Is it possible to make higher resolution terrain?

[GenFrogKing]

Hi all,

As the title suggests, I'm interested in discovering whether or not it is possible to update wc3's terrain tilesets to be twice as detailed as normal. For example, if each tile is normally 16x16 pixels, could we make a 32x32 pixels tile that would end up occupying the same space in game?

Sorry if this has already been answered. I've been hunting Google for an hour (longer than I care for) and haven't found any answers.

My intention is to scale down the size of in-game units except structures and increase how much one can zoom in. To do this in an artistically appealing fashion, I'll need higher resolution terrain.

Is it possible?

 

[AuckeS]

I don't think you can increase the tile resolution, but you can use ubersplats instead.
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/terrain-board-267/uber-landscape-189777/

 

[GenFrogKing]

Hey! Thanks for the reply!

I checked out ubersplats, and was like at first, but then I tested it...

There were three problems I could identify right off the bat:

1. Ubersplats count as structures/units and would be taking memory from overall units.
2. Ubersplats don't show up in fog of war.
3. Because they're a unit, their health bar shows up when that setting is turned on.

Ubersplats is a great trick for terrainers entering contests, but seems to have limited functionality in game unless you revealed the whole map and did away with the gui using a user-controlled cinematic mode and triggered controls.

So close to what I need! I may end up scaling the other direction if nothing lends itself. There are problems going that way too, though.

 

[AuckeS]

You can give them the "locust" ability and make them neutral, the health bar won't be showing up, and they will be invisible in the map. Not sure how to solve the fog of war issue.

I've also seen people messing with the Cliff/Terrain doodads, but from what I've heard they end up pretty buggy.

 

[GenFrogKing]

Now that is interesting. That just about solves my problem. There must be a way to solve the fog of war one without having to reveal the whole map...

 

[fladdermasken]

Are you sure Cliff/Terrain doodads don't show up in fog of war? iirc the only issue is how terrible they look while they're unmasking.

There must be a way to solve the fog of war one without having to reveal the whole map...

Well. I guess you could do the opposite. Untick the option in Map Properties that makes masked areas partially visible. That way, at least nothing else will show up in fog of war either so there's no incongruence.

 

[GenFrogKing]

Doodads, of course, do show up in fog of war, but ubersplats are glorified units repurposed for uber-terrain! Not sure how to get them to show up in fog of war ...

I was actually just playing with the ubersplats on the editor and have begun to fall in love with the higher resolution textures. The fog of war problem is still abounding, though. Still hunting online for a resource that'll give me what I want. I will edit my first post once I find a solution because I'm sure someone else will want to know how to do this too.

 

[AuckeS]

Looks like setting "Art - Extended Line Of Sight" to true will make them appear in the fog of war.

 

[Talavaj]

The cliff doodad is much better performance, convenience and filesize wise, if you turn off the fog of war that is. It does look bad around the edges of fog.
Also the cliff doodad has unlimited texture resolution in theory.

 

[GenFrogKing]

@AuckeS: Awesome. That solves my entire problem.

Now it's a matter of what method is most memory efficient... ubersplats or doodads-- and if there is perhaps another way to do this. Personally I'm leaning towards ubersplats simply because they don't seem to have problems in fog of war (which my map will use).

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Doodads can be displayed in fog of war either. There's an object editor option for that, I just don't remember what it's called.

So yeah, go with doodads. They are far more light-weight than ubersplats and easier to use.

 

[sonofjay]

There's an object editor option for that

Art - Show in Fog [True/False]

 

[Vinz]

Or you could make the terrain textures more HQ.

 

[GenFrogKing]

@Mythic: Do you mean using advanced pixel art techniques? (Blizzard has already done a pretty good job there.) Or do you mean actually increasing the memory in each tile by increasing their size? From what I'm understanding, that isn't possible.

 

[Talavaj]

It seems warcraft 3 is hard coded to load only mip map resolution of 512p or under, regardless of how big your textures are.
As such it won't work because terrain textures are at 512p horizontal already.
It is possible to double (128p per square as opposed to 64p) the resolution by using the small tiles with only 2 variants + edges tiles as opposed to the tiles with extra variations.
But that is what most custom tiles you can download are already doing, so yeah.

 

[Celaquil]

Uh.

I don't know what you're all really talking about, but can't we just link him better looking
tiles instead of all this... Complex voodoo stuff?

That's what I'd do.

Although, I reckon that might not work with the zooming, honestly, this sounds like a
question better reserved for wehz.