Map split help

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Hello,
well I've created a map and its pretty big (224x244) but the thing is I was thinking of spliting it in 2 (North side and South side).
The reason I want to do it because I think this way the map will be too complicated for player to handle and the progress line isn't clear and pointed out enough, too much quests and triggers would appear and overall the map size is way too big (around 16-17mb).

The south side of the map would be like an hero rpg elements part, where you first do some quests and level up your hero and the North side would be about survival/defense.

Since I've already created the map and it would be a real pain in the ass to create it all over again because I've put so many hours and care into it, is there some possible alternate way to deal with this?
I was thinking doing it maybe by camera bounds but I want to know is it possible to lets say put camera boundries on the South rect and let terrain still exist in the North but delete all its doddads and units on that side until you for example go thru teleport from South to North and immediately the things reverses, The North and all its doddads and units become available but the South ones deletes.
Or prehaps do 2 same maps with one only South playable and second only North (also via using camera bounds), but then again that minimap bug really bothers me somehow :)

I know it must sound very complicated but I hope you will undestand what I meant to say here :)
If its not possible does anyone have any advice or opinion what should I do?
 
Level 3
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well you could definitely do what you proposed, there is a trigger action called 'Camera - Set Camera Bounds' and you would set it to a region, so the north part of your map at first, and you could do that at the map initialization. then you would use the same trigger to set the camera bounds to the second region, the south, or a region in both the north and south so the entire map is visible at a certain point in the game. you could use the conditions to see if the player has reached a certain point yet or not to allow the camera bounds to change depending on where they are at in the game.

the next part could probably be done, im sure it would cause a big lag spike for a few seconds and could be a lot of work, but you could make regions for the doodads, units, buildings, ect.. and then have the doodads and units and such created only when the person reaches the point in the game where the second area will be visible. but that would probably require a whole lot of regions and triggers which will slow down the game and then every time you switch between areas there would be a pretty big lag when doing so as its going through the triggers and placing units and doodads and stuff around so idk if i would use it for every time someone goes north or south but maybe have just the units and buildings spawn once the player reaches that point in the game to go to the southern portion.
 
Level 2
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well you could definitely do what you proposed, there is a trigger action called 'Camera - Set Camera Bounds' and you would set it to a region, so the north part of your map at first, and you could do that at the map initialization. then you would use the same trigger to set the camera bounds to the second region, the south, or a region in both the north and south so the entire map is visible at a certain point in the game. you could use the conditions to see if the player has reached a certain point yet or not to allow the camera bounds to change depending on where they are at in the game.

the next part could probably be done, im sure it would cause a big lag spike for a few seconds and could be a lot of work, but you could make regions for the doodads, units, buildings, ect.. and then have the doodads and units and such created only when the person reaches the point in the game where the second area will be visible. but that would probably require a whole lot of regions and triggers which will slow down the game and then every time you switch between areas there would be a pretty big lag when doing so as its going through the triggers and placing units and doodads and stuff around so idk if i would use it for every time someone goes north or south but maybe have just the units and buildings spawn once the player reaches that point in the game to go to the southern portion.

First of all thank you very much for helping me out :thumbs_up:

Yeah you are definitely right about doodads causing lag, it would cause a disaster for sure so that option is clearly crossed then.
Could do it thru spawning units as you said but I've noticed that either way the map file size wont go lower doing the split of the map by triggers - camera boundries since it would still have the size of the original. One thing I've also noticed is that textures and models (imported .blp and .mdx files) mostly pump the map size, yes having less doodads and units helps out not to lag very much but it wont be good enough to save this map for its size. As I know the recommended maximum for the map size should be about 8MB, is that correct? But also keep in mind that I haven't optimized the map yet either, so it would probably go lower to some point if I am not mistaken? But not sure how that system works and how much lower would it get it tho.
Given all the pros and cons on the table I've decided to make 2 new maps all over again and split the original one in that way, as much as it breaks my heart :( but I think its for the better, this way I could get more creative and detailed about certain points in the game plus atleast now I know what I am doing and have my stuff organized already. :)

I was thinking doing it then by scenario, and connecting the 1. and 2. map, but what I want to know is; The map have 1-4 players, is it possible then to do this in multiplayer? What I mean is it possible to connect somehow this two maps with more then 1 player playing?
So it should look like this: 1. map would end, score screen appears,close and then 2. map would automaticlly appear as a loading screen for second map. So 2.map begins and hopefully remembers the hero information such as hero stats and invetory from the 1. map.
 
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Level 3
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Feb 24, 2016
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First of all thank you very much for helping me out :thumbs_up:

Yeah you are definitely right about doodads causing lag, it would cause a disaster for sure so that option is clearly crossed then.
Could do it thru spawning units as you said but I've noticed that either way the map file size wont go lower doing the split of the map by triggers - camera boundries since it would still have the size of the original. One thing I've also noticed is that textures and models (imported .blp and .mdx files) mostly pump the map size, yes having less doodads and units helps out not to lag very much but it wont be good enough to save this map for its size. As I know the recommended maximum for the map size should be about 8MB, is that correct? But also keep in mind that I haven't optimized the map yet either, so it would probably go lower to some point if I am not mistaken? But not sure how that system works and how much lower would it get it tho.
Given all the pros and cons on the table I've decided to make 2 new maps all over again and split the original one in that way, as much as it breaks my heart :( but I think its for the better, this way I could get more creative and detailed about certain points in the game plus atleast now I know what I am doing and have my stuff organized already. :)

I was thinking doing it then by scenario, and connecting the 1. and 2. map, but what I want to know is; The map have 1-4 players, is it possible then to do this in multiplayer? What I mean is it possible to connect somehow this two maps with more then 1 player playing?
So it should look like this: 1. map would end, score screen appears,close and then 2. map would automaticlly appear as a loading screen for second map. So 2.map begins and hopefully remembers the hero information such as hero stats and invetory from the 1. map.
well i dont know tooooo much about map creating and optimizing maps, ive never actually made one myself haha but i do know that in the past the map size limit was 8mb, now after i think patch 1.27 they increased the map size limit to 128mb so i wouldnt worry too much about that unless its the long load times you dont like or if theres a lot of lag caused in your map. which lag could be lowered depending on how your map works, like if you have a bunch of triggers constantly going off to have units moving back and forth you could set up a new trigger and region and make it so the units in specific areas dont move till someone enters that region and then have the triggers from the previous zone stop and the new zone start. also you could use the ability for units called "wander" and that would have them walk around as if they were critters which could help if you had lots of triggers doing that.
for making it a scenario, i have seen maps of the original campaign made into a coop campaign where you would have to use save/load codes for it. but as i said idk much about the editor and that sounds like youd need to get into more advanced stuff like variables and have it store the info in a variable but i dont know if one map can take information from another map like the hero data, i think it would have to be a save/load system for that in each map and that theyd use the same variables to determine what the code means.
 
Level 2
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well i dont know tooooo much about map creating and optimizing maps, ive never actually made one myself haha but i do know that in the past the map size limit was 8mb, now after i think patch 1.27 they increased the map size limit to 128mb so i wouldnt worry too much about that unless its the long load times you dont like or if theres a lot of lag caused in your map. which lag could be lowered depending on how your map works, like if you have a bunch of triggers constantly going off to have units moving back and forth you could set up a new trigger and region and make it so the units in specific areas dont move till someone enters that region and then have the triggers from the previous zone stop and the new zone start. also you could use the ability for units called "wander" and that would have them walk around as if they were critters which could help if you had lots of triggers doing that.
for making it a scenario, i have seen maps of the original campaign made into a coop campaign where you would have to use save/load codes for it. but as i said idk much about the editor and that sounds like youd need to get into more advanced stuff like variables and have it store the info in a variable but i dont know if one map can take information from another map like the hero data, i think it would have to be a save/load system for that in each map and that theyd use the same variables to determine what the code means.

Ohh I didn't know that, the way I saw it if you were playing solo map you could go above 8MB but playing it multiplayer the recommended max should be 8MB. Thats good to know thanks :)
Yeah I have done it already as you mentioned entering player in region makes units move but instead of doing it 2 regions (North/South) I've created more of a smaller ones areas that start when player enters and ends when player leaves, but I still have to play around with it tho. And the wander ability will come in handy greatly! :thumbs_up:

Yeah I saw coop campaign maps too thats why I ask, I didn't play it tho thus I don't know how it works but as you mentioned it probably is more advenced stuff which could be a little overwhelming for me at this point. I could make it also like this: In 1.map your hero max level could reach lvl10 and in 2.map you start and right at start you choose a lvl10 hero and lvl to lets say lvl20. The thing is this way I can't trasnfer items and hero stats I can only pretend that the player did 100% of the 1.map making the 1.map somehow less important, on the other hand it could prove useful for players who just want to skip the RPG elements and play just survival. Either way seems I will have to dig up more of something about it.
+rep for useful advices and your time. Really appreciate it, cheers :)
 
Level 3
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Feb 24, 2016
Messages
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Ohh I didn't know that, the way I saw it if you were playing solo map you could go above 8MB but playing it multiplayer the recommended max should be 8MB. Thats good to know thanks :)
Yeah I have done it already as you mentioned entering player in region makes units move but instead of doing it 2 regions (North/South) I've created more of a smaller ones areas that start when player enters and ends when player leaves, but I still have to play around with it tho. And the wander ability will come in handy greatly! :thumbs_up:

Yeah I saw coop campaign maps too thats why I ask, I didn't play it tho thus I don't know how it works but as you mentioned it probably is more advenced stuff which could be a little overwhelming for me at this point. I could make it also like this: In 1.map your hero max level could reach lvl10 and in 2.map you start and right at start you choose a lvl10 hero and lvl to lets say lvl20. The thing is this way I can't trasnfer items and hero stats I can only pretend that the player did 100% of the 1.map making the 1.map somehow less important, on the other hand it could prove useful for players who just want to skip the RPG elements and play just survival. Either way seems I will have to dig up more of something about it.
+rep for useful advices and your time. Really appreciate it, cheers :)
:D
 
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