SC2Mapster

He was simply showing the reduction factor that is necessary to achieve 50% volume for any given object with equally dispersed volume, not proving or disproving anybody's point.

I don't think i get what you want to say, but if you shrink an objekt by 50% in all 3 dimensions (x, y, z) it will ALWAYS habe 1/8 of the original volume...

Imagine a cube, 1m * 1m * 1m. It's volume is 1m³. Now shrink it to 50% it's 0.5m * 0.5m * 0.5m which equals a volume of 0.125m³ = 1/8 * 1m³ ... This holds true to any object, because you can always approximate the volume of an object using small cubes and if you make the cubes smaller and smaller (limes) you will always get the exact volume of that object.

To get the 50% volume of an object use ³√(2) = 1.25992105 and plug it into V= (h/x)*(w/x)*(l/x) This equation will get you a 50% reduced volume according to the example from Xorgat3.

• Ex. let h=6, w=2, l=1, x=³√(2)
• V1= 12 = 6x2x1
• V2= (h/x)*(w/x)*(l/x)
• (6/(1.25992105))*(2/(1.25992105))*(1/(1.25992105))
• 4.76220316 * 1.58740105 * 0.793700526
• 6
• 12/6 = 2 therefore 50% of the volume. Originally I tried to use some formula with the original dimensions to get it all done in one go but this worked better, I may try to rearrange it to make it easier to use.

Isn't that exactly what i said? Maybe i wasn't clear enough...

Edit: Or we have different conceptions about what "size" means. I mean it in the sense: My size is 1.86 meters. If you shrink me 50% is will be 0.93 meters. If my volume is 1m³ and you shrink me 50%, it will be 0.125m³ afterwards. Those are two different things...

ErrorAsh: The original post is to figure out how to create larger map sizes or at least replicate a larger map by scaling all units down by a factor, in this case 50%. In the editor you are reducing your unit width, unit length, and unit height by 50%. This effectively cuts your unit down to 1/8th of the original size. It works like this:

Your person is 6 feet tall, 2 feet wide, and 1 feet long - rough estimates of a human's body rounded up for easier numbers. Now reduce all of those dimensions by 50%. We now have a person that is 3 feet tall, 1 foot wide, and .5 feet long. Multiplying out the original person's dimensions we get 12 cubic feet. Multiplying out the reduced person's dimensions we have 1.5 cubic feet. The ratio of these two volumes is 12/1.5 = 8. So yes, a person that has had its dimensions reduced by 50% will look 1/8th as big as it did originally, and from their perspective the entire world will have grown to be 8 times as big as it was previously.

Need more number proof? First off let's all agree that we're discussing a 3-dimensional environment. Now imagine a 3-dimensional object with volume X where X = width * height * length. Scale down all three dimensions of this object by a factor of .5 and you get the following equation:

(width * .5) * (height * .5) * (length * .5) = Y, where Y is the reduced object's volume.

Rearranged we get width * height * length * .5 * .5 * .5 = Y which is equivalent, by substitution, to X * .5 * .5 * .5 = Y since as stated above we have X = width * height * length.

This is equivalent to X * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 = Y which is equivalent to X * 1/8 = Y which is equivalent to X/8 = Y.

You may have been thinking that X/2 is the same as making them 50% as big in terms of volume, but that's the same as only reducing a single object dimension (as long as volume is distributed evenly throughout this 3-dimensional object). If this object was a sphere and you made it half as tall it would no longer be a perfect sphere since it would look like somebody stepped on it.

Of course, that's what i meant.

Just imagine you were shrinked by 50%, other people wouldn't look 8 times or 4 times as big, they would of course only look twice as big.

ErrorAsh, that's only true if a unit were measuring the world by traveling across it once or circumnavigating it. However, if the unit had to participate in a search party for his missing squadmate, he would unfortunately find that the world is indeed 4x as large. And as Xorgat3 said, he would probably not want to be in the group searching the mountains, because they would be twice as tall.

Actually...

When calculating how much larger the would look to the unit, you wouldn't consider all dimensions, only 1. If you scale down units to 50% of their original size, they will have to take "two steps" where before they only needed "one step" to travel the same distance. So to the unit, the world would just look twice as big.

Only the resulting volume of the new map would be factored by 8. The playing field (2-dimensional) is increased by a factor 4 and distances are doubled. So the world, from the eyes of the unit, doesn't look 8 times as big, it looks 8 times as voluminous and only twice as big.

I wouldn't have said anything, but Baron you totally called down the thunder with your edgy remark.

Your logic holds that the unit is a 2-dimensional object (has an x and y dimension). What you've failed to take into consideration is the fact that the SC2 incorporates a 3-dimensional physics engine making the height of units (the z dimension) a factor when it comes to size. It makes complete sense too since the height of units/doodads/etc will obviously have to be scaled by 50% in addition to everything else as already mentioned. Technically using your same logic we are looking at the map size increasing (relative to the unit) 8x.

The Math

A 2u x 2u x 2u unit in a 16u x 16u x 16u area yields an aspect ratio of 1/(512u^3) (where u = SC2's unit of measurement). a 1u x 1u x 1u unit in the same area yields an aspect ratio of 1/(4096u^3). Thus according to the unit's perspective the area will appear 4096/512 times as large (or bigger for us simpletons) which evaluates to 8.

What We Learned

The following conclusions can be derived from the discussion that has taken place here:

1. Doubling the map dimensions, as in going from a 256x256 map to a 512x512 map, will increase the playable area by a factor of 4 since we are only able to increase the width and length of the map. Height is not a variable in this consideration.
2. Half-ing the scale of all object dimensions and attributes in a map, as in changing a unit's width/length/height from 2x2x2 to 1x1x1 and having 'tighter' camera placement, will increase the playable area by a factor of 8 from the perspective of the user.

Bazinga

Don't forget a 512x512 map would also result in a 4x bigger file size. Remember the b.net size cap.

It looks like it might be hard coded options, I tore through every SC2 MPQ and I can not find any reference to a list of Map Height/Width Values what so ever. I even edited the default preferences to make a map 512x512 by default but it crashes, editing a map my hand also causes it to crash.

Wow.. How did I miss that.. In my defense, I was distracted my the similarity of this mistake and a joke I heard today. "I have ten dollars in my left pocket. I run down the street and find another ten dollars. Great, I increased my asset base by 100%. I put it in my right pocket. But it has a hole, and I lose the new ten dollars. Bah, not so bad, I only lost 50% of my wealth, so I came out ahead all in all."

Only other thing I can think of is slowing down units so their run speeds match their new size.

Yeah reducing the map by 2 makes the unit look 4 times bigger because it's *2 in x and y. Anyway, the point isn't about the numbers but the idea of scaling everything down since we can't change the map size.

That would be possible to scale pretty much everything down but there's a lot to do:

• Scale down all the units, doodads, abilities, effects ...
• Move the camera closer
• Update all the tileset textures
• I probably forgot things ...

Wow, not only is the OP wrong, but so are you kaji2.

Reducing everything by 50% makes the map 300% larger from the units' perspective.

A 2x2 unit stands on a 16x16 field. The field is 256 units, he is 4, it's 6400% of his size, which is 6300% bigger.

A 1x1 unit stands on a 16x16 field. The field is 256 units to his 1. It's 25600% of his size, which is 400% of the size it used to be from the unit's perspective, which is 300% bigger.

So if someone figured out how to make a 512x512 map it would be 4x as large as the current maximum. And in the future just use "as large," "bigger" is simpler language but confuses most people's spatial reasoning.

Reducing everything 50% is not a trivial task.

Wouldn't reducing everything in the map to 50% make the map 100% larger?