Minimap Icon Trigger

[DonMushroom]

Is there a way to change the mini map icon for a unit through triggers.

EG.
On the great train robbery mission there is the dominion kill team that have a mini map icon to show you where they are. Is there a way i could change i icon like this through triggers.

So the circle skull icon would change to a icon of my choosing when (x) Happens.

 

[Siretu]

Upgrades should work if you don't have more than one unit for each player.

Create a new upgrade. Go to the Upgrade: Effects + field and add a new effect. Set the type to Actor and the object to the main unit actor of your unit(For example: If your unit is the marauder, set it to the Marauder actor). Pick the Minimap Icon field and set the value to your icon.

You can now use the "Set Upgrade Level For Player" action to give the upgrade you made to a player. When you give it to a player the unit you specified in the effects should have the icon changed. If you set the upgrade level to 0, it should change back to normal.

There might be a way to do this with actor events. That would be preferable since it would be easier to apply to different unit-types and it would work for several units owned by the same player. However, I don't know the proper action to do that.

 

[Dave312]

While Siretu's method will work, the Great Train Robbery mission actually uses Pings to create the minimap icon. You can create a Ping with the Create Ping Facing Angle or Create Ping With Point Facing actions. The Model property can be used to determine which icon is displayed (The Dominion Kill Teams use the Ping Boss model). You can also make a ping last forever by setting its duration to 0.

 

[DonMushroom]

Thanks They both work great.

The one problem i am having though is setting the upgrade level back to 0 does not get rid of the icon

How do you make your own ping and import it??

 

[Siretu]

Ah, I was afraid that would happen. You could make another upgrade that sets it to nothing and give it that instead, but that's an ugly solution. Go with Dave's solution instead.

I think there is a ping object tab in the data editor. Open it and create a new ping (in the same you'd create a new button or something).

If you want to use a custom model for the ping, import it first in the import editor(f9).

 

[DonMushroom]

What type of files are they are where are they in the editor?

 

[Siretu]

Turns out they don't have their own object type in the data editor. They're just models. You can search in the models tab for "Ping". There's 18 ping models that you can use if you don't want to import your own. They use the .m3 format.

You can create one with the "Create Ping Facing Angle" action.

 

[DonMushroom]

I have a unit with a map icon set in its actor.

I want it to

1, A trigger that changes its icon from the original to a different icon (custom icon 1)
2, A trigger that changes its icon from the original to a different icon (custom icon 2)
3. A trigger that changed it back to the original icon.

Custom icon 1 and custom icon 2 are both DDS files

 

[Siretu]

In that case, I think pings are the wrong approach, if you don't know a good way to import the dds into 3ds max and convert it to a .m3 file.

Make three upgrades as I showed you in an earlier post. One that sets it to custom icon 1, one that sets it to icon 2 and one that sets it to nothing.

In trigger 1, set the upgrade level of upgrade 1 to 1 and the level of the other two to 0. Do the same thing for the other two but change which upgrade you set to 1.

 

[DonMushroom]

How do i get it to choose witch of the upgrades to use at the time they are needed?

At the moment the icons are going from the default icon to custom icon 1 and i am unable to get it back to the original or to custom icon 3

 

[Siretu]

I'm assuming you want to change the minimap icons for everyone in the game at the same time. If not, just put the "Set Upgrade Level For Player" outside the "Pick Every Player in Player Group" and set the player to the player you want to change it for.

Anyway, here are the triggers. You can add an event to get them to run or you can copy them into an existing trigger if that's what you want.

• Minimap Icon 1
  • Events
  • Local Variables
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • Player Group - Pick each player in (All players) and do (Actions)
      • Actions
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon 1 upgrade level to 1 for player (Picked player)
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon 2 upgrade level to 0 for player (Picked player)
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon Original upgrade level to 0 for player (Picked player)

• Minimap Icon 2
  • Events
  • Local Variables
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • Player Group - Pick each player in (All players) and do (Actions)
      • Actions
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon 1 upgrade level to 0 for player (Picked player)
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon 2 upgrade level to 1 for player (Picked player)
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon Original upgrade level to 0 for player (Picked player)

• Minimap Icon Original
  • Events
  • Local Variables
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • Player Group - Pick each player in (All players) and do (Actions)
      • Actions
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon 1 upgrade level to 0 for player (Picked player)
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon 2 upgrade level to 0 for player (Picked player)
        • Tech Tree - Set Minimap Icon Original upgrade level to 1 for player (Picked player)