Unit visibility

[Xan_Kriegor]

What sort of ways are there to manipulate a player's visibility of units? Obviously there's the spell Invisbility, but in maps like DotA they have certain effects that show up only to certain players.

What I would like to do is have something that shows a certain range away from the players' heroes. It'll be (de)activated via a chat command allowing the user to input a custom range, and then have a constant field around that unit to show the range. What I've been using so far has been a group of 8 dummy units with a small special effect model circling the unit so that it's fairly easy to see some range away (this is for things like knowing when something is in spell range). However, I'm worried that with multiple players the screen will get really cluttered with said units if everyone sees all of them.

Is there some way to hide units of yours from allies whom you have shared vision with? Or should I do away with sharing the players vision?

 

[Solu9]

You could use the item ability "Item Sight Range Bonus" and make it a unit ability with multiple levels.
When the player type in whatever as a chat you can set the level of the ability accordingly.

 

[Xan_Kriegor]

To clarify what I mean, I don't want to change how far the units can see. I want a graphical effect (such as spinning orbs out at x distance) to show where x distance away is, that only shows up for each player individually. Any ideas?

 

[Solu9]

Oh!
And if possible, a player should only see his own radius?

 

[Xan_Kriegor]

Yes, that's what I meant. This time I'll clarify with an example :
PlayerA's and PlayerB's heroes are standing next to each other. PlayerA says in chat "-range 500". There is now some kind of special effect showing PlayerA a circle of range 500 around his hero. PlayerA can see this circle, but PlayerB cannot. If PlayerB were to type "-range 200" then he would see a similar circle out to range 200 from his hero, but PlayerA would not be able to see his circle.

Optimally in this situation, PlayerA and PlayerB have allied vision of each other, but that's not a strict requirement. Is this do-able?

 

[Xan_Kriegor]

Got it! Researched some stuff, came up with using GetLocalPlayer() to change the alpha transparency of the units. Sadly my top choices for models didn't work due to the model not being entirely hidden even with 100% transparency, but lightning shield apparently works so I'm happy.

For those interested: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/trigger-gui-editor-tutorials-279/getlocalplayer-225738/
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/world-editor-help-zone-98/getlocalplayer-faq-224876/

 

[vypur85]

> entirely hidden even with 100% transparency
GetLocalPlayer works with unit height/scale as well. Just set the dummy height to something high. Or set the scale to 0. But if you're not experienced enough with GetLocalPlayer, try to avoid it as best as possible.