It's a feature that I wanted to do for a long time. WC3 don't need this, but it would be very useful for arcade games.
But it is need to be able to compatible with melee and single-hero game, since you don't know what kind of the game this War3 Mod would be used to create. For single-hero game, it would be easy to track every state of your hero, but for the game like melee, there could be thousands of units, so it's vital to optimize the code for it, and only to track the unit that currently the only unit selected by the player.
And since I planned to do huge change to the mod after the void, I finally decided to do this, and the void beta client itself helped a lot, since heroes has simiar things, and they use the same engine.
At this point, the function is done, only the layout part still needed to design. It's welcome if you could provide any suggestion.
This is origanlly what it looked like. But the icon in the left side is obviously a eyesore.
So I removed that thing, and use the old Heroes of the Stom style icon for the buff icons.
Buff and debuff, and you can see stacks under the purge buff. (WC3 don't have too much stackable buffs, I used the stack of the purge buff to display the unit's current 'slowed' level)
Timed Life buffs and Morph buffs may displayed in another line.
And multiple buffs would be displayed to gather.
Alternate Idea: May be use different color for Timed-Lifes/Morphs ?
Alternate Idea: Remove the Aura buffs from the buff row, and display them with the Timed Lifes, and no longger track duration for them. (Sounds more logical since we've already has Timed Life bar for timed life buffs, and Auras doesn't need a duration display)
114 stack Incinerate!
Please give your suggestion of the new buff layout here:)
I also need to decide how to display them with the hero icons.
i have a question on how you did it. do you add an image frame in UI-editor and just update/show it on unit selection? or are there finally ways to manipulate the buff behaviour bar?
i also want to say that the space is limited depending on player resolution ( i know there is no wireframe, but might happen)
i have a question on how you did it. do you add an image frame in UI-editor and just update/show it on unit selection? or are there finally ways to manipulate the buff behaviour bar?
i also want to say that the space is limited depending on player resolution ( i know there is no wireframe, but might happen)
For question one, there are both. I found way to manipulate buff bar, and I used some script hook. Ideally it's would be great to have zero script in this through, I will do more experiment to see if it is possible to reduce the scripts later.
For the space thing, yeah, that would be issue. And that's the reason I posted it, I want to gather suggestions for its layout. It's not nessary to be displayed at that part, may be it's better to reorgnize all the console UI. I just need a layout design.
I attached the file of how I think would be nice to be.
The left slots are for the negative effects. The biggest one is preferably a silence/stun.
The top slots are for neutral and positive buffs.
I didnt put the buff icons accordingly, they are there just for the sake of the example.
It's a feature that I wanted to do for a long time. WC3 don't need this, but it would be very useful for arcade games.
But it is need to be able to compatible with melee and single-hero game, since you don't know what kind of the game this War3 Mod would be used to create. For single-hero game, it would be easy to track every state of your hero, but for the game like melee, there could be thousands of units, so it's vital to optimize the code for it, and only to track the unit that currently the only unit selected by the player.
And since I planned to do huge change to the mod after the void, I finally decided to do this, and the void beta client itself helped a lot, since heroes has simiar things, and they use the same engine.
At this point, the function is done, only the layout part still needed to design. It's welcome if you could provide any suggestion.
This is origanlly what it looked like. But the icon in the left side is obviously a eyesore.
So I removed that thing, and use the old Heroes of the Stom style icon for the buff icons.
Buff and debuff, and you can see stacks under the purge buff. (WC3 don't have too much stackable buffs, I used the stack of the purge buff to display the unit's current 'slowed' level)
Timed Life buffs and Morph buffs may displayed in another line.
And multiple buffs would be displayed to gather.
Alternate Idea: May be use different color for Timed-Lifes/Morphs ?
Alternate Idea: Remove the Aura buffs from the buff row, and display them with the Timed Lifes, and no longger track duration for them. (Sounds more logical since we've already has Timed Life bar for timed life buffs, and Auras doesn't need a duration display)
114 stack Incinerate!
Please give your suggestion of the new buff layout here:)
I also need to decide how to display them with the hero icons.
i have a question on how you did it. do you add an image frame in UI-editor and just update/show it on unit selection? or are there finally ways to manipulate the buff behaviour bar?
i also want to say that the space is limited depending on player resolution ( i know there is no wireframe, but might happen)
For question one, there are both. I found way to manipulate buff bar, and I used some script hook. Ideally it's would be great to have zero script in this through, I will do more experiment to see if it is possible to reduce the scripts later.
For the space thing, yeah, that would be issue. And that's the reason I posted it, I want to gather suggestions for its layout. It's not nessary to be displayed at that part, may be it's better to reorgnize all the console UI. I just need a layout design.
would you share your knowledge?
Of course. This whole mod thing is always mean to be a open source one.
It's just take much long time for me to write tutorials in English than in Chinese. (I actually created much tutorials in CN language)
I will do when I find time, and even I can't wrote that in time, you can always look at the code after I publish the update.
Also for this particular buff meter system, I would still want to more research on this before I come up with a post.
I attached the file of how I think would be nice to be. The left slots are for the negative effects. The biggest one is preferably a silence/stun. The top slots are for neutral and positive buffs. I didnt put the buff icons accordingly, they are there just for the sake of the example.