Ive been using the map editor for sometime now and know a bit more than the basics of map making but only a little bit.
Ive come across a problem with a map im trying to make or be it just a unit. Its a 3 part problem I have a plant or small tree and the first thing I would like to do but cant is make it spawn copys of its self. The second thing I want to do is give it a life time and the final thing id like my plant to do is start of small and grow in size over its life span.
Spawn copies: make an ability that has effect target and set it to target point. the effect should be a create unit effect that spawns your tree unit.
Timed Life: give it a timed life behavior. there are several already in the game, use a copy of one of those.
Growth: this is one im not too familiar with. look in actor events and see if you can find one that changes scale, else you can make various models for all the sizes you want the tree to be and use a model swap action to change the model to a different size.
Create a Unit for your plant tree thingy, I recommend copying something most similar to what you are after and then cutting, adding and defaulting as appropriate. Create a Unit type Actor and set its template field to your plant tree thingy. Remember to setup the actor so that it references an appropriate Model. At this stage you should have a unit you can place in the editor, select in game and do unit stuff with in a session.
Spawning mechanic specification is unclear so I will not elaborate on that part. For ideas look at abilities like Train (eg Barracks) and Build (eg SCV). More complex spawn mechanics which use several abilities, weapons and a complex effect chain can be seen on units like Broodlord, Broodmother, Sentry, Infestor and Raven.
To make the tree grow use an actor event on the unit type actor you created earlier. Either tie this to various buffs (representing growth stages) or from the moment it is created get the scale to change to something big over a very long blend time (like 120 seconds or more).
Ive just about fixed 2 of the issuses I had thanks to you guys however ImperialGood was right i didnt explain very well about the spawning. I tryed what u said Joey and it worked however its not what im looking for like I said my fault. Im looking for a way to spawn a unit with out any interaction from a player or any other unit, effect or anything else. I would like the tree to just make copys of its self untill it dies with random placement in a radus from the unit(tree) its being copyed from ofc all the copys do the same as the starting tree. basicly creating life :D hehe
Also Ive thought of something else id like to do with this map although I have no idea if its possible. Id like to take a ground texture and make a unit / actor out of it. ie - id like a sort of moss thats spherical and has a transparent edge anyone thing this is doable?
So if anyone knows how to make a unit spawn a copy of its self spontaneously (with out any interaction from players or other units) with random placement with in a range from the unit that is spawning the copy of its self. As Im all out of ideas and also its a proper road block and i basicly cant do anything to my map unit i get this fixed.
Any ideas are welcome thx!
As you can see from the attachment I have a lot of work to do once ive got this out the way. ill be making over 60 units
so you want that tree to autocast on a point around the tree?
that sounds like micro ai. maskedimporster was supposed to make me a tutorial on that but never did >.>
but yeah maybe look at what makes queens spawn creep tumors or something like that, ive never had to make a unit constantly use effect points like that.
alternatively you may be able to use effect instant to make a tree spawn a unit at a offset of itself, i heard you cant use random point in a circle for things like these so maybe use triggers to constantly modify an upgrade that could simulate randomness (ie every second change the offset direction and distance)
Micro AI sounds hard.. ill have a look at the effect instant method and the trigger idea is good to as it does not need to be very random.
When i started doing this map I made a tree I thought it was going to work but it crashed StarCraft whenever I loaded a testgame. I've remade it 2 times on 2 maps just to see if it was some issues to do with the map.
What I did was make the Unit and then attach a Behaviour (CBehaviorSpawn) this has all the fields I want for the unit. It can offset the spawn location and I can make a load of them offsets and have them in a random order also I can set a cost and have it on a delay. but this crashed on testing
So I duplicated spawn Larva, changed it to the tree unit and but that crashed the game as well. After that I thought maybe the game cant do units that Infinitely propagate them selves so I changed the spawning unit in the behaviour to a thor unit.
Then something odd happened the map worked as in didn't crash and the trees spawned thors but also spawned a tree with the thor (they where in a line but it was a good step closer). So I made a unit to replace the thor. And made it an invisible unit and replaced the thor so the tree would spawn and so would this invisible unit with timed life.
Loaded up the map and this time no tree spawned however I could see on the minimap the invisible units where spawning and also at random places clsoe to the tree.
All the things i want for this tree I have made just cant seem to make them at the same time at this point is when I thought I'd seek some help and got on here.
but then this morning I thought maybe i can trick the editor in to thinking its not the same unit. I duplicated my tree and all of its parts renamed them all as #2 and made it so that tree #1 would spawn tree #2 and tree #2 would spawn tree #1 guess what it crashed the testgame..
Hi There Im new this is my first thread!
Ive been using the map editor for sometime now and know a bit more than the basics of map making but only a little bit.
Ive come across a problem with a map im trying to make or be it just a unit. Its a 3 part problem I have a plant or small tree and the first thing I would like to do but cant is make it spawn copys of its self. The second thing I want to do is give it a life time and the final thing id like my plant to do is start of small and grow in size over its life span.
Any Help would be Epic thanks
Spawn copies: make an ability that has effect target and set it to target point. the effect should be a create unit effect that spawns your tree unit.
Timed Life: give it a timed life behavior. there are several already in the game, use a copy of one of those.
Growth: this is one im not too familiar with. look in actor events and see if you can find one that changes scale, else you can make various models for all the sizes you want the tree to be and use a model swap action to change the model to a different size.
Create a Unit for your plant tree thingy, I recommend copying something most similar to what you are after and then cutting, adding and defaulting as appropriate. Create a Unit type Actor and set its template field to your plant tree thingy. Remember to setup the actor so that it references an appropriate Model. At this stage you should have a unit you can place in the editor, select in game and do unit stuff with in a session.
Spawning mechanic specification is unclear so I will not elaborate on that part. For ideas look at abilities like Train (eg Barracks) and Build (eg SCV). More complex spawn mechanics which use several abilities, weapons and a complex effect chain can be seen on units like Broodlord, Broodmother, Sentry, Infestor and Raven.
To make the tree grow use an actor event on the unit type actor you created earlier. Either tie this to various buffs (representing growth stages) or from the moment it is created get the scale to change to something big over a very long blend time (like 120 seconds or more).
Thanks for the replys dudes.
Ive just about fixed 2 of the issuses I had thanks to you guys however ImperialGood was right i didnt explain very well about the spawning. I tryed what u said Joey and it worked however its not what im looking for like I said my fault. Im looking for a way to spawn a unit with out any interaction from a player or any other unit, effect or anything else. I would like the tree to just make copys of its self untill it dies with random placement in a radus from the unit(tree) its being copyed from ofc all the copys do the same as the starting tree. basicly creating life :D hehe
Also Ive thought of something else id like to do with this map although I have no idea if its possible. Id like to take a ground texture and make a unit / actor out of it. ie - id like a sort of moss thats spherical and has a transparent edge anyone thing this is doable?
So if anyone knows how to make a unit spawn a copy of its self spontaneously (with out any interaction from players or other units) with random placement with in a range from the unit that is spawning the copy of its self. As Im all out of ideas and also its a proper road block and i basicly cant do anything to my map unit i get this fixed.
Any ideas are welcome thx!
As you can see from the attachment I have a lot of work to do once ive got this out the way. ill be making over 60 units
so you want that tree to autocast on a point around the tree?
that sounds like micro ai. maskedimporster was supposed to make me a tutorial on that but never did >.>
but yeah maybe look at what makes queens spawn creep tumors or something like that, ive never had to make a unit constantly use effect points like that.
alternatively you may be able to use effect instant to make a tree spawn a unit at a offset of itself, i heard you cant use random point in a circle for things like these so maybe use triggers to constantly modify an upgrade that could simulate randomness (ie every second change the offset direction and distance)
Micro AI sounds hard.. ill have a look at the effect instant method and the trigger idea is good to as it does not need to be very random.
When i started doing this map I made a tree I thought it was going to work but it crashed StarCraft whenever I loaded a testgame. I've remade it 2 times on 2 maps just to see if it was some issues to do with the map.
What I did was make the Unit and then attach a Behaviour (CBehaviorSpawn) this has all the fields I want for the unit. It can offset the spawn location and I can make a load of them offsets and have them in a random order also I can set a cost and have it on a delay. but this crashed on testing
So I duplicated spawn Larva, changed it to the tree unit and but that crashed the game as well. After that I thought maybe the game cant do units that Infinitely propagate them selves so I changed the spawning unit in the behaviour to a thor unit.
Then something odd happened the map worked as in didn't crash and the trees spawned thors but also spawned a tree with the thor (they where in a line but it was a good step closer). So I made a unit to replace the thor. And made it an invisible unit and replaced the thor so the tree would spawn and so would this invisible unit with timed life.
Loaded up the map and this time no tree spawned however I could see on the minimap the invisible units where spawning and also at random places clsoe to the tree.
All the things i want for this tree I have made just cant seem to make them at the same time at this point is when I thought I'd seek some help and got on here.
but then this morning I thought maybe i can trick the editor in to thinking its not the same unit. I duplicated my tree and all of its parts renamed them all as #2 and made it so that tree #1 would spawn tree #2 and tree #2 would spawn tree #1 guess what it crashed the testgame..