Fog of war

[4erv']

Hey guys, have you got any ideas how to make fog of war?
Example:

[4erv']

Already figured it out

[j2graves]

this will be great for people who wanna make strategy games! =D

[4erv']

Well.. my way to make fog of war isn't very good. It's like deleting the squares on collision. It works good, but the squares are big, and looks strange. I've tried to make the squares smaller, but when i make them clone -> array to the all map, the game is running VERY slow.
Is there any other way, to make fog of war?

[BlarghNRawr]

what do you mean?
"fog of war"?
items dissapearing untill they're in ur line of sight (age of empires), or everything just darker, but you can still see it...

[feral]

i have a few ideas, but as i have never played a game with "fog of war effect". I sort of need a screen shot of the way you currently have it working to get a better idea..

I am also assuming this is only for a top down 2D map game ?

A few quick ideas tho would be to

1. use RGB to set existing "tiles' to Black - you can then fade in to full color in stages if needed ( not sure how it would work on tiles as i have never used them.. but i will look into

2. ensure only those items on screen are being drawn ( to speed it up)

but I really need a better idea of the effect you want..?

eg: do you want a real "mapped" fog of war, or just a circle of sight around your immediate area ? which is what the original screen shot seems to show..

[4erv']

real "mapped" fog of war

???
what do you mean?

[feral]

real "mapped" fog of war

???
what do you mean?

by mapped , i mean if you are looking down on the map some areas will be blacked out ( if you haven't yet explored them) and others will be in full detail if you have - or sometimes "greyed" out if you haven't fully explored them or haven't for a while.

essentially I mean the "fog" will be in different patches of the map rather then just a large circle around the character.. think of quake/doom style games where the automap won't show you places you haven't been.

sorry i don't quite get the idea of what you want, I haven't played starcraft.

attached is a "rough" "hand-drawn" concept
left side "mapped" - right side, simple "fog"

click to enlarge pic

(screengrab borrowed from hblades RPG demo ( I hope that is ok..)

[4erv']

yes, i want mapped, but i can't make it look smooth.
Heres my version:

Strategy Template (with fog of war).zip

jimmynewguy's strategy template

(3.85 MiB) Downloaded 144 times

Let me know if it not working, because i dont have game-editor right now.

[feral]

yes, i want mapped, but i can't make it look smooth.
Heres my version:

here is an exe ( use cursor keys to move)

Not complete nor well coded, i just need to know if this is what you mean.. ? it doesn't yet scroll the view, but is easy done.

fogdemo3.zip

(886.71 KiB) Downloaded 133 times

click to enlarge

[feral]

and an much easier way ...( i should have tho9ught of this first ..gugh)

anyhow replace your fog.png with the fogcopy.png attached here

fog copy.png (4.02 KiB) Viewed 1954 times

[4erv']

Thanks! I will try it when i will get my pc back.

[4erv']

OMG it was so easy!
Looks alot better! Thank you very much!