From this day on, I would start to post some demos or tutorials (at irregular intervals) about new interesting features I found in 1.5 Editor. Some would be short, some would be long artiles.
Should start to do it a week ago, but I think most of you are busy playing Diablo III this week?
Ok, the first one, the Creep Engulfment visual effect. You may have seen a official teaser before, but they have actually added it into the visual engine of 1.5 alpha, just haven't enabled them yet.
I made a demonstrate map to use actor message to enable them, just cool.
Yes! Creep engulfment did make it in after all! We were looking for creep engulfment during our original livestream and didn't manage to see it. Either way, keep up the good content. Those who didn't make it into the beta will much appreciate the videos, I'm sure.
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Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
nice, was wondering how this worked
im interested in if you are able to get the ragdoll death actor working? i played with it for abit but im not all that good with actors and failed.
nice, was wondering how this worked im interested in if you are able to get the ragdoll death actor working? i played with it for abit but im not all that good with actors and failed.
As for the ragdoll death things, I can do them in data layer, but the actual visual effects also require some modifitations to the death models files themselves.
So I will need startools to create comprehensive demos or tutorials about this. Hope they can release it in the upcoming 1.5 beta phase.
But before that, I can only demonstrate it in some minimal degree. Maybe I can post one tonight (in my timezone (+8) of course) if you have interest in it.
Hey can we keep the effect but remove the Surrounding Creep? that green creep makes me think it could be awesome to use on jungle maps to simulate Growths such as Moss on the buildings.
As for the ragdoll death things, I can do them in data layer, but the actual visual effects also require some modifitations to the death models files themselves.
So I will need startools to create comprehensive demos or tutorials about this. Hope they can release it in the upcoming 1.5 beta phase.
But before that, I can only demonstrate it in some minimal degree. Maybe I can post one tonight (in my timezone (+8) of course) if you have interest in it.
Quick question about creep engulfment... Does it affect structures in any way (like a behavior applied to them, making them slower in training or attacking units)? Is there anyway to check if a building is engulfed via triggers, or even data?
What about multiple creeps? Can we have some different creeps with different textures on one map?
The issue is not only about adding multiple layers of creep, I think... The problem is to know how different creeps would behave between each other. Assuming they're managed as layers, which creep is on top of the others? And if 2 kinds of creep collide on the same layer, how and where do you split them? Creep spreads dynamically, which makes it even harder to know exactly where (and when!) a creep should start/stop spreading while in contact with a different creep.
If you want multiple creep sources, it would basically end up the same way the collisions between units work: a unit has a "push priority" setting in its parameters to decide who's to be pushed away when 2 units collide. When their values are the same, the force applied is equal for both. While it's obviously a very interesting feature for creep, it's also not worth the time and effort. Too few people will use it, most of them will not use it properly so it would also be a concern (for performance issues) on low-end computers.
I don't think Blizzard will ever make it happen, because they don't need it for neither the campaign nor melee. It wouldn't make sense in the storyline either if there were different kinds of creep: Zerg broods don't have their own creep, it's the same for everyone.
Quick question about creep engulfment... Does it affect structures in any way (like a behavior applied to them, making them slower in training or attacking units)? Is there anyway to check if a building is engulfed via triggers, or even data?
The creep engulfment is a actor layer thing, which means it only affect the visual effect.
But what you asked is very easy to do. If a actor can be engulfed by creep, then it will only be engulfed when it is on creep land. So we just need to check if it is on creep
And we already have data validators which can be used to check if a unit is on creep.
The issue is not only about adding multiple layers of creep, I think... The problem is to know how different creeps would behave between each other
Like a foam bubbles, like this: Ф
Like there is only one creep layer, and different creeps push each other with a force decaying with a distance from creep source. It's the most natural way, and is probably easy to implement on a code level, so it won't affect the perfomance.
Quote:
Zerg broods don't have their own creep, it's the same for everyone.
Well, they could. It's a dimention of complication blizzard could push HotS to. It could provide some tricky tactics and visualize the competition between broods, in case creep have both, texture and minimap color differencies, as well as affection on zerg units speed depending on creep owner.
Quote:
Too few people will use it
Actually, it could reveal a wide spectre of dynamic terrain possibilities. Like growing grass or spreading snows. Or surface spread resources like spice in dune 2. Or (which I desire the most) friendly terrain system, like in civilization 3+ or Rise of nations with pushing borders abilities.
Oh, so you have to modify the actors to achieve this? No wonder I didn't find it. I was making videos on this, like the lighting demo but yeah D3 sucked me in :P
Also, I didn't think you could do it in buildings atm, I was only able to do it on cliffs and trees when I casted on the beta. Thanks, I'll check the map.
Like a foam bubbles, like this: Ф
Like there is only one creep layer, and different creeps push each other with a force decaying with a distance from creep source. It's the most natural way, and is probably easy to implement on a code level, so it won't affect the perfomance.
Theoretically, yes. But in fact, time matters and things get much much more complicated to handle. There are lots of situations where a creep source can get circled by another source, so what happens to it? Does it get swallowed by the new creep source, or does it repel it? I can't even imagine how much of a pain it would be to manage 16 types of creep sources (one per player) and how they interact with each other. It's not only a matter of geometry (checking distance, tracing the tangent, and whatever), it's more a matter of WHEN it happens, who has the highest priority in which case, and what this priority changes.
The creep, as it is now, picks the next tile it should spread to at random (when it's expanding from a tumor you just placed). It makes it even more complicated to predict how a creep source will spread, so if you're looking for a specific shape (let's say a creep source forming hexagons, or 2 creep sources forming a Yin-Yang symbol), it would just be a nightmare to create.
It will be just the same amount of calculations as in 1 creep type case. Creep will grow as it used to. Just randomly spread around. It will spread on a different creep square in the same way as it does on an empty square. The other creep will do the same. And statistically it will create the foam like Ф-morphed interconnection. It's a trivial self-organisation, it doesn't need any extra calculations.
It'd be kinda weird though. Or is there now a snow author that does it?
Using creep would make it weird because the snow would start covering the buiulding from the ground up. And one snowstorms you also get snow piled up on roofs :P
I think it'd make a nice silent hill, though. Like when the horns sound and the world starts converting into something else ;o
which gives me an awesome idea. I wonder what happens if you change the creep's blend type to something else, like maybe add, emissive add or blend. I wonder what effects would it have to have a creep that is blended perfectly with ground, would it make buildings invisible? :P
From this day on, I would start to post some demos or tutorials (at irregular intervals) about new interesting features I found in 1.5 Editor. Some would be short, some would be long artiles.
Should start to do it a week ago, but I think most of you are busy playing Diablo III this week?
Ok, the first one, the Creep Engulfment visual effect. You may have seen a official teaser before, but they have actually added it into the visual engine of 1.5 alpha, just haven't enabled them yet.
I made a demonstrate map to use actor message to enable them, just cool.
You can download the demonstrate map here:
http://www.sc2mapster.com/media/attachments/27/656/1.5creep.SC2Map
How to test the sample map?
1]Run this map
2]Lift-Click at place to create a creep tumor
3]Right-Click to destory all tumors.
Note that this map could only be opened with 1.5 editor.
Youtube video here. In fact I cannot open youtube.com in CN, so I asked a friend to upload it for me.
Note: watch it in full screen & HD please
You can actually change the "max height" of the creep engulfment.
So the creep can cover the entire building if you want.
Yes! Creep engulfment did make it in after all! We were looking for creep engulfment during our original livestream and didn't manage to see it. Either way, keep up the good content. Those who didn't make it into the beta will much appreciate the videos, I'm sure.
nice, was wondering how this worked im interested in if you are able to get the ragdoll death actor working? i played with it for abit but im not all that good with actors and failed.
As for the ragdoll death things, I can do them in data layer, but the actual visual effects also require some modifitations to the death models files themselves.
So I will need startools to create comprehensive demos or tutorials about this. Hope they can release it in the upcoming 1.5 beta phase.
But before that, I can only demonstrate it in some minimal degree. Maybe I can post one tonight (in my timezone (+8) of course) if you have interest in it.
Engulfment texture changed if you change creep's texture?
Of course.
And you can test it youself by download my sample map in OP
@Renee2islga: Go
Hey can we keep the effect but remove the Surrounding Creep? that green creep makes me think it could be awesome to use on jungle maps to simulate Growths such as Moss on the buildings.
thats a shame :(
What about multiple creeps? Can we have some different creeps with different textures on one map?
In addition, the pics above may cause you to think the pylon model is so different that it is immune to creep engulfments.
Actually the Pylon CAN be engulfed by creep too.
You can simply decide if some thing can be engulfed or not in their actor properties.
Just set their fields below:
Creep Height Class
Creep Rate Grow
Creep Rate Shrink
I don't think you can do it, at least in the current alpha build.
Quick question about creep engulfment... Does it affect structures in any way (like a behavior applied to them, making them slower in training or attacking units)? Is there anyway to check if a building is engulfed via triggers, or even data?
The issue is not only about adding multiple layers of creep, I think... The problem is to know how different creeps would behave between each other. Assuming they're managed as layers, which creep is on top of the others? And if 2 kinds of creep collide on the same layer, how and where do you split them? Creep spreads dynamically, which makes it even harder to know exactly where (and when!) a creep should start/stop spreading while in contact with a different creep.
If you want multiple creep sources, it would basically end up the same way the collisions between units work: a unit has a "push priority" setting in its parameters to decide who's to be pushed away when 2 units collide. When their values are the same, the force applied is equal for both. While it's obviously a very interesting feature for creep, it's also not worth the time and effort. Too few people will use it, most of them will not use it properly so it would also be a concern (for performance issues) on low-end computers.
I don't think Blizzard will ever make it happen, because they don't need it for neither the campaign nor melee. It wouldn't make sense in the storyline either if there were different kinds of creep: Zerg broods don't have their own creep, it's the same for everyone.
The creep engulfment is a actor layer thing, which means it only affect the visual effect.
But what you asked is very easy to do. If a actor can be engulfed by creep, then it will only be engulfed when it is on creep land. So we just need to check if it is on creep
And we already have data validators which can be used to check if a unit is on creep.
Like a foam bubbles, like this: Ф
Like there is only one creep layer, and different creeps push each other with a force decaying with a distance from creep source. It's the most natural way, and is probably easy to implement on a code level, so it won't affect the perfomance.
Well, they could. It's a dimention of complication blizzard could push HotS to. It could provide some tricky tactics and visualize the competition between broods, in case creep have both, texture and minimap color differencies, as well as affection on zerg units speed depending on creep owner.
Actually, it could reveal a wide spectre of dynamic terrain possibilities. Like growing grass or spreading snows. Or surface spread resources like spice in dune 2. Or (which I desire the most) friendly terrain system, like in civilization 3+ or Rise of nations with pushing borders abilities.
Oh, so you have to modify the actors to achieve this? No wonder I didn't find it. I was making videos on this, like the lighting demo but yeah D3 sucked me in :P
Also, I didn't think you could do it in buildings atm, I was only able to do it on cliffs and trees when I casted on the beta. Thanks, I'll check the map.
Theoretically, yes. But in fact, time matters and things get much much more complicated to handle. There are lots of situations where a creep source can get circled by another source, so what happens to it? Does it get swallowed by the new creep source, or does it repel it? I can't even imagine how much of a pain it would be to manage 16 types of creep sources (one per player) and how they interact with each other. It's not only a matter of geometry (checking distance, tracing the tangent, and whatever), it's more a matter of WHEN it happens, who has the highest priority in which case, and what this priority changes.
The creep, as it is now, picks the next tile it should spread to at random (when it's expanding from a tumor you just placed). It makes it even more complicated to predict how a creep source will spread, so if you're looking for a specific shape (let's say a creep source forming hexagons, or 2 creep sources forming a Yin-Yang symbol), it would just be a nightmare to create.
@ZealNaga: Go
It will be just the same amount of calculations as in 1 creep type case. Creep will grow as it used to. Just randomly spread around. It will spread on a different creep square in the same way as it does on an empty square. The other creep will do the same. And statistically it will create the foam like Ф-morphed interconnection. It's a trivial self-organisation, it doesn't need any extra calculations.
OMFG, dynamic Snow <3 I really love this!
It'd be kinda weird though. Or is there now a snow author that does it?
Using creep would make it weird because the snow would start covering the buiulding from the ground up. And one snowstorms you also get snow piled up on roofs :P I think it'd make a nice silent hill, though. Like when the horns sound and the world starts converting into something else ;o
which gives me an awesome idea. I wonder what happens if you change the creep's blend type to something else, like maybe add, emissive add or blend. I wonder what effects would it have to have a creep that is blended perfectly with ground, would it make buildings invisible? :P