When working with a large open world, keeping track of assets is important for ensuring the game is balanced when you populate the world with player based resources. This tool was built to map out the world and show designers where high concentrations of reousces were placed so a balance pass could be done to ensure the gameplay needs of each region were met
The Heatmap Tool Window With Additional Options
This tool has a range of options exposed to maxamise it's use case
Editable Map TexturesAllows designers to change the map render texture of the tool by selecting a texture from the content browser and setting it directly on the tool panel to the new map texutre, this is then saved so next time the level is open the map texture remains to the one set by the designer, so no need to set it each time.
Editable Map TexturesAllows designers to change the map render texture of the tool by selecting a texture from the content browser and setting it directly on the tool panel to the new map texutre, this is then saved so next time the level is open the map texture remains to the one set by the designer, so no need to set it each time.
Scalable Level Bounds
Not all levels are the same size, the tool can be resized at any time to adjust the calculations for the positioning of the heatspots. Not sure on the level size ? press the auto size button to have the tool calculate the total bounds of your world and then make fine tweaks if needed.
Adjustable Level Grid For Heatmap
Allows designers to set how dense the grid should be based on the world size, meaning how many assets can be mapped to a single grid cell. This is used to calcualte the overall Alpha of the heatspot. The grid cell with the highest value is given an Alpha of 1, empty grid cells are 0. Anything inbetween is given a value between 0-1
Select Individual or All of Class
Sometimes you just want to get all assets of a type, other times you may want to get any child assets along with their parents. This tool allows you to filter the search criterira based on the settings chosen in its options menu
Export As .PNG
Once the map file has been generated. You may want to save it to compare it later or use it to take into design meetings to showcase progression of a level, or the results of a recent balance pass. This data is invaluable when dealing with large worlds where in game resources are critical to the gameplay. Getting that balance right can be it's own challange so it is crucial to know where your in game resources are located and adjust acroding to play test and user feedback
Player / Editor Tracking
When running in the editor. Have an arrow dynamicly placed onto the map allows you to see where you are in the world, useful for tracking down assets flagged as out of bounds if you don't know or can't see what they are. This could be assets from an old build that need cleaning up or areas that are no longer in use as part of gameplay and are simply background areas now. As for player tracking, this tool uses C++ on the backend to record players movements during gameplay. Both offline and online gameplay is supported with player names being used as the key to the map. You can then load the data after a play session as the data is saved on the server only. This then shows you the path the player took during the game. the hot spots of areas they remained in and areas they avoided. You can then feed this back to design teams to see why didn't players go this way ? or feed these heatmap textures directly into your PCG graphs and have them spawn AI based on the hot spots of the texture data. Meaning you also gain gameplay elements from a tool designed for the editor
Modular Design
This tool is not hard coded to any assets in the project, it stands as its own tool, meaning it can be deployed to any project as needed. It comes with a range of built in assets to get you setup and all the functions to get it working for your project needs
Heatmap Data With World Overlay
Heatmap Data With Asset Overlay
