skip to Main Content

The 4 representation modes in WMSK

WMSK has grown to provide a wide and rich number of options for your game presentation needs. You can build your game using one of the 4 available representations (even you could combine them in the same project). These representation modes are:

  • 2D flat map in world space.

  • 2D flat map as part of your UI (as a Map Panel UI element)

  • 3D viewport

  • Terrain mode

2D Flat Map

2D flat map only uses the main WorldMapStrategyKit prefab. It’s basically a big quad that can be placed, rotated and scaled anywhere in the scene which shows a background texture according to the selected Earth style and all the map features (frontiers, latitude/longitude lines, cursor, grid, etc.).

This mode is a great choice for light-weight game UI, where a more strategic or simplistic approach is desired, like Plague Inc. or Risk. This mode will also run faster on older mobile devices. The mini-map for example uses a stand-alone map itself.

2D UI Map Mode

2D UI map mode uses a custom Map Panel that can be added to any Canvas UI and will render the map inside that panel. See this video for an example:

Also check demo scene 408 Map as UI Element under UI examples.

3D Viewport Mode

3D Viewport mode offers the most complete feature set including animated clouds, water, fog of war, infinite scrolling (world wrap), path-finding and functionality to position and move units across the map. It’s the sandbox mode of WMSK. We recommend you use it along the advanced scenic plus styles, unless you prefer to use a simpler approach (standalone) or you need to use Unity terrain features (like trees, foliage, ground level view, …)

The viewport mode works by adding the Viewport prefab to the scene where you previously have a WorldMapStrategyKit map. The viewport will attach automatically to the WMSK object and the texture and frontiers of the map will be projected onto this viewport. See “Using the Viewport” section for more details.

You may mix the Viewport mode with the normal 2D flat map in the same scene and switch between them, see Demo scene 508 for an example.

The 3D viewport gameobject can be synced with an UI Panel so screen position / size will match. This option is useful if you want to have a 3D view of your map but limited to a certain area of the screen. To configure this mode, just drag & drop the UI Panel into the RenderViewport property of the WMSK inspector. Note that WMSK still behave as a 3D object but its position, rotation and scale are updated in real-time to match the given UI Panel location and size.

Terrain Mode

Terrain mode has been introduced in version 5. It works like the viewport mode instead of using the viewport prefab, your Unity terrain itself is assigned to the viewport property. Once you do that, the WMSK textures and frontiers will be projected onto the terrain itself using a custom terrain shader.

This mode provides more freedom since now you can use many other assets like water, sky, fog and work with gameobjects and terrain as you usually do in Unity. It will also look a lot better if you zoom and you will be able to use foliage and trees (it’s a normal terrain!). Note that infinite scrolling (world-wrapping), fog of war and the animated cloud are only available in Viewport mode.

Back To Top