting Page Settings

  Page Toolbar and Folders Update

Since this article's publication, the Page Toolbar has been updated. Please see this article for an up-to-date look at the Page Toolbar.

We recommend reviewing the Guidelines for Image Resolution and File Types & Prepping For-Print Art Assets articles for tips on optimizing your map artwork for Roll20 before proceeding with uploading maps to Pages!

What is displayed on the Tabletop is all contained within a canvas that is called a “Page”. A single game in Roll20 can store multiple Pages within it. These Pages are all stored in the Page Toolbar that can be accessed by clicking the blue or purple page icon at the top of the browser. The Page that has the “Player Ribbon” on it is the Page that’s loaded for the Players' view. GMs can view and edit any Page at any time by simply clicking on the desired Page from the Page Toolbar.

The Page Toolbar

To access the Page Toolbar, direct your attention to the top of the Tabletop area of the screen. to the left of the View Zoom scrollbar is a button using a page Icon that will reveal the Page Toolbar once clicked. Clicking this button again will close the toolbar again.

Note: Only those with GM access can access this menu. Players' view of the Tabletop will be whatever Page that the "Player Ribbon" is currently placed on. 

  Legacy Page Toolbar

Note: The gif below is the Legacy Page Toolbar; for an updated look at the Page Toolbar, see Page Toolbar and Folders.

Every new game will always have two Pages on the Page Toolbar. The "Create New Page" button and a blank Page titled "Start" will already have the Player Ribbon already set to it.

To create a New Page, open the Page Toolbar:

• Click on the “Create New Page” button and drag the New Page where you want it

Naming Your Page

Change the name of the Page by clicking anywhere on the name itself to enable edit mode. Change the text to your desired name and press Enter/Return to save it. 

  "Start" Page Warning

If you plan to use the default “Start” page in your Addon, it is very important to rename it. If you don’t, you run the risk of this page being overwritten by the default “Start” page in the Customer’s game.

Duplicating a Page

You can create a copy of an existing Page by clicking the three dots that display to the right of a page and selecting "Duplicate Page." Clicking on that will bring up a new menu asking if you wish to include Map & Lighting, Object & Tokens, or GM Info items (these are all checked off by default). Duplicating will also append the text “ (Copy)” to the end of the new Page’s name.

Deleting a Page

You can delete an existing Page by clicking the three dots that display to the right of a page and selecting "Delete." This cannot be undone. 

Adjusting Your Page Order

If you need to rearrange your Pages, you can move them at any time by clicking anywhere on a Page (besides its Name label) and dragging it to its new place in the Page order.

Page Settings

  Legacy Page Toolbar

Note: The gif below is the Legacy Page Toolbar; for an updated look at the Page Toolbar, see Page Toolbar and Folders.

Clicking the gear icon from the righthand side of the Page will open its Page Settings.

A newly created game uses the following Page Settings defaults when creating a new Page:

• 25 x 25 square grid
• White background color
• Semi-transparent grid lines, using D&D 5e/4e measurement rules.

The game owner can change these defaults from the Game Settings Page from the Game Details Page.

There are two tabs on the Page Settings Menu: Page Details and Dynamic Lighting. If you don't see the Dynamic Lighting tab, this is likely due to the Creator of the game not having a Plus or Pro subscription.

Remember to click the Save Changes button before leaving this menu if you adjust anything here!

Page Details Tab

This tab tackles all the general settings for the Page (size, colors, grid, etc).

Page Size

The size of the page canvas can be adjusted here, by changing the Width and Height values. By default, the Cell width and height use increments of 70 pixels, but you can adjust this if you’re dealing with artwork that doesn’t follow a 70x70 pixel scale. Battle maps smaller than 30 x 30 grid units will likely use a scale that’s closer to 140x140 pixels for better image fidelity while zoomed in.

Don’t know how many grid units your map encompasses? You can input the total pixel height and width of your map image and Roll20 will convert it for you.

NOTE: Roll20 uses a baseline of 70 pixels equals 1 inch, when displayed at 100%. While different monitors, browsers, and zoom levels display a different number of actual pixels per inch, this is the baseline measurement used in the platform for the Page Settings measurements.

Background Color

Using the Background Color palette, you can select the fill color for the entire map. Click on the color swatch (white box by default) which will pull up the color chooser. From there, you can either select the color you'd like from the palette or, for advanced users, enter a specific hexadecimal color code. (To find a particular hexadecimal color code, try Colorpicker.com). 

Also, you can choose to automatically set the color of the backdrop (area around the map) to use the dominant color from the board (where your map is). If you turn this on, it will override the backdrop color and replace it with the most dominant color from the board and the map layer images. If there are no map layer images on the board, then it will just use the board color instead. This setting will also update automatically when new images are added to the map layer.

Page Scale

Page Scale allows you to choose what a single grid cell represents in distance. The Page’s default is set to “5 ft.” where every 70 pixels represents 5 feet of distance. If the grid is disabled, the Page Scale sets how much distance is represented by every 70 pixels measured on the Page (at 100% scale).

For the units of measurement, you can choose:

• feet (ft.)
• meters (m.)
• kilometers (km.)
• miles (mi.)
• inches (in.)
• centimeters (cm.)
• units (un.)
• hexagons (hex)
• squares (sq.)
• the last option allows you to create any other custom unit of measurement you need (ex. cubits, football fields, horses, etc)

Grid

To enable or disable the Grid, simply click its On/Off button that's positioned at the top right of this section.

Note: Disabling the grid will also disable any grid-snapping effects since there's nothing for the objects on the Tabletop to snap to.

Grid Types

The Grid Types you can choose from are:

• Square
• Hex (vertical alignment)
• Hex (horizontal alignment)
• Dimetric
• Isometric

If you choose either of the two available Hex grids you will also have the option to display or hide cell labels. These labels appear in the middle of each hex cell.

Measurement

Under Measurement, you can choose how distance is calculated when tackling diagonal movement. You can choose between D&D 5e/4e Compatible, 3.5/Pathfinder Compatible, Euclidean, or Manhattan systems. Read more about the Ruler and measurements here.

Cell Width

The Cell Width settings are useful when dealing with map artwork that is breaking from its intended grid standard. For instance, if you have artwork with a grid drawn on it that is using 10 feet for every grid square, and the rule system you’re using is meant to use 5-foot increments.

In the above example, you can subdivide the grid by replacing the default “1” under Cell Width with “0.5”. Set like this, the grid will draw lines twice as often, making each cell 35 pixels across. Likewise, a size of 2 would double the size of each grid cell. You can enter a number as either a multiplier or in pixels. Whichever field you use, it will automatically convert between cell size and pixels.

Grid Color

This operates in the same way as the Background Color setting. Select what color you'd like your grid lines to be.

Note: When you have a battle map with a grid drawn on the artwork, you will find it easier to align the Roll20 grid with the artwork if you select a contrasting color for the grid!

Grid Opacity

The opacity slider located here will adjust the opacity of the grid. The far left of the slider is 0% opacity (invisible) and the far right is 100% (completely opaque). The opacity value has no impact on grid snapping.

Note: If your artwork has its own grid, it’s pretty common to set the grid opacity down to 0% after aligning the map to the Roll20 grid. That way any minor imperfections that occur during grid alignment won’t be visible and players can utilize the artwork’s grid as their visual cue but still snap their tokens to the expected spaces on the map.

Movement

This is specifically a Dynamic Lighting feature. If the Page utilizes Dynamic Lighting that could block a Player’s movement (like dungeon walls, doors, pillars, etc), enabling the “Dynamic Lighting Barriers Restrict Movement” option will prevent a Player from being able to move their Token past any barriers drawn on the Dynamic Lighting layer.

Fog of War

Fog of War is a tool that the GM can use to manually hide and reveals areas of a Page with basic drawing tools. This feature is used when Dynamic Lighting is either not enabled or simply not available. If Dynamic Lighting is being used, Fog of War can be left toggled Off. There are features within Dynamic Lighting where you can manually hide areas of the map without needing to double up with Fog of War.

GM Darkness Opacity

This setting affects how dark unrevealed areas with either Fog of War or Dynamic Lighting appear to the GM. This helps with QAing your Dynamic Lighting and also for cross-checking what is collectively visible to your players. We recommend Marketplace content set this value to less than 50% so that the Customer can still clearly see the Page when they load up your Adventure.

Audio

This setting is only relevant if you’re using licensed or original audio in your Adventure.

The “Play on Load” setting allows you to set which audio track or playlists that are listed under the game’s Jukebox will automatically start playing when the Player Ribbon is moved to this Page.

It is default set to “None” and this means that if the Jukebox is currently playing any music, moving the Player Ribbon to this Page will not affect playback.

If you want the Jukebox to stop playing ANY audio when the Player Ribbon is set to this Page, choose the “None, but stop all tracks” option.

Archive Page Buttons

You can archive any page to save for use in the future, but these will carry over to the customer's copy. We recommend deleting instead. Archived Pages will appear at the far right end of the Pages, and from there, they can be restored at any time.

Dynamic Lighting Tab

Whether a game can utilize Dynamic Lighting is dependent on the owner of the game, not the GMs or Players within it. The owner of the game must have an active Plus or Pro subscription.

Dynamic Lighting is a lighting system that updates players’ lines of sight in real-time. The settings listed on this tab of the Page Settings enable and disable certain features of Dynamic Lighting. Dynamic Lighting Toggle This toggle turns Dynamic Lighting On or Off for this Page. It's set to Off by default. Setting up Dynamic Lighting is one of the last things you do on a Page (if it calls for it).  Explorer Mode When Dynamic Lighting is On, Players can only see what their Token can based on the token’s vision settings, its linked Character Sheet permissions, and any elements emitting light that are placed on the Page. When turned On, Explorer Mode allows players to keep areas of the Map Layer that they’ve previously explored revealed. The map will be recolored to grayscale when explored areas are no longer in sight of their Token. Tokens and other Objects placed in these explored areas will only be revealed once the Player’s Token returns and they are in line of sight.

Daylight Mode

When turned ON, Daylight Mode adds a light source that lights up the entire Page. This is useful for sunny exterior locations or when interior locations are well-lit.

You can adjust the brightness of “Daylight” via the accompanied slider.

Update when Token Drop

This is an optimization feature. By default, this setting is turned Off. When Dynamic Lighting is On and a Token is picked up and then dragged across the Tabletop, the Dynamic Lighting will continuously update to follow the Token’s movement. This can be process intensive for GMs or Players dealing with an old device or low bandwidth and create a laggy experience for them.

When the “Update when Token Drop” setting is turned On, the Dynamic Lighting only redraws after a Token has been picked up, moved, and dropped back down to the Tabletop.

GM Darkness Opacity

This is the exact same slider found on the Page Details tab. The value syncs between the two tabs so it doesn’t matter which tab you adjust it on.