Camera/Map Camera Bounds

[phoenixfire]

Alright, so I've seen this in multiple maps. Metastasis an Solar Conquest to name a couple. Basically, the camera zooms in, but instead of the entire map being visible as the entire minimap, the minimap also zooms in and makes it work for the set area the camera is bound to. I've never figured out how to do this, does anybody know?

 

[ap0calypse]

You could first take a screenshot of the minimap as it is.
Expand the area you wish to zoom in so it looks like it is the real thing.
Alpha out everything aside from the minimap (which now looks zoomed in at a specific area).
Turn it into a .tga or .blp-file (.blp allows for compression, so the file size will be lower - at the cost of quality).
Import and use this image as a fade filter (Cinematic - advanced filter).

The problem is that anything on the minimap won't be visible (units, fog of war, black mask, ...)

There is no way to change the actual minimap in-game.
If you say you've seen that before, then I am interested in checking out those maps.

 

[phoenixfire]

In Solar Conquest, whenever you zoom into a planet the minimap changes to that planet with everything visible on it (gold mines, unit dots, heroes) and it is exactly correct to the actual map.

 

[ap0calypse]

I've delved deep into the map systems and found that, although it is poorly coded, there is something I cannot comprehend.
It... somehow uses a symbol that the World Editor does not accept (The '$' sign, which is used in other languages though).

My initial thought was just to retrieve the code, add it in the world editor and examine it. But when I removed the line with the weird symbol in, the system would change the camera, but not the minimap.
Strangely, that symbol is used for a unit command. I wouldn't know why a unit command would mess up the code like that.
Maybe it's just my editor not willing to accept the code...

Either way, so I found out that the script (although literally copied and left completely unchanged - aside from commenting out that one line with $ in it) failed.
I checked for imported files, seeing if there might be anything added to the map that could cause this... strange behavior.
Again, this is a dead end for me. The standard Warcraft files (war3map.[extension]) are either unreadable or do not provide enough information, and amongst the other files are only images and models. No scripts (and I did check for minimap models/images as well, with no luck).



I may talk to some other people about this. See what they know.
Or, if you by any chance know the author of the map (or know how to reach him), you could ask it himself.

 

[phoenixfire]

He's been dead for a few years, sadly. I hope you can figure this out, or maybe somebody else can have a look into it

 

[Dr Super Good]

I am sorry but all I see ingame is the normal resize taking affect. All mini maps are blank (black) and the unit and hero icons reposition naturally. There is nothing different in Solar Conquest than just changing the borders normally.

$D is obviously some type casting code as it produces an integer.

 

[ap0calypse]

I am sorry but all I see ingame is the normal resize taking affect. All mini maps are blank (black) and the unit and hero icons reposition naturally. There is nothing different in Solar Conquest than just changing the borders normally.

$D is obviously some type casting code as it produces an integer.

I already thought about the typecasting, but it gives me an error, so I thought that it wouldn't appear naturally.
And to be honest: I thought that the unit/hero/gold mine dots remained unchanged when you changed camera bounds.
Well, it was late... probably saw a little bit too much in it.

 

[Tirlititi]

You can "compress" the minimap in-game by changing camera bounds with different camera rotations.
It's surely a bug and hardly finds a concret application but try to change camera bounds with a camera rotated by 227 degrees, and the minimap will be like an horizontal line. You can play with rotations between 90 and 227.4 degrees but you'll get a fatal error if you change camera bounds when your camera has a rotation between 227.5 and 312.5.

Don't know if there is any way to compress the minimap in the horizontal way.

Also, I tested it some time ago but I don't think the minimap actually "zoom in" the new camera bounds. It just compresses the whole .tga picture.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Mini map immages can not be resized ingame, they are merged permantly with the HCI prety much.