Bushes (HOTS and LoL)

[Thing_I]

Hello, this is my first post in the forums (everything else is comments on resources ) so pardon me if I'm doing something a bit wrong.

Anywho, I am looking to create a bush effect like those in Heroes of the Storm. I assume that it works the same way as League of Legends (though I have not seen them in action in that game.) The first thought that came into my mind was using the Height of terrain and lowering it down to what appears to be normal levels. However, height adjustment comes with three glaring issues:

1. It takes a long time to finish even a single bush. The first time consuming action is getting the 2x3 cliff to get ramps on all sides. I don't know if there is a quick trick to this, but I basically just click and click and click (and click) until it finally decides to allow me to put a ramp in a spot I've clicked 100 times. The second time consuming part is getting the height just right. Manually adjusting the height with raise/lower tool is tedious. And when you have all of it just right -- you can't even copy+paste it, it messes it all up :/
2. The minimum size for this is incredibly large, 2x3. Nothing smaller than 2x3 will allow you to place ramps on all sides. Luckily, in most of the HOTS maps, 2x2 cliffs will work as you can put a ramp on 2 sides, while the other 2 are usually unpathable anyways. However, 2x1 bushes accessible from 3 sides are not uncommon :/ And seem to be completely impossible.
3. The bushes are very very clunky. It seems that when a unit reaches 50% of the way up a ramp (or somewhere near there) they can see UP the ramp, but not DOWN the other side. This is not the intended effect of a bush There is a sweet spot on a 2x3 cliff that no ramp can see units on, so I suppose that it COULD suffice, however, I would much like another way of doing things.

So, I have come here looking for additional ideas. Another that came to mind was using invisibility and providing truesight to the units that are in the bush. This idea could work, as my invisible heroes aren't exactly invis, but rather have a 90% transparency (much like in the game.) The largest issue with this solution is how do I make the bushes act as vision blockers? If a unit stands on one side, they should not be able to see through. However, if a unit is inside the bush, they should be able to see out each side.
To overcome this issue, I searched around and found others asking about this and a suggestion to them was to make a custom vision system, with a dummy unit attached to the player. However, I don't understand how that would block vision through an object. Maybe something involving Occluder Height (and vision, if that's a thing.)

If Occluder Height works the way I image, could I use a dummy unit as mentioned with an occluder vision of say 1, then place invisible doodads (that are pathable) with an occluder height of 2 around the outside of bushes. Then, when a unit enters the bush, replace it's dummy unit with a unit of occluder vision 3, allowing it to see over the bush doodads.

I am looking for suggestions that could help on any of this Is there a way to ensure ramps will fit around cliffs on all sides without spam clicking? Is the dummy unit viable? Thanks to anyone who can help!

 

[Marcos_M]

I would go with vision blockers an a dummy unit that grants vision over these

Also, to put a ramp is easier if you drag while clicking from up the cliff to down
And you can select terrain and copy paste it

You could also use an Invisibility buff, and remove it when a enemy unit enter the brush. I think this solution is less buggy, but requires periodic triggers

 

[00110000]

No cliff method:
- fill an entire bush area with vision blockers
- Event: create rects depending on the shape of the bush / or use a dummy unit with unit enters within range
- Event: unit goes inside the rect / or within range of a dummy bush unit
- Action: reveal the bush area with a visibility circle action so you see inside and around the bush
- 2nd trigger Event/Action: when a unit leaves the area, check if no other units of the same player remain and if none then remove the visibility circle.

Problems are: Reveals the same area no matter how the unit moves around the bush. Each unit may have different vision radii which may complicate.

Never used it myself but it probably works well enough

 

[Thing_I]

No cliff method:
- fill an entire bush area with vision blockers
- Event: create rects depending on the shape of the bush / or use a dummy unit with unit enters within range
- Event: unit goes inside the rect / or within range of a dummy bush unit
- Action: reveal the bush area with a visibility circle action so you see inside and around the bush
- 2nd trigger Event/Action: when a unit leaves the area, check if no other units of the same player remain and if none then remove the visibility circle.

Problems are: Reveals the same area no matter how the unit moves around the bush. Each unit may have different vision radii which may complicate.

Never used it myself but it probably works well enough

Actually, it seems you can't move through vision blockers. No good there. Maybe using the occluder height after all?

 

[00110000]

Try this. Worked for me. But the vision blockers themselves are a little wonky and don't block the exact areas... just try it yourself. It may take awhile to get the exact coverage you want.

Object Editor
Destructibles
Pathing Blockers
Line of Sight Blocker
Pathing - Is walkable set to true
Pathing - Pathing Texture set to NONE

I don't know anything about occlusion height myself.

 

[Thing_I]

It seems that they need at least 2 full line of sight blockers between an enemy. It's certainly weird, but I might be able to get it to work. Worst case, I end up using the custom vision dummy for each hero. Oh well, one of these will work