So I have been chugging along with getting my learn on with the tutorials that Fishy so kindly fixed up yesterday, and I dove into hero creation last night. The tutorial I used was the one by Alevice located at http://www.sc2c.org/showthread.php?t=12. Now granted, its a few years old now so it might be outdated, but I have to ask, is there an easier way to create hero units? The last Blizzard toolset I used was in Warcraft 3, so it's almost horrifying to me how much more complicated the process seems to be for Starcraft 2. It seems like even for experienced toolset users the process of simply converting a regular unit into a usable, WC3-like hero unit is tedious at best. So I guess what I'm saying is, I really hope they implemented a more automated process between now and when that tutorial was written.
No, there isn't. I dare say that I'm fluent with the data editor to the point of confidence, and it'll still take me 2-8 hours to make your garden variety DotA hero. I'm sure some can get it done faster, but hey, here's some tips.
Make a template for your heroes. A group of assets that you can just copy/paste for however many heroes you intend to make. By "copy/paste" I, of course, mean proper duplication which I'm sure is explained better than I could here by one of OneTwoSC's tutorials.
Set yourself up for frustration and failure. Make a backup of your map before you start your next hero. It might turn out horrible. It might break something. It might summon Cthulu himself. You just never know with the data editor.
Don't leave your hero half-finished and move on to the next one. I don't know whether this is just me or what, but half-baked heroes end up in the trash can more often than not. On this note, it helps to aim to create assets, rather than heroes. Make a complete chain lightning spell, and just leave it at that. Be happy with it, and slap it on whatever hero you might want in future.
Last, but not least, set a lot of time aside to make them. Seriously. This isn't quick. Galaxy is powerful, but it hates you like some kind of stubborn god. Take your time with it. Don't rush. Sacrifice a goal daily to the actor tab in the data editor. You'll be fine.
Thanks for the heads up. The more I learn about the editor the more confused I get, especially in light of the fact that previous editors for WC3 or SC were so user friendly. It's indisputably a powerful tool, but it seems like they made almost no effort to streamline it, both for new users and for frequent tasks. It seems like it would be a fairly simple thing to have an option to create new hero > base hero off unit X -> automatically generate the actor/sound/model/inventory/leveling system the hero would use. Less advanced users would get the simplicity they need while more advanced users would at least save some time. Blizzard had to know that hero creation was going to be a very common thing that people were going to want to do.
I have to imagine a lot people who are new to modding or even people who have used blizzards tools before have to be discouraged by how time consuming some of this is.
My concept was actually born back in the WC3 days but I was working on other things back then, and I never followed through with it, and now II'm not even sure I want to proceed with my map idea because heroes were part of it, but not necessarily even the main part.
Does your 2-8 hour time frame include new custom abilities? Could I feasibly bang out a hero that uses existing SC2 abilities in a shorter time frame? Because my concept can work with simpler ones.
I made custom Hero Arena in wc3; along with a few other games that were never went public. I started editing here about 2 years ago; in that time I have done a good deal of hero related work. that said, Tya is pretty much spot on with everything said.
"Duplicate" is the "copy/paste" of the data editor. Say you want to use Raynor in your map as a hero. Right click on him in the data editor; and click "Duplicate" then you need to select the unit raynor, the model raynor, the actor raynor, the weapon for raynor, the weapon affect for raynor... and... well; i guess that is a basic copy/paste for a unit. Anything that you do not duplicate will be set to the values of the original raynor; except actor. If you do not duplicate an actor with a unit; you get a broken unit. It only takes a minute to duplicate a unit once you understand it; but the first few times may take you a bit to figure out what you want/need/are actually doing. As Tya said; you can find good tutorials on this too.
Setting up stats/leveling for a hero is another tutorial thing. The basics are primarily creating your stats; what you actually want them to do, and how many of them you want to have. You can create whatever stats you want. These are behaviors; and you can use buffs to apply them. Veterancy is the leveling behavior; where you can set exp requirements and award stats for leveling. Once you have these figured out, using them on a new hero only takes a few minutes. Setting them up will most likely take a few hours if you are new to it; consider it a day project, figuring out how to link all of this to heroes. Again, tutorials are the way to go.
Abilities are the time consuming part. In sc2, few abilities have upgrades or levels. Many abilities are more basic than the abilities of wc3. If you have ever made trigger based abilities in wc3; it is about that time consuming to make a data based ability; and there are really a lot of similarities. Wathing dozens of tutorials in this field; and just playing around, testing things, and asking questions will help you the most. The more you understand about ability editing; the more unique your abilities can be. You can (without too much difficulty) create an AoE burn area on the ground; when a unit enters it they catch on fire and run around uncontrollably, taking damage every second. You can also make it so any friendly unit they touch will also catch on fire and run around. You can make it so if they have a "gasoline" buff, they take additional burn damage. ... You can make them leave firey footprints behind and move 25% slower. The sky is really the limit with abilities. They take the longest for a hero; by far. Tya's 2-8 hours comes from someone skilled at it. For me, I can easily spend 2 hours per skill. I think my timeframe is closer to 4-12 hours, for a set of 4-5 skills on a hero.
The trigger editor is far superior to the trigger editor of wc3; and is much easier to use. There are a few (major, imo) minor things that you cannot do in sc2 that you could do in wc3. We have figured out long, tedious, errrr.... ways of working around it though.
Everything you say is correct; the sc2 editor deters a lot of people who are not into editing because they enjoy it and are skilled at it, or willing to work very hard to be skilled. A great thing about wc3 was that someone with almost no experience with the editor could spend a week in the editor; and have a playable map. I dare say it will take a week of working with abilities alone to think to yourself, "I think I can start doing this now". The data editor will take about... 10-20X longer to get anything done than wc3. Sad fact. Everyone has the same tools to work with though. The people here are more than willing to help you figure things out (though unless you are paying real cash in fair amounts, you are not likely to get physical help).
IMO, 1000 hours in the editor for a medium scale game seems pretty... "low, but acceptable". I would like to get TYA's opinion on this; as he has created many high quality, highly popular games. ... I am 2500 hours into my large scale game, and about 1/4th of the way done. I can only imagine the total hours invested into SCU. Tofu, Tower Defense Tycoon, errr, uhhh... I really cant think of any other super-long-term works of art that must have had 5000+ hours put into them.
Don't leave your hero half-finished and move on to the next one. I don't know whether this is just me or what, but half-baked heroes end up in the trash can more often than not
I think this could be applied to many more things too. Better to have, for example, 10 complete abilities than 100 unfinished half-functional ones, in my opinion.
Could I feasibly bang out a hero that uses existing SC2 abilities in a shorter time frame?
Most likely, yeah, since making custom abilities and fiddling with actors is the most time-consuming part of making a hero (I assume, at least, never made a hero myself, but that's what takes up most of my time when making custom units).
So I have been chugging along with getting my learn on with the tutorials that Fishy so kindly fixed up yesterday, and I dove into hero creation last night. The tutorial I used was the one by Alevice located at http://www.sc2c.org/showthread.php?t=12. Now granted, its a few years old now so it might be outdated, but I have to ask, is there an easier way to create hero units? The last Blizzard toolset I used was in Warcraft 3, so it's almost horrifying to me how much more complicated the process seems to be for Starcraft 2. It seems like even for experienced toolset users the process of simply converting a regular unit into a usable, WC3-like hero unit is tedious at best. So I guess what I'm saying is, I really hope they implemented a more automated process between now and when that tutorial was written.
So I have been chugging along with getting my learn on with the tutorials that Fishy so kindly fixed up yesterday, and I dove into hero creation last night. The tutorial I used was the one by Alevice located at http://www.sc2c.org/showthread.php?t=12. Now granted, its a few years old now so it might be outdated, but I have to ask, is there an easier way to create hero units? The last Blizzard toolset I used was in Warcraft 3, so it's almost horrifying to me how much more complicated the process seems to be for Starcraft 2. It seems like even for experienced toolset users the process of simply converting a regular unit into a usable, WC3-like hero unit is tedious at best. So I guess what I'm saying is, I really hope they implemented a more automated process between now and when that tutorial was written.
No, there isn't. I dare say that I'm fluent with the data editor to the point of confidence, and it'll still take me 2-8 hours to make your garden variety DotA hero. I'm sure some can get it done faster, but hey, here's some tips.
Make a template for your heroes. A group of assets that you can just copy/paste for however many heroes you intend to make. By "copy/paste" I, of course, mean proper duplication which I'm sure is explained better than I could here by one of OneTwoSC's tutorials.
Set yourself up for frustration and failure. Make a backup of your map before you start your next hero. It might turn out horrible. It might break something. It might summon Cthulu himself. You just never know with the data editor.
Don't leave your hero half-finished and move on to the next one. I don't know whether this is just me or what, but half-baked heroes end up in the trash can more often than not. On this note, it helps to aim to create assets, rather than heroes. Make a complete chain lightning spell, and just leave it at that. Be happy with it, and slap it on whatever hero you might want in future.
Last, but not least, set a lot of time aside to make them. Seriously. This isn't quick. Galaxy is powerful, but it hates you like some kind of stubborn god. Take your time with it. Don't rush. Sacrifice a goal daily to the actor tab in the data editor. You'll be fine.
@TyaStarcraft: Go
Thanks for the heads up. The more I learn about the editor the more confused I get, especially in light of the fact that previous editors for WC3 or SC were so user friendly. It's indisputably a powerful tool, but it seems like they made almost no effort to streamline it, both for new users and for frequent tasks. It seems like it would be a fairly simple thing to have an option to create new hero
-> automatically generate the actor/sound/model/inventory/leveling system the hero would use. Less advanced users would get the simplicity they need while more advanced users would at least save some time. Blizzard had to know that hero creation was going to be a very common thing that people were going to want to do.> base hero off unit XI have to imagine a lot people who are new to modding or even people who have used blizzards tools before have to be discouraged by how time consuming some of this is.
My concept was actually born back in the WC3 days but I was working on other things back then, and I never followed through with it, and now II'm not even sure I want to proceed with my map idea because heroes were part of it, but not necessarily even the main part.
Does your 2-8 hour time frame include new custom abilities? Could I feasibly bang out a hero that uses existing SC2 abilities in a shorter time frame? Because my concept can work with simpler ones.
I made custom Hero Arena in wc3; along with a few other games that were never went public. I started editing here about 2 years ago; in that time I have done a good deal of hero related work. that said, Tya is pretty much spot on with everything said.
"Duplicate" is the "copy/paste" of the data editor. Say you want to use Raynor in your map as a hero. Right click on him in the data editor; and click "Duplicate" then you need to select the unit raynor, the model raynor, the actor raynor, the weapon for raynor, the weapon affect for raynor... and... well; i guess that is a basic copy/paste for a unit. Anything that you do not duplicate will be set to the values of the original raynor; except actor. If you do not duplicate an actor with a unit; you get a broken unit. It only takes a minute to duplicate a unit once you understand it; but the first few times may take you a bit to figure out what you want/need/are actually doing. As Tya said; you can find good tutorials on this too.
Setting up stats/leveling for a hero is another tutorial thing. The basics are primarily creating your stats; what you actually want them to do, and how many of them you want to have. You can create whatever stats you want. These are behaviors; and you can use buffs to apply them. Veterancy is the leveling behavior; where you can set exp requirements and award stats for leveling. Once you have these figured out, using them on a new hero only takes a few minutes. Setting them up will most likely take a few hours if you are new to it; consider it a day project, figuring out how to link all of this to heroes. Again, tutorials are the way to go.
Abilities are the time consuming part. In sc2, few abilities have upgrades or levels. Many abilities are more basic than the abilities of wc3. If you have ever made trigger based abilities in wc3; it is about that time consuming to make a data based ability; and there are really a lot of similarities. Wathing dozens of tutorials in this field; and just playing around, testing things, and asking questions will help you the most. The more you understand about ability editing; the more unique your abilities can be. You can (without too much difficulty) create an AoE burn area on the ground; when a unit enters it they catch on fire and run around uncontrollably, taking damage every second. You can also make it so any friendly unit they touch will also catch on fire and run around. You can make it so if they have a "gasoline" buff, they take additional burn damage. ... You can make them leave firey footprints behind and move 25% slower. The sky is really the limit with abilities. They take the longest for a hero; by far. Tya's 2-8 hours comes from someone skilled at it. For me, I can easily spend 2 hours per skill. I think my timeframe is closer to 4-12 hours, for a set of 4-5 skills on a hero.
The trigger editor is far superior to the trigger editor of wc3; and is much easier to use. There are a few (major, imo) minor things that you cannot do in sc2 that you could do in wc3. We have figured out long, tedious, errrr.... ways of working around it though.
Everything you say is correct; the sc2 editor deters a lot of people who are not into editing because they enjoy it and are skilled at it, or willing to work very hard to be skilled. A great thing about wc3 was that someone with almost no experience with the editor could spend a week in the editor; and have a playable map. I dare say it will take a week of working with abilities alone to think to yourself, "I think I can start doing this now". The data editor will take about... 10-20X longer to get anything done than wc3. Sad fact. Everyone has the same tools to work with though. The people here are more than willing to help you figure things out (though unless you are paying real cash in fair amounts, you are not likely to get physical help).
IMO, 1000 hours in the editor for a medium scale game seems pretty... "low, but acceptable". I would like to get TYA's opinion on this; as he has created many high quality, highly popular games. ... I am 2500 hours into my large scale game, and about 1/4th of the way done. I can only imagine the total hours invested into SCU. Tofu, Tower Defense Tycoon, errr, uhhh... I really cant think of any other super-long-term works of art that must have had 5000+ hours put into them.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
I think this could be applied to many more things too. Better to have, for example, 10 complete abilities than 100 unfinished half-functional ones, in my opinion.
Most likely, yeah, since making custom abilities and fiddling with actors is the most time-consuming part of making a hero (I assume, at least, never made a hero myself, but that's what takes up most of my time when making custom units).
http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/evo-frenzy/
that contains 13 heroes you are free to look at, copy and do whatever with. :) all are pretty unique and cool.
@SearingChicken: Go
Broken link on dropbox, please reupload.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RussianMapster
Fixed.
I accidentally deleted my public folder from dropbox :P but it's fixed now.