How to make a Footprints path like zelda BOTW Hero's path

Hello gus, I am a university student majoring in architecture. My university project is related to the sounds and noises of the built environment. Recently, I have been working on a project about evacuation, with the idea of creating a model of the university library in Unreal Engine. The plan is to place some speakers in the virtual library and have participants play this game to calculate how long it takes them to get from the starting point to a designated exit (endpoint).

This concept is very cool, but even after learning from scratch for a month, I haven’t been able to make any progress. The path map I want is like the Hero’s Path in “The Legend of Zelda : Breath of the Wild,” which highlights the player’s route from start to finish.


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I have all the ideas in my head, but I lack the ability to implement them. I believe in the power of Unreal Engine, but I feel frustrated that I can’t achieve my goal. If you could offer some advice or provide some video tutorials as suggestions, I would be very grateful.

P.S. My computer skills might not be very strong, so I hope you can explain in detail.

I found this from google after wondering the same thing.

The detail in the original game is pretty good.

I don’t know how they implement it. My leading theory is that you literally “draw” over the actual map using your character as the “pen”. I’ve never done this kind of visual before though. I imagine you could make a material that does this. I don’t know how heavy this kind of design would be though or if there’s a better way.

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Yea, easiest/cheapest solution is probably just that.
Write the character path using a material into a RT, then present the render target.

Cost wise, its cheap if done right.

You arent rendering anything, you are taking X/Y and applying a marker into an existing image.

Open up the Old content examples (4.x), look at the render target water for an idea of how to do it.

They have a material that draws your position and fades it back out over time.
One of the other example on the same map has a simple write to based on X/Y which is the basis of what you need.

For Zelda, this is likely the exact process used.

The other approach would be to periodically store waypoints as x/y, then draw vectors using curved baziers / maybe just using a spline.
The results of that will almost never be any good or accurate, but depending on what you are doing it could be what you need to do…

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Something like this?

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Yeah this sounds right. Draw into a bitmap copy of the overworld map. Looks like they make the trail color lighter or darker based on Z height. If the trail needs to be toggle-able then just put it in a different image and use as an overlay.

Very simple and costs almost nothing to generate or store. :+1:

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More less than more.
Tons of steps you can avoid, but also a great ending :stuck_out_tongue:

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