Keeping terrain hidden

[Soul Reaver]

This is a bit of an odd question, and I'm not sure there's a workable answer, but here goes:

I'm hoping to make a cinematic in my map that includes stuff happening in a blank void... ie, I'd like to have characters/doodads etc show up normally, but for the terrain to be invisible.

I've found one way to do this - create a custom tileset with an entirely black (or transparent) texture file - and keep the camera within this area only. However, that requires me to put a big ugly area of weird-looking tiles in my map.

Another possibility is to put the camera 'beneath' the ground, facing upwards, but that can sometimes make things look mighty odd.

I was wondering if there are any triggers or settings that can be used to hide all terrain while still showing units etc... or a map that does something like that that I could take a look at.

 

[Pharaoh_]

I really think that the only solution for you is alpha-texturing

 

[meOme]

There allready is a completely black tile... Outland - Abyss

I managed to create a map that does exactly what you want (I think).

You can black out the terrain with the command -hide, and show it again with the command -show.

Maybe you could get problems with the size of the loops if your map is huge.

 

[Darkt3mpl3r]

create a 1x1 transparent texture and import it as a tile.

 

[Soul Reaver]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

There allready is a completely black tile... Outland - Abyss

I managed to create a map that does exactly what you want (I think).

You can black out the terrain with the command -hide, and show it again with the command -show.

Maybe you could get problems with the size of the loops if your map is huge.

Thanks for this - had a look at the map, and it's the sort of effect I was looking for. A lot more complicated than what I actually need to do in fact, but it made me realize I could pull off what I intend - thanks a lot!

I think it'll be as simple as changing a small space of tiles to Abyss and later changing it back again...

 

[Soul Reaver]

Hello again meOme..

Just thought I'd point out that there was one limitation with the trigger you supplied: it didn't actually save the exact variation of tiles that were being replaced, so while the types would be the same, the variation would be different with each restore.

I've reworked your demo map triggers slightly so that it includes that info as well (attached in case anyone else is ever interested). Thanks heaps for the advice, it was a big help!

One question though (just out of curiosity): in your triggers, you included the constant "128" when advancing along each 'tile' of the map... does that mean that each tile is 128x128 co-ordinate 'points' large?

 

[meOme]

Yeah sorry I didn't include the variation-saving, I was a bit lazy. ^^

And yes, the distance between 2 single tiles is 128 (horizontally and vertically).

When you press G in the editor, you see this grid in 3 different sizes (yellow, white, grey). The yellow grid has a width of 512, the white has 1/4 of that: 128, and the grey has 1/4 of that: 32.
Every tile sits on one of the crosspoints of the white grid, so they have a distance of 128 from each other too.

When a map says "256*256" or "64*64" or "480*480", that is the number of squares in the white grid too, or in other words the number of tiles on your map.

 

[burnthemprisons]

just an idea here, have no idea if it would work, but maybe if you got the path of the white mask fade filter texture, then create an image with a z offset of 1 at the point you want this to happen, and set the width as big as you need, using the white mask texture.
With a z offset of 1 it should have no noticable effect on the unit, although it might clashh with the terrain map, so you may need a higher z offset. If so, just set the elevation of the unit to a height slightly higher than the z offset for the duration of this effect.
Im pretty interested to know if that would work, so if you havn't gotten this working yet, tell me if this works.