What is the Assets Library?
The Assets Library is where your asset files are uploaded to. These include all images, video files, and audio files.
The Assets Library is separate from your Data as it allows us to provide users with a a streamlined user experience.
The assets library can be thought of as a folder for Foundry content, reserved for all images, videos and music. It has a separate quota limit from the data library, which holds game data, and installed systems and modules.
How to manage your Asset Library
We have a guide to managing your asset library here.
Advantages and Limitations
The assets library brings with it a variety of enhancements to improve the Foundry VTT experience. That said, it also has a few limitations that are important to know.
Geo distribution
Every asset in our asset library is distributed through a global network of servers, through our CDN (content distribution network). This means that no matter where players are, they’ll be able to download scenes, music, and other important game media within seconds.
Image optimization
Images uploaded to the assets library are automatically optimized when viewed from within a Foundry VTT game. If a player is using a browser that supports the WebP format, a WebP version of the image will be served instead, making it download even faster. This improves the loading time for a game/world, as well as when loading into a new scene.
Player assets isolation
Since every user logged into The Forge has their own personal Assets Library, this means that players can upload their own art without needing to see within the GM’s asset library- helpfully avoiding accidental spoilers.
Additionally, it means that players in multiple games are not required to upload files they use over and over again, since their asset library will travel with them from game to game.
Using High Resolution Maps
While our automatic data size reduction is helpful for loading, an image larger than the recommended canvas size still risks crashing weaker computers. Because of this, The Forge recommends that images be no larger than 4096x4096 in size.
If an image is larger than this for a scene, we recommend dividing the image in an art editing program, and placing each image section as a tile. Even if it works on one computer, it can easily crash on a weaker computer, such as a laptop. Exceed this resolution at your own risk!