Create your own Pathmap for buildings/Doodads....

In this small Tutorial i want to tell you how to create and how to use your own special pathing maps.

1) What are pathingmaps?

Pathingmaps are small Thumbnails in the warcraft3 mpq, which set up if for example a building is pathable or not. Maybe you already asked you, why you cannot walk under a bridge, but only the right way. This is beacause of these small thumbnails.

2) Which colors are this?

There are eight different colors, which the warcraft 3 engine interprets:


3) How can i see those Pathingmaps?

While you are in the Editor, press the P key and you will be able to see them.


4) Getting started

4.1 Required Stuff

- graphic programm, which can read and save tga-files
- my stair modell for getting started with the tutorial

4.2 Import

Import the modell to your warcraft 3 map, and replace for example a bridge with your modell.

5) Creating a new pathmap

Now scale your modell to the size you want it to be.

!!! Pathmaps can not be scaled !!!
If you have finished your pathmap and resize your modell the pathmap will be still in the former size.

I scale the modell to 2,5, so that the proportion fits to a peon.



Press the G key to see the warcraft 3 grid. Set the grid to the smallest size.
Now count the squares in the editor. In my case there are 8 length and 4 width.



Open your grapicsoftware and create a new file containing 8 lenght and 4 width. Each square represents 1 pixel in the pathmap.
To make this stari walkable i use blue for the inner part and magenta for the border.


Save this file now to an 32-bit tga-file and import it to your map.
Edit the pathmap of your modell to the imported tga-file and restart the world editor.
Now place the modell somewhere you want to and use it
:D



I hope you enjoyed and understand the basics of pathmapping.

Pris0n

I like! Pathing maps are totally over-looked when it comes to mapping. People just use pathing blockers. Pathing maps are much more superior, and your tutorial shows just that. + rep

most people use ugly terrainstaris or stuff like that;
with only a few steps this would be look much more better

will this tutorial ever become a normal tutorial?
actually it is ja in the -submit tutorial- section

You have to wait patiently. Some resources take many weeks to approve. If you are really impatient, you could PM an admin.

Also, didn't someone else already post a tutorial on Pathing maps?
http://www.wc3campaigns.net/showthread.php?t=84330

there's already a tutorial about this
http://www.wc3campaigns.net/showthre...hlight=pathing

umpf
i searched for pathing but didn't see this thread at all...
but i strechted the hole thing to an easy tutorial, with some pics

it will never become a normal tutorial, or?!

There was already a similar tutorial, yes.
But i like this one very much also.
I approve.

thx a lot;
if you find any mistakes let me know about it

I think your table is off. It has 255 in the Blue column for Green. The values from Yellow down to Magenta are also off.

Just to make sure I'm clear, 1 Pixal in the Graphic you design is equal to one Pathing Tile in WC3 as a tga?

and to make pathing area that are slanted, like say, the fences in the editor, would it be like so: Measure the scquare area of the Diagnal object, (lets say its' 8 X 8. Obviously, you just put the "pixels" cornering eachother from SW end to NE end of your total area. Do you just fill in the rest of the void area in black after words?

yes all right
u could have checked on your own if you had opened a pathingmap of such an doodad.

Excellent tutorial, really helpful to TD-makers.

You might want to add that you aren't just limited to small boxes and stuff, as is demonstrated by my 108x56 pathmap for my Fusion TD (attached)

+rep

heck, you could even do the pathmap of your whole map like this! (that won't be very clever though... as it is a .tga file and you will probably have a big map x8 pathing cells, the size will be significant)

Pathmaps are required for custom building/doodad models. Pathmaps are also of benefit for TD makers.