Journeyman's Minimap - Code Plugin for Minimaps and Fog of

[Namesis]

@Namesis

Correct. And no, I dont have custom visibility mechanic, just modified net cull distance on actors (npc / player / items)
If you (on the characters/npcs) decrease the net cull distance to 4000000.0 (since its a topdown game, for example) the actors on minimap will stop showing. So yeah, after this they just disappear, so I was wondering if there is a way to have a persistent data or something that will keep showing those actors (lets say a party member) even after not being network relevant to the client (out of net cull distance).

if not… maybe a future update with this? This can happen to anyone with a big map even with epic’s default net cull distance, just saying.

Regards!

bump to this /10char

[gozu]

@Namesis

bump to this /10char

i’ve been wondering the same thing…

[gozu]

Plans to update to 4.20?
Thank you.

[dcaspi]

Hello,

I really enjoy this plugin but currently we are having a strange behavior which is probably wrong configuration…
When I`m adding a background image I set the size of image which 4096/4096 but the view is strange.
I have Squares in the background which looks like rectangle.

I have added an example picture for the original image and the in game.

What am I doing wrong? I tried to follow the documentation but without success…

[Rebel_Camp_Games]

Hello! I got a problem with the journeyman’s minimap.

I got a night scene with low lighting. As a result the generated minimap/full map is very dark. Is there a way to add lighting to the generated world texture without having to add light in the scene? (so I can keep my nightly feeling in the scene)

Kind regards,

Stefan - Creative Director at Rebel Camp Games

[NorthWeapon]

Is there a way I can disable the fog for players/spectators? After a player loses I would like to disable fog of for him.

[Zhi_Kang_Shao]

@SyedAman

Is there a way I can disable the fog for players/spectators? After a player loses I would like to disable fog of for him.

Yes, fog is calculated locally. Try executing this, on the client that should see everything:

AMapFog* FogInLevel = ...;
UMapFunctionLibrary::GetMapTracker(this)->UnregisterMapFog(FogInLevel);

If you’re working in a blueprint only project, unfortunately UnregisterMapFog isn’t an exposed function. For now, you can Destroy the MapFog actor for only the player that gets to see everything. Actor destruction is irreversible though, so the fog can’t be turned on unless the player reloads the level (rejoins the server).

[dcaspi]

Hello! We got some strange problem when upgrading to 4.21 version.

It took us a while to find out the reason of the blurriness of our FPS hands (When moving mouse or character) until we found that its the fog of ... We then start to eliminate the possibilities and found that removing the fog combined material solve the problem But once we remove it we dont have correct fog of in our map…

Could you please assist in this?

Thanks,
Doron

[Maghyslain]

Hello! We are using the journeyman’s minimap. Great tool! I am working on the SAVE GAME and i am wondering if there is a way to save the current FOG OF information without saving all the data from unreal. I am also using multiple mapfog for a better resolution.

Thanks!

[Namesis]

@Namesis

Correct. And no, I dont have custom visibility mechanic, just modified net cull distance on actors (npc / player / items)
If you (on the characters/npcs) decrease the net cull distance to 4000000.0 (since its a topdown game, for example) the actors on minimap will stop showing. So yeah, after this they just disappear, so I was wondering if there is a way to have a persistent data or something that will keep showing those actors (lets say a party member) even after not being network relevant to the client (out of net cull distance).

if not… maybe a future update with this? This can happen to anyone with a big map even with epic’s default net cull distance, just saying.

Regards!

still waiting for a confirmation on this… if this is already implemented in the asset or I’ll need to tweek it.
Basically if you have a fornite map and put this plugin and place two players on each map border they wont be able to see each other in the map or minimap, hence the question if there is a kind of persistant data to send the player coordinates and update the map

[Maydie]

This plugin is so awesome. I started a RTS project (all blueprint based) then started to panic when I could not find any well implemented fog of systems. This is that and more.

Having said that, is there anyway I can do a trace or something similar on the mapfog to see if an area is currently visible (basically, I do not want players to build anything in undiscovered areas). Also, is there a way to exclude specific meshes so they always show 100% through the fog (i.e. on top of the fog).

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[Th120]

I got a small problem with the minimap…
If the root component of my actor is scaled up the icon has a weird offset on the minimap.
I am using UE 4.21.

[Zhi_Kang_Shao]

@Maydie

This plugin is so awesome. I started a RTS project (all blueprint based) then started to panic when I could not find any well implemented fog of systems. This is that and more.

Having said that, is there anyway I can do a trace or something similar on the mapfog to see if an area is currently visible (basically, I do not want players to build anything in undiscovered areas). Also, is there a way to exclude specific meshes so they always show 100% through the fog (i.e. on top of the fog).

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Hey Maydie,

Way late response but in case you are still interested. The feature you desire is certainly supported! The fog of is designed with retrieving values in mind. The function for that is the MapFog actor’s “GetFogAtLocation”. Because I figured that depending on your game rules, you also may want to differentiate between areas that are **currently being revealed **(for example you have a unit nearby) or have ever been revealed (a unit explored it in the past), the query also lets you control that.

For a simple check (revealed or not) the function returns a boolean that represents whether the area has been revealed or not. For even more advanced control, since the explored area has a soft edge, you can retrieve the exact revealed factor (which could be for example 50% if its in the center of the soft edge).

[Zhi_Kang_Shao]

@Namesis

still waiting for a confirmation on this… if this is already implemented in the asset or I’ll need to tweek it.
Basically if you have a fornite map and put this plugin and place two players on each map border they wont be able to see each other in the map or minimap, hence the question if there is a kind of persistant data to send the player coordinates and update the map

Unfortunately there is no out of the box support for net updating icons even though the actors are net culled. A custom solution would be necessary for that. A simple approach would be to host the MapIconComponents on non-net culled actors, at the cost of replicating some actor locations double and the extra actors’ memory footprint. There are more elegant solutions, but bottom line this isn’t supported out of the box.

[tRuTrIx]

I am having a issue with the 4.22 version. My map reveal texture appears as a half circle with a very misshapen other half.
I did not have this issue in 4.21.

[Mighteemouse3]

So i just got this from the summer flash sale and within an hour I LOVE IT.
However, i have 3 things that i could some help understanding. It’s more the render texture than the plug in itself.
First, my level is dark… like really dark. So to get the map to be visible, i have to turn the alpha on the texture render up a few pts. is there a better way?
Second, the map is a little pixellated.
Third, for now i’m using the bordered example; i may have missed it in the docs, can i resize the minimap as a whole?

Otherwise, fantastic work, I’ve wanted your plugin for a while now and I’m so glad I got it.

[anonymous_user_18516d7c]

Love this add-on, the fog of is great!! Just waiting on a 4.23 version of the addon because I’m getting a crash to desktop bug in Unreal 4.22 that supposedly they have fixed in Unreal 4.23.

[Featuriing]

Hey guys!
We are using the minimap plugin for a top-down ARPG project.
After integrating the plugin we observed that the graphics of the game were not as good as before.
Character hair, for example, looks kind of jittery now as soon as the character moves.
When removing the MapFog Actor from the level everything is back to normal.
Disabling world fog (we anyways use it only on the map) didn’t change anything either.
Did anyone also encounter this or have some hint regarding how to debug/fix it?

Best Regards
Robin

[Zhi_Kang_Shao]

@RobinZinser

Hey guys!
We are using the minimap plugin for a top-down ARPG project.
After integrating the plugin we observed that the graphics of the game were not as good as before.
Character hair, for example, looks kind of jittery now as soon as the character moves.
When removing the MapFog Actor from the level everything is back to normal.
Disabling world fog (we anyways use it only on the map) didn’t change anything either.
Did anyone also encounter this or have some hint regarding how to debug/fix it?

Best Regards
Robin

Hey RobinZinser

Do you tie any gameplay to the minimap’s fog values? For example when retrieving fog values from the MapFog actor, it performs a read from the fog render target, which is inherently an expensive operation (though the result is cached for several frames, this duration is tweakable). This is a likely culprit for frame drop, try disabling any calls to those functions (GetFogAt…) to diagnose if that is the cause of the jitter you see. I’m not sure what could have triggered the degradation in performance between engine versions.

[Featuriing]

@Zhi_Kang_Shao

Hey RobinZinser

Do you tie any gameplay to the minimap’s fog values? For example when retrieving fog values from the MapFog actor, it performs a read from the fog render target, which is inherently an expensive operation (though the result is cached for several frames, this duration is tweakable). This is a likely culprit for frame drop, try disabling any calls to those functions (GetFogAt…) to diagnose if that is the cause of the jitter you see. I’m not sure what could have triggered the degradation in performance between engine versions.

Thanks for answer!
I just checked this again since I did some project related tweaks to the minimap. I completely replaced the plugin with a fresh downloaded copy so everything is back to default. And the same bad results were still there. Its btw also no frame drop / performance issue we are talking about. its for example the character hair which is getting very jittery, moving objects show strange artifact/jitter behavior every now and then and so on.
Removing the MapFog Actor is immediately returning everything to the old, good results. Changing the CacheLifteime also didnt help
Please let me know if you have any idea about what the cause could be

Best Regards