I have been making a flight simulator for a couple of months in SC2 (see attached screen shots). The pilot starts the game with his ship at 1000 height. I had originally put the camera and default height of the units to 1000 in order to make my dynamic skyboxes display properly below the horizon.
However a new idea occurred to me. Why not change the default pitch of all units to 90 degrees and the camera; effectively making the x-axis and z -axis change places. Unit movement along the z-axis can be simulated PERFECTLY SMOOTH by changing the height of the unit over time and having it display it's movement animation. Custom target and search effects could be used to allow units to fire at each other in the z-y plane instead of the x-y plane. Your y-axis would still be left to right and the x-axis would become your local z axis for simulated height changes.
What you would have in all actuality is a cylinder, the base of the cylinder would have an area of 256x256 (so it's rectangular prism) but the length of the cylinder would be unlimited. See first attached picture.
Although one of the planar directions remains restricted (the y-axis), you can make "background" units appear further away along the y-axis by scaling them down and control their interaction with other units with custom values. Also, in my particular case of a flight simulator the elevation is restricted to a range of 256 units, this really isn't a problem though, because that's actually a huge elevation range, I have mine restricted to 25 units as it is and it's more than enough.
CONS: Terrain will literally be a WALL that blocks the observer and will only be visible is he is looking behind him (looking in the direction of the negative z -axis.
Pathing occurs along the absolute x and y axis. So an AI system will have to be put in place that rewrites pathing in all 3 dimensions (I foresee many WHILE loops for each individual unit on the map running simultaneously).
Gravity will always accelerate objects down the absolute z-axis.
Questions:
Can walkable doodads (terrain objects) be rotated 90 degrees in pitch and work normally from the observer's perspective?
As an answer to your question; yes, it can be done, but not in an easy fashion. Footprints will get messed up. To make this work you'd need to model edit.
We have an open contest with a prize for anyone who comes up with a loadable map larger than the 256x256 limit. I think this is it. Might want to try and get your idea in there?
why not just hack the editor instead... seems simple enough. We have all the files, just someone hack in and change the editor manually to allow it. Whats wrong with knocking on the front door instead of digging tunnels and parachuting in. Might as well try the front door for once...
Because A) that's easier said than done and B) what's the point of that? If you crack the editor your maps won't be loadable by anybody who doesn't have your editor version. Meaning nobody could ever even load up your map.
why not just hack the editor instead... seems simple enough. We have all the files, just someone hack in and change the editor manually to allow it. Whats wrong with knocking on the front door instead of digging tunnels and parachuting in. Might as well try the front door for once...
Not sure if you're serious, but even if the editor is hacked, starcraft 2 will not load the map.
As an answer to your question; yes, it can be done, but not in an easy fashion. Footprints will get messed up. To make this work you'd need to model edit.
We have an open contest with a prize for anyone who comes up with a loadable map larger than the 256x256 limit. I think this is it. Might want to try and get your idea in there?
Would this idea qualify as a winner (for some types of maps)?
Neat workaround, indeed. However, as you mentioned, this would really only be useful for some types of maps. For others, it might be way too much work and too much stuff to care about; or just not work at all.
I cannot imagine, you can recreate SC2 melee gameplay 100% using this method.
It's not just and editor limitation. It's a sc2 limitation. Making a hacked map with a bigger map size defeats the point, because sc2 can't load it up on battle net anyways. I suppose it would be possibile with ctrl F9 testing instead of uploading but...yeah.
I'm not getting exactly what your doing, but sounds good. Keep up the great work! Maybe you will win our prize ;)
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I have been making a flight simulator for a couple of months in SC2 (see attached screen shots). The pilot starts the game with his ship at 1000 height. I had originally put the camera and default height of the units to 1000 in order to make my dynamic skyboxes display properly below the horizon.
However a new idea occurred to me. Why not change the default pitch of all units to 90 degrees and the camera; effectively making the x-axis and z -axis change places. Unit movement along the z-axis can be simulated PERFECTLY SMOOTH by changing the height of the unit over time and having it display it's movement animation. Custom target and search effects could be used to allow units to fire at each other in the z-y plane instead of the x-y plane. Your y-axis would still be left to right and the x-axis would become your local z axis for simulated height changes.
What you would have in all actuality is a cylinder, the base of the cylinder would have an area of 256x256 (so it's rectangular prism) but the length of the cylinder would be unlimited. See first attached picture.
Although one of the planar directions remains restricted (the y-axis), you can make "background" units appear further away along the y-axis by scaling them down and control their interaction with other units with custom values. Also, in my particular case of a flight simulator the elevation is restricted to a range of 256 units, this really isn't a problem though, because that's actually a huge elevation range, I have mine restricted to 25 units as it is and it's more than enough.
PROS: Ultimately we've achieved UNLIMITED MAP SIZE
CONS: Terrain will literally be a WALL that blocks the observer and will only be visible is he is looking behind him (looking in the direction of the negative z -axis.
Pathing occurs along the absolute x and y axis. So an AI system will have to be put in place that rewrites pathing in all 3 dimensions (I foresee many WHILE loops for each individual unit on the map running simultaneously).
Gravity will always accelerate objects down the absolute z-axis.
Questions: Can walkable doodads (terrain objects) be rotated 90 degrees in pitch and work normally from the observer's perspective?
As an answer to your question; yes, it can be done, but not in an easy fashion. Footprints will get messed up. To make this work you'd need to model edit.
We have an open contest with a prize for anyone who comes up with a loadable map larger than the 256x256 limit. I think this is it. Might want to try and get your idea in there?
why not just hack the editor instead... seems simple enough. We have all the files, just someone hack in and change the editor manually to allow it. Whats wrong with knocking on the front door instead of digging tunnels and parachuting in. Might as well try the front door for once...
@Reaper872: Go
Because A) that's easier said than done and B) what's the point of that? If you crack the editor your maps won't be loadable by anybody who doesn't have your editor version. Meaning nobody could ever even load up your map.
Not sure if you're serious, but even if the editor is hacked, starcraft 2 will not load the map.
Would this idea qualify as a winner (for some types of maps)?
Neat workaround, indeed. However, as you mentioned, this would really only be useful for some types of maps. For others, it might be way too much work and too much stuff to care about; or just not work at all.
I cannot imagine, you can recreate SC2 melee gameplay 100% using this method.
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Curse Premium@Reaper872: Go
It's not just and editor limitation. It's a sc2 limitation. Making a hacked map with a bigger map size defeats the point, because sc2 can't load it up on battle net anyways. I suppose it would be possibile with ctrl F9 testing instead of uploading but...yeah.
I'm not getting exactly what your doing, but sounds good. Keep up the great work! Maybe you will win our prize ;)
If you can hack the starcraft 2 editor and program from the ground up an editor that creates large maps, why not make a better editor from scratch?
@Yeti434: Go
This sounds like talk of heresy. Burn the man.