Many people have seen people like Ingo van Thiel or Mashek or Skeletar, or even Crasher make the blackness that covers the screen come back over a revealed map area. I am now going to teach you how to do it. Read carefully, this can be confusing if not read carefully.

IMPORTANT: This cannot be used for an anti cheat!!!!! This works best on cut scenes!!!!!

~Beginning Settings~

First: You must have two or three players that have no role in the game at all. Make sure that all these players are allied with each other and that they are neutral with you. In the corner of the map, have a ram. It does not matter what type it is and it can be any player's except for yours or one of their own. Anything else will work fine.

Second: Make a trigger effect 'Task Object' for each players unit to garrison inside the ram. Then surround the ram with cliffs or something that will stop it from moving if it is not on Immobile Units AI.

Third: Make another trigger and make an effect called Research Technology. Set it for Cartography.

~Making the Blackness~

That was the easy part. Now time for the hard part.

First: When you want to reveal a part of the map, you must create a map revealer using triggers. Have an effect which says 'Create Object'. Create a Map Revealer and put it where you want it to go. However, instead of putting Source Player 1, put down one of those special players that do not do anything.

From now on I will refer to those special players as either player: 6, 7, or 8.

Second: So put down Source Player 6 and change diplomacy on both sides. Player 1 allied to Player 6. Player Six allied to Player 1.

Third: When you are ready to change the view and you want to put the blackness back on, all you have to do is just change diplomacy to neutral with Player 6. Have Player 6 become neutral to you.

By doing this, you now can turn the blackness on and off.

Four: If you are going to do a few of these reveal maps you should first use Player 6, then Player 7, then Player 8, and then start back at Player 6 again.

~Finishing Up~

Some people have different methods for this, but I consider this to be the easiest method of them all.

If there are any questions or comments, I would be more than happy to answer them. If there are any more questions that you have, ask away.

~Credits~

I must give credit to Mashek for explaining to me how to do this.

I am NOT asking for credit on thinking this up. I am probably the fiftieth person who has learned how to do this.

You will find this to be very helpful in your Cut-Scenes as you progress in learning how to make better ones.

I am not sure who the first designer of this was, so you can just credit me since I gave you the tutorial.

As it is that probably fewer than fifty people know how to do this, I hope to raise that number into the hundreds.

I hope this tutorial was helpful to you,

¤Dantares IV¤

[This message has been edited by Dantares IV (edited 10-19-2007 @ 05:22 PM).]