Marked Locations on Minimap
pSyk0mAn
Nerdish by NatureGermany Join Date: 2003-08-07 Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Nerdish by NatureGermany Join Date: 2003-08-07 Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
This has been discussed and suggested before.
The idea is to mark the location on your minimap you are in at that moment.
(Someone feel free to link the original thread and original image/gif, which showed the idea perfectly)
It's not easy to do according to our modders and there are probably different methods to approach this.
Here is my idea:
-Make a separate locationname.tga for each location of the map (same resolution as overview.tga and they have to have the exact same position in the .tga file)
-Put them all into ../ns2/maps/overviews/mapname (so there is no mixups and chaos between different maps' locations)
-When a player is in a certain location and activates minimap, use that locationname.tga, put it on top of the minimap image and use some color modifier to highlight it (If that isnt possible, one could also dye each locationname.tga with a highlighting color, but this is more work and less flexible on the highlighting part)
I prepared this for Summit, if anyone wants to have a take on it, check out the attached file.
It includes a .tga for each location in Summit and the .psd I used to create them.
Please put the ns2_summit folder including the .tgas into ns2/maps/overviews/ ..so we can have an overview folder for each map
If this works out and ppl like it, there is probably the possibility to modify the overview.exe to create these additional .tgas during map-building.
"Just" have the overview.exe render the overview limited on only the area of each location entities and spit it out as locationname.tga in the mapname folder.
YES PLEASE.
This is rookie friendliness, not HP bars ;]
The idea is to mark the location on your minimap you are in at that moment.
(Someone feel free to link the original thread and original image/gif, which showed the idea perfectly)
It's not easy to do according to our modders and there are probably different methods to approach this.
Here is my idea:
-Make a separate locationname.tga for each location of the map (same resolution as overview.tga and they have to have the exact same position in the .tga file)
-Put them all into ../ns2/maps/overviews/mapname (so there is no mixups and chaos between different maps' locations)
-When a player is in a certain location and activates minimap, use that locationname.tga, put it on top of the minimap image and use some color modifier to highlight it (If that isnt possible, one could also dye each locationname.tga with a highlighting color, but this is more work and less flexible on the highlighting part)
I prepared this for Summit, if anyone wants to have a take on it, check out the attached file.
It includes a .tga for each location in Summit and the .psd I used to create them.
Please put the ns2_summit folder including the .tgas into ns2/maps/overviews/ ..so we can have an overview folder for each map
If this works out and ppl like it, there is probably the possibility to modify the overview.exe to create these additional .tgas during map-building.
"Just" have the overview.exe render the overview limited on only the area of each location entities and spit it out as locationname.tga in the mapname folder.
Comments
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/143224/mini-map-improvements#latest
I would sincerely love that!
Yes, Steelcap, it's a hassle to do it by hand, but I did for Summit just so someone could try this method, if it's not much work.
Not sure what to do with vents tho. Some vents arent within location entities and I didn't cover all vents with my overview tga puzzle.
I wouldnt mind if it went either way to be honest.
-Like marking areas with/without power slightly differently, so the minimap appearance gives a slight indication on team territories.
-Blinking locations for a short time, when the commander pings them
..and a lot more..feel free to add your suggestions to build up excitement and motivation
Since implementing it like this as pSyk suggested might be quite the hassle it would probably much easier to make a "Marker" around a Marine as a cyst has a green mark currently around it.
If we'd use that in a transparent blue around a Marine. But at a bigger range, with a drop of the further the range ... and maybe that it stacks if several marines are closeby...
Haven't actually looked into how the minimap works with cysts, but that might be easier approach.
Also, is this a server side mod / client side mod / incoming on vanilla?
* Pick the minimap overview
* Go in game and find out where each location starts/ends
* Go into a texture editor software and create a copy of the full overview with only a given location
* Export, downsize (otherwise you would end up with 4Mo per highlight), and convert into .dds to save more space
* Import all the locations into a mod, and test in game that they work correctly.
As you could see this is a lot of manual work that just can't be done in the long run. Atm there are other ways to do it being discussed, especially one who is going to extract each locations automatically and draw them on the map without hand work. I can't really give you an ETA atm since those are falling a bit outside of my scope.
If you own a server and wants to give it a try the changes are in this mod:
* https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1944832835
This mod also host changes for mines to be visible on the minimap (as a blue dot), and, also, gives unlimited clogs for gorge players during pregame.
Nice that mines are visible. I assume its marines only? Do aliens see them if they are parasited? Could clogs on minimap be coming at long last?
I took a look at that steam link. The name of the mod is a throwaway detail while the key features aren't disclosed. That's interesting.
Naming aside, its nice that you amalgamate everything into a mod. We wouldn't want servers to have more mods than available to display on the loading screen. Who knows what you are playing with at that point. Its not like we memorise mod IDs.