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After reading SaltyDogs post about the editor I thought about ways to change the appearance of the XelNaga Watchtowers. They annoy me too from time to time when they sit on a tileset where they look totally out of place.
Then I had an idea!
The watchtowers footprint is 2x2. That means you can use the "lower height" tool on a single mesh intersection in between the 4 tiles. Then you can place the tower in the hole, so that you can hide it underneath a doodad. 
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/ijEgt.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/YgCSr.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/61ybY.jpg)
It actually works! It appears normal on the minimap of course, but it lacks a tower activation animation. There will still be a blue beam flash when units approach, so it´s not too bad.
I included a small map file with 3 different examples of camouflaged XWTs.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/NLfE9.jpg)
Download example
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great idea! love it.
still would be great blizzard would support us with a XWT 'generator' (set of three doodads per setting and a few animations with different styles). one should be able to choose between various doodads.
when you use different dodads, at least there should be a set of distinctive activation animations, otherwise players will be completly confused.
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Great idea but could get confusing if people aren't careful.
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The all-seeing rock?  nice idea btw
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isnt it possible to change the appearance of the tower itself using the map editor?
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On February 07 2011 22:27 DizzyDrone wrote:
isnt it possible to change the appearance of the tower itself using the map editor?
nope, theres just 1 model
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This is the kind of creativity which always amazes me in the communities! Great idea.
The computer terminal looks great on the space platform by the way.
As for a doodad for the jungle set, isn't there an obelisk-like doodad? That might make more sense than a normal looking rock
Could you hide the watch tower without a doodad, but with another texture or something? I'm thinking about for example the center of Crevasse (http://imgur.com/opUS5). Could you make it so that the Watchtower activates when you enter the blue texture in the middle of the map?
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The model of the Xel'Naga tower should stay the same for the comfort of the players. It would cause issues if each map of the ladder map pool would have different models of Xel'Naga towers.
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Yeah, the Xel Naga towers are the same for the same reason Nexuses and Command Centers stay the same on every tileset. Your eye needs to be able to tell what it is at a glance, and different variations for anything other than doodads is generally a bad thing, IMO.
This is still an interesting idea for UMS maps or something though.
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On February 07 2011 23:10 ihasaKAROT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2011 22:27 DizzyDrone wrote:
isnt it possible to change the appearance of the tower itself using the map editor? nope, theres just 1 model
Of course it is possible. You can change it into any structure/doodad you want.
Made this in a couple minutes:
+ Show Spoiler +
Btw. If you just wanna change it a little bit or like make watchtowers with decreased sight range, there's a doodad called "Xel'Naga Tower Small" that would fit pretty well:
+ Show Spoiler +
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If people are worried about a different model confusing players, which is understandable, you could always just re-texture the original. I did this in 5-10 minutes just as an example, could probably make it better:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/gYKD4.jpg)
Any colour is possible too of course
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Man, I wish I knew how to do what you guys did. Is it possible to do any of those changes without losing the melee tag?
Btw. FlopTurnReaver I love that you chose an outhouse as an example xD lmao
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The re-textured version I just posted doesn't seem to change the melee status to custom. I'm tempted to publish the map just to make sure both the texture shows up as it does in that picture, and the status is still melee, cause the last time I tried this it didn't want to work properly, but maybe they changed it in a patch.
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You don't lose melee when you change some units these days. Did stuff like that in other maps already. It's actually pretty easy to do stuff like that.
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I apologize for the necro, but this seemed to be closest to what I'm looking for, and I'm not sure the question(s) warrant a new thread.
I am trying to figure out if it is possible to make the Xel'Naga Watchtower bigger. I've seen other units have an option to scale them (like making a rax 4x4 instead of 3x3), but I cannot seem to find it for the watchtower.
Also, I was wondering if anyone knew if it were possible with triggers or something to make capturing one watchtower actaully tigger vision in another part of the map (like around another watchtower).
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Wait, if you can't change the model of the tower... what is with the Xel'Naga towers on some of the GSL maps? I believe Dual sight has them as blue and red warpgates, and there is one more where the tower "dies" after a time, and it's model seems to be an obelisk..
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You can change the actor model on a XWT , thats the best way. There you can also adjust the footprint. Dont use the method from OP, its gimmicky and gives result, but its gimmicky
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On August 08 2011 18:19 ihasaKAROT wrote:You can change the actor model on a XWT , thats the best way. There you can also adjust the footprint. Dont use the method from OP, its gimmicky and gives result, but its gimmicky
If only someone would explain to me how exactly I can do that and which models are already there and suited to be used as a watchtower.
I don't know how difficult it is, but if it's not too difficult I really think people should change the watchtower model more often so it fits the map design, like on Xel'Naga Fortress and Bel'Shir Beach. I'd really love to see more mechanical or natural watchtowers like in the OP 
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On August 08 2011 15:51 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:
I apologize for the necro, but this seemed to be closest to what I'm looking for, and I'm not sure the question(s) warrant a new thread.
I am trying to figure out if it is possible to make the Xel'Naga Watchtower bigger. I've seen other units have an option to scale them (like making a rax 4x4 instead of 3x3), but I cannot seem to find it for the watchtower.
Also, I was wondering if anyone knew if it were possible with triggers or something to make capturing one watchtower actaully tigger vision in another part of the map (like around another watchtower).
Regarding the sight revealing: Xel'naga towers by default use gamedata effects and not triggers to reveal the area, so it would be ideal to use gamedata and not triggers for it.
That said, I think both gamedata and triggers should be possible. For triggers it should be really easy, so probably your overall best option, and for gamedata, there might be a few ways of doing it, but it would be more challenging
Regarding the size of the structure, I am not sure why you are saying that you cannot find the option to scale the watchtower, but can for other buildings — elaborate?
You need to do 2 things:
- Change the footprint of the object (that's how much space it takes up)
- Scale the size of the actual unit (there are two methods I think, one is via the model, the other is via the unit... best to use the unit one)
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On August 08 2011 18:53 Xapti wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2011 15:51 HypertonicHydroponic wrote:
I apologize for the necro, but this seemed to be closest to what I'm looking for, and I'm not sure the question(s) warrant a new thread.
I am trying to figure out if it is possible to make the Xel'Naga Watchtower bigger. I've seen other units have an option to scale them (like making a rax 4x4 instead of 3x3), but I cannot seem to find it for the watchtower.
Also, I was wondering if anyone knew if it were possible with triggers or something to make capturing one watchtower actaully tigger vision in another part of the map (like around another watchtower). Regarding the sight revealing: Xel'naga towers by default use gamedata effects and not triggers to reveal the area, so it would be ideal to use gamedata and not triggers for it. That said, I think both gamedata and triggers should be possible. For triggers it should be really easy, so probably your overall best option, and for gamedata, there might be a few ways of doing it, but it would be more challenging Regarding the size of the structure, I am not sure why you are saying that you cannot find the option to scale the watchtower, but can for other buildings — elaborate? You need to do 2 things: - Change the footprint of the object (that's how much space it takes up) - Scale the size of the actual unit (there are two methods I think, one is via the model, the other is via the unit... best to use the unit one)
Thanks the reply, seriously.
Here's what I know about resizing: If I select Destructible Rocks 6x6 (another unit on the map) and press Enter, the first tab of the properties screen has a "Scale" section the allows you to scale up/down the unit. If I select Xel'Naga Tower and press Enter, the first tab has no such section.
I am pretty noob to this, so I did some google search and could not find exactly what I was looking for. So then I hunted around in the game data and still could not figure out how to scale it. Does the footprint control whether of not you can scale the object? Do I just need to use say a Destructible Rocks footprint instead of the Footprint 2x2 and Footprint 2x2 (Contour) of the original watchtower?
As for the sight revealing, I have found out how to change how close a unit has to be to trigger the tower sight as well as how to increase/decrease the tower sight. However, I have not been able to figure out how to offset the sight range (so that the center of sight is x/y away from the center of the tower), and also I want to mess with how much sight is given based on certain parameters that I do not think the game data section allows. But again, I am pretty noob so any tips you might have would be appreciated!
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I thought I ought to reply with the solution I found. I still have not found how to scale the Xel'Naga watchtower, footprint and all, like you can with the destructible rocks via the properties screen when you press Enter, what I did find is that under the Model for the Unit, there are two properties: Scale Minimum and Scale Maximum. These allow you to put a range so that you can get randomly generated variations of the shape. What I did was to make a complete copy of the original Watchtower (renaming all of the related Actors, Footprints, etc. with the same suffix) for each of the different sizes I wanted, and then I modified the Scale Minimum and Scale Maximum to the specific size I wanted (the X, Y, and Z all to the same number for each). That way it "randomly" generates to the exact size. Additionally, I modified the Unit Sight Range and Tower Capture [suffix] abilities so that the baby watchtowers give less sight than the larger watchtowers, and you also have to stand closer to the smaller ones.
I'm still working on "throwing" the vision, but I will update when I have a solution.
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On August 09 2011 11:13 HypertonicHydroponic wrote: what I did find is that under the Model for the Unit, there are two properties: Scale Minimum and Scale Maximum.
...
I'm still working on "throwing" the vision, but I will update when I have a solution.
Yes that's what you want to do. There should be a scale on the xelnaga tower unit as well as the model (for whatever reason).
Footprint is how much space the unit actually takes up on the ground (2x2). Even if you scale the model larger, it will still be 2x2 unless you change it's footprint. Footprint should be under unit I think.
For the sight offset, that might be a bit tricky, so you might as well just use a trigger.
Events - Unit - Any Unit enters a distance of X from Unit
Conditions - no units from another faction around
Actions - reveal area at location
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On August 09 2011 11:57 Xapti wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2011 11:13 HypertonicHydroponic wrote: what I did find is that under the Model for the Unit, there are two properties: Scale Minimum and Scale Maximum.
...
I'm still working on "throwing" the vision, but I will update when I have a solution. Conditions - no units from another faction around
My head is swimming from all the triggers I've been looking through to try to do this. I cannot seem to figure out how to do this condition -- any suggestion?
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No triggers are really needed for xwt - its all done in data.
Are you still looking for "throwing" vision and do you just mean what the tower reveils suchs as the sight radius? Let me know and i should be able to help.
Your aware now that you don't need to hide the real tower in a ditch and instead just change the model to whatever doodad you want right?
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This is really cool I hope more people that make custom maps, use more xel naga towers like this in different way like Icup having one that's destructible.
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Ok! After much google searching, checking out the mapping sites, and just generally plowing through the trigger editor, I came up with a way that I think approximates the behavior of the towers while doing the funky little tricky things I wanted to do with the vision. I will edit this later with some of the specifics (i.e. actual trigger code) for anyone wanting to know how this is done, but basically, I create an 2-dimensional array for the number of units per player (row) by each tower (column) and another one for the Revealers (row) per player (column) that are used to "throw" the vision. I have a setup where there are four mini watchtowers and one large watchtower -- each of these is a copy of the original. The mini towers are 50% size, do their animation pretty much only if your unit is touching it, and only reveal sight of 1 so you don't even notice it. The large tower is 300% size, does the animation if you are up to a range of 64 (!!!) away but only reveals a sight of 2 which pretty much only lights itself up (and it IS in a ditch, but not for reasons of the OP). The last piece of the terrain setup is the addition of four regions, each centered upon the large tower with varying radii (16, 32, 48, 64 -- I've found that 64 is the largest revealer that can be created). So now the sweet triggers: these allow you to capture a mini tower which creates a revealer in one of the regions. If you capture one mini tower, you get the 16 radius vision; two towers, 32; etc. And as you leave towers, it does the reverse. The mini towers are placed just within the activation of the large tower, so the first thing you will see is the glow of the big tower, and then as you activate a mini one the sight seems to grow. It's a pretty neat effect if I do say so myself. I still need to work out some of the gotchas and test a bit more -- as one site mentioned burrowing/unburrowing and deaths need to be accounted for in whether or not vision should still be held. I really cannot wait to get this finished up and post the map.
EDIT 1: Ok, before I publish the triggers, I really want to do a thorough test of my map with more than one player since I don't want to put up something that doesn't actually work. I know it works for just one player, but I want to make sure it works properly when more than one player contests a mini-tower. Is there anyway to get the "Test Document" feature to allow the control of units from another player?
EDIT 2: I have published my triggers here ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=255017 ) for anyone who is interested.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/RRgQi.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/seEPe.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/544GV.jpg)
