Ideas regarding minimap ?

Questions & Answers
1

Hello everyone,

I am looking to put in my game, a minimap similar to the one in this game :

[Minimap][1]
[1]: http://blog.wirebot.com/2013/01/04/3ds-version-of-swords-soldiers-in-the-works/

The minimap is located on the bottom of the screen. Objects and units are represented by indicators and in order to know where you are located on the minimap, the blue rectangle shows the current camera position.

My questions are :

  1. How hard is to create something like this ?(I’m a newbie in scripting)
  2. Is it easier to just use a normal minimap? (like the ones created with a second camera)
  3. How they managed to create the minimap? (everything in the game is related at a smaller scale in the minimap)
  4. Can anyone pinpoint me to some tutorials / already made scripts ?

Thanks

2

It seems to me you could do this without scripting, using a second camera with a really wide Field of View (FOV).

The second camera would only display a specific layer – call it Minimap. The primary camera would exclude the Minimap layer.

Each entity in the game would have a visible child object on the Minimap layer, maybe a billboard object so it always looks the same.

I’m not sure a camera can have a 360-degree FOV, so you might need two minimap cameras. They should probably be in the same hierarchy as the primary camera, so when the primary camera moves the minimap camera(s) will also move the same.