Maybe bitten off more than I can chew here. I'm trying to create a few abilities for my map and some of them are giving me headaches. Any help on any of them would be great.
Toggle ability - Thermal Vision: (it's basically a fancy detection that can be turned on and off)
· I want the terrain to darken
· All units and hidden/burrowed units to highlight with a red body heat tint.
Target ability - artilary strike: (This one is giving me no end of headaches)
· The shots come from 6 siege tanks that sit by the HQ, I want them to face the target and fire 1 shot each.
· No missiles are needed here as the shots will be considered to have traveled upwards at a speed which makes them unseen. (think train artilary)
· The shots should have air time, so the further they travel the longer it takes to reach the target.
· When the shots drop from the air onto the location, I want them to scatter slightly to give them a random indirect fire look to them, and so they cover a larger area.
More of a question for clarification this last one. Do hardened shields replace normal sields, if so can they be upgraded like normal shields, how does it effect them? I want to give terran units buyable shield generators and the possibilty of having a hardened shield upgrade for those. I'm not sure how it would work in game terms though, or if it would break the game.
@PurpleFantum
not an expert at all so my reply is more general thoughts not specific help.
Thermal vision - maybe a lighting setup to create the effect, then ability trigger to switch it on/off
Artillery strike - perhaps the nuke ability adjusted would give a similar affect but with triggers to turn the units.
no idea on the last one, hope this helps even a little.
Thermal Vision - Copy something similar to the Raynor (Sniper) ability to detect enemies to a certain distance first of all; then attach a circular region slightly smaller than the detect distance, and make that the "within sight" range... with your unit at the centre, when enemy units enter this region set their tint color to x (red/orange/yellow) and up the HDR Multiplier to 5.0 or so... this will give them a nice glowy look. Finally, set the fog density to match the diameter of the inner "sight" region around the player. Make sense? :)
Artillery Strike - I'm not sure exactly how to do this, but off the top of my head... attach 3x3 region or so to your Siege Tanks. When the artillery fires, move this region to target, and that's where you create the explosion. As for the randomness, I'm a bit stuck, maybe create a larger circular region attached to the smaller one, and move it as well... then apply the attack to say, upper left corner of larger circle, lower left, center, etc. And this probably isn't NEARLY as efficient as some people around here might tackle it, but for the distance... create a grid of regions, depending on how precise you want to be, say 9 regions total. 3x3, if your Siege Tanks are in region 1-1 (bottom left) and target is in 3-3 (upper right), wait x seconds before applying the ability.
And sorry but I haven't actually played around with shields much. Good luck and post some vids or something if it works.
EDIT: oh and toggling them is easy enough... create a few booleans and a keystroke event. User presses "T" key; If thermal_on == false, turn on, else turn off. lol Something similar to that, I made a flashlight work like this in one of my maps.
I've been thinking about the artilary strike... tell me if you think this will work.
Leave the units as normal siege tanks, but extend the range to say 300 so they can target anywhere. This will also make them turn thier turrets as they do that to fire anyway.
Put thier firing speed up to say 10 seconds.
Change thier firing mode to include a projectile.
Make the projectile arc so it disapears above the camera while traveling. This way it'll drop into view as it lands.
Have a 5 second timer that cancels thier auto attack, this will start after the first shot. Making them fire only once.
Link it all to an ability with a long cooldown.
Customise the projectile damage.
Only hard parts for me if all of that works is, creating an arcing projectile and i've still no idea about how to scatter the shots as they land. Does that sound like it would work how I intended?
It would be easier to change the Siege Tank's behavior to defensive instead of offensive (or even passive), so that it only attacks when you tell it too, and leave the range at 300. But you shouldn't need to make a projectile, the Tank's default attack animation should be sufficient. I'm not sure how you want to deal out the damage, but what I'm thinking is... make the Tank's attack do 0 damage. When artillery is fired, pan camera to Siege Tank, move that region I was talking about to the position of the target, fire, pan camera to the position of the target, (the first shot will have already animated, so...) fire again, now move the target region -5,-5 fire again, +10,+10, fire again... this should give the effect of random shots... while dealing no damage. After the barrage is over, then you apply x amount of damage to target unit.
Seems like it'd be way simpler than making a custom projectile, making it arc, etc etc
For thermal vision...your going to need to use triggers and stuff. My advice is this (only works in single player probably)- when you use thermal vision, you set the lighting to something dark and creepy like Meinhof night. Then pick each unit that is an enemy of the player and send them actor messages to glow and turn the halo on. Also you will need to make the unit a detector while this is active. That will look VERY cool. In fact.. I might make a tutorial about this. =]
@QMJ3: It's 6 of one half a dozen of the other, it'll be tricky no matter method i'm using. The idea about using a projectile was that I can change it's speed to add the travel time aswell as causing the arc effect to have the area bombarded from above. Although you're right, making an arcing projectile is high level stuff and a pain. And yeh i forgot to mention about making the tanks behavior passive, otherwise with a 300 range they would be shooting all over the place.
As for the random factor that's a good idea about the spreading around a single point, which I can create when the player targets the area and destroy with when it's finished. But I wanted the damage to be spread aswell so as not to one shot whatever it hits, otherwise it'll become a cheap ability that gets over used. So I think i'll either go with an invisible projectile and forget about the arc, or rack my brains about getting it working. But i'll defenately use your spread idea. Which infact gave me another idea, How about having 4 normal siege tanks and one of the larger Merc models with a heavier damaging explosion and a slower travel time, so it peppers the area with small blasts then one big BOOM. It's all about the looks for me, I just want things to be fun to use and pleasing to the eye.
@zeldarules28: Yeh that's pretty much what I want, although I want it for multi player. Do you think changing the players view to a camera shot and change the light settings for just the single camera would work? If I set the camera to track the unit it should act like normal and only effect the player who's unit it is, I haven't worked with cameras yet so i'm not sure if it can be done or not, I may be talking rubbish., but the idea is sound.
As for the tutorial, that would be awsome to see it in effect. I'm mostly at the idea and planning stage and i'm not 100% on the editor itself yet, i've only done C level coding so until i'm used to the editor I won't get as far as I want very fast (Although the prinicples of it are easy enough, it's finding out where blizzard put everything). To see one of my ideas as a working model would make me really happy.
nah, all he needs to do is make the unit have a buff, that detects when units get within X range, and applys a buff to those units that change tint, no triggers needed here at all.
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Would that tint only be visible to the player who's unit is seeing the enemies though? Since the thermal vision would apply to none hidden units aswell, as they would have a heat source too, infact it would apply to ALL units on the map in visible range of the unit using that ability, but only that players unit, or maybe his allies too, dunno on that one, depends what makes it balanced since it would be a hero ability.
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Maybe bitten off more than I can chew here. I'm trying to create a few abilities for my map and some of them are giving me headaches. Any help on any of them would be great.
Toggle ability - Thermal Vision: (it's basically a fancy detection that can be turned on and off) · I want the terrain to darken · All units and hidden/burrowed units to highlight with a red body heat tint.
Target ability - artilary strike: (This one is giving me no end of headaches) · The shots come from 6 siege tanks that sit by the HQ, I want them to face the target and fire 1 shot each. · No missiles are needed here as the shots will be considered to have traveled upwards at a speed which makes them unseen. (think train artilary) · The shots should have air time, so the further they travel the longer it takes to reach the target. · When the shots drop from the air onto the location, I want them to scatter slightly to give them a random indirect fire look to them, and so they cover a larger area.
More of a question for clarification this last one. Do hardened shields replace normal sields, if so can they be upgraded like normal shields, how does it effect them? I want to give terran units buyable shield generators and the possibilty of having a hardened shield upgrade for those. I'm not sure how it would work in game terms though, or if it would break the game.
Thanks in advance for any help.
@PurpleFantum: Go
Cool ideas!
Thermal Vision - Copy something similar to the Raynor (Sniper) ability to detect enemies to a certain distance first of all; then attach a circular region slightly smaller than the detect distance, and make that the "within sight" range... with your unit at the centre, when enemy units enter this region set their tint color to x (red/orange/yellow) and up the HDR Multiplier to 5.0 or so... this will give them a nice glowy look. Finally, set the fog density to match the diameter of the inner "sight" region around the player. Make sense? :)
Artillery Strike - I'm not sure exactly how to do this, but off the top of my head... attach 3x3 region or so to your Siege Tanks. When the artillery fires, move this region to target, and that's where you create the explosion. As for the randomness, I'm a bit stuck, maybe create a larger circular region attached to the smaller one, and move it as well... then apply the attack to say, upper left corner of larger circle, lower left, center, etc. And this probably isn't NEARLY as efficient as some people around here might tackle it, but for the distance... create a grid of regions, depending on how precise you want to be, say 9 regions total. 3x3, if your Siege Tanks are in region 1-1 (bottom left) and target is in 3-3 (upper right), wait x seconds before applying the ability.
And sorry but I haven't actually played around with shields much. Good luck and post some vids or something if it works.
EDIT: oh and toggling them is easy enough... create a few booleans and a keystroke event. User presses "T" key; If thermal_on == false, turn on, else turn off. lol Something similar to that, I made a flashlight work like this in one of my maps.
I've been thinking about the artilary strike... tell me if you think this will work.
Leave the units as normal siege tanks, but extend the range to say 300 so they can target anywhere. This will also make them turn thier turrets as they do that to fire anyway. Put thier firing speed up to say 10 seconds. Change thier firing mode to include a projectile. Make the projectile arc so it disapears above the camera while traveling. This way it'll drop into view as it lands. Have a 5 second timer that cancels thier auto attack, this will start after the first shot. Making them fire only once. Link it all to an ability with a long cooldown. Customise the projectile damage.
Only hard parts for me if all of that works is, creating an arcing projectile and i've still no idea about how to scatter the shots as they land. Does that sound like it would work how I intended?
@PurpleFantum: Go
It would be easier to change the Siege Tank's behavior to defensive instead of offensive (or even passive), so that it only attacks when you tell it too, and leave the range at 300. But you shouldn't need to make a projectile, the Tank's default attack animation should be sufficient. I'm not sure how you want to deal out the damage, but what I'm thinking is... make the Tank's attack do 0 damage. When artillery is fired, pan camera to Siege Tank, move that region I was talking about to the position of the target, fire, pan camera to the position of the target, (the first shot will have already animated, so...) fire again, now move the target region -5,-5 fire again, +10,+10, fire again... this should give the effect of random shots... while dealing no damage. After the barrage is over, then you apply x amount of damage to target unit.
Seems like it'd be way simpler than making a custom projectile, making it arc, etc etc
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Curse PremiumFor thermal vision...your going to need to use triggers and stuff. My advice is this (only works in single player probably)- when you use thermal vision, you set the lighting to something dark and creepy like Meinhof night. Then pick each unit that is an enemy of the player and send them actor messages to glow and turn the halo on. Also you will need to make the unit a detector while this is active. That will look VERY cool. In fact.. I might make a tutorial about this. =]
@QMJ3: It's 6 of one half a dozen of the other, it'll be tricky no matter method i'm using. The idea about using a projectile was that I can change it's speed to add the travel time aswell as causing the arc effect to have the area bombarded from above. Although you're right, making an arcing projectile is high level stuff and a pain. And yeh i forgot to mention about making the tanks behavior passive, otherwise with a 300 range they would be shooting all over the place.
As for the random factor that's a good idea about the spreading around a single point, which I can create when the player targets the area and destroy with when it's finished. But I wanted the damage to be spread aswell so as not to one shot whatever it hits, otherwise it'll become a cheap ability that gets over used. So I think i'll either go with an invisible projectile and forget about the arc, or rack my brains about getting it working. But i'll defenately use your spread idea. Which infact gave me another idea, How about having 4 normal siege tanks and one of the larger Merc models with a heavier damaging explosion and a slower travel time, so it peppers the area with small blasts then one big BOOM. It's all about the looks for me, I just want things to be fun to use and pleasing to the eye.
@zeldarules28: Yeh that's pretty much what I want, although I want it for multi player. Do you think changing the players view to a camera shot and change the light settings for just the single camera would work? If I set the camera to track the unit it should act like normal and only effect the player who's unit it is, I haven't worked with cameras yet so i'm not sure if it can be done or not, I may be talking rubbish., but the idea is sound.
As for the tutorial, that would be awsome to see it in effect. I'm mostly at the idea and planning stage and i'm not 100% on the editor itself yet, i've only done C level coding so until i'm used to the editor I won't get as far as I want very fast (Although the prinicples of it are easy enough, it's finding out where blizzard put everything). To see one of my ideas as a working model would make me really happy.
@zeldarules28: Go
nah, all he needs to do is make the unit have a buff, that detects when units get within X range, and applys a buff to those units that change tint, no triggers needed here at all.
@Molsterr: Go
Would that tint only be visible to the player who's unit is seeing the enemies though? Since the thermal vision would apply to none hidden units aswell, as they would have a heat source too, infact it would apply to ALL units on the map in visible range of the unit using that ability, but only that players unit, or maybe his allies too, dunno on that one, depends what makes it balanced since it would be a hero ability.