So I've been working on making the map analyzer aware of all doodads, specifically the different footprints they have; they block units from walking, or building, or LoS or some combination of these, and I came across some strange behavior for rotated doodads that do not have rotational symmetry (like non-square rectangles).
Here is the same Deadman's Port Dumpster doodad placed horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. The first oddity is that while the no-path footprint (the one that blocks units from walking) will rotate only 90 degrees, the no-build footprint doesn't rotate at all!
Next, notice that the dumpster's no-path footprint is 5x2; which means the center of the doodad (the point about which it rotates) is placed at the midpoint on an edge between two playable cells. The point here is that when you rotate the 5x2 vertically, the footprint actually partially overlaps a 6x3 grid of playable cells. And when the game decides where you can build, it uses BOTH the original no-build footprint (which stays horizontal no matter which way the doodad is rotated) and the 6x3 cells that the no-path (also no-build) footprint when the doodad is more than 45 degrees off horizontal.
The following image illustrates where units cannot walk and what cells are no-build for the placed doodads above.
So what does this mean? If you are placing doodads in very important, well-traveled or critical choke locations on competitive maps: be aware of the no-path and no-build footprints of rotated doodads.
Just look at how silly the SCVs and building placement is for this example doodad in vertical and diagonal rotations:
Just double click the doodad, check "Don't use doodad footprint", paint pathing manually, profit.
Sure, sure. I'm trying to bring this to the mapper's attention who doesn't even realize that silly pathing is being created, like when you are decorating without the pathing layers visible.
So I've been working on making the map analyzer aware of all doodads, specifically the different footprints they have; they block units from walking, or building, or LoS or some combination of these, and I came across some strange behavior for rotated doodads that do not have rotational symmetry (like non-square rectangles).
Here is the same Deadman's Port Dumpster doodad placed horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. The first oddity is that while the no-path footprint (the one that blocks units from walking) will rotate only 90 degrees, the no-build footprint doesn't rotate at all!
Next, notice that the dumpster's no-path footprint is 5x2; which means the center of the doodad (the point about which it rotates) is placed at the midpoint on an edge between two playable cells. The point here is that when you rotate the 5x2 vertically, the footprint actually partially overlaps a 6x3 grid of playable cells. And when the game decides where you can build, it uses BOTH the original no-build footprint (which stays horizontal no matter which way the doodad is rotated) and the 6x3 cells that the no-path (also no-build) footprint when the doodad is more than 45 degrees off horizontal.
The following image illustrates where units cannot walk and what cells are no-build for the placed doodads above.
So what does this mean? If you are placing doodads in very important, well-traveled or critical choke locations on competitive maps: be aware of the no-path and no-build footprints of rotated doodads.
Just look at how silly the SCVs and building placement is for this example doodad in vertical and diagonal rotations:
Just double click the doodad, check "Don't use doodad footprint", paint pathing manually, profit.
Sure, sure. I'm trying to bring this to the mapper's attention who doesn't even realize that silly pathing is being created, like when you are decorating without the pathing layers visible.
Good work dimfish. Maybe this should be part of the next newspost?
What I usually do to work around this is to simply let the doodads not use their footprint and then paint pathing, like mozared said.