Hello all, while I've been active for a while, I just noticed I forgot to make any presentation.
Silly me.
I'm InsaneMonster and I've been very passionated in working with Blizzard's Editors since Warcraft 2. I'm not very passionate in the competitive multiplayer thing though :D
While working in the Galaxy Editor I noticed how difficult and unintuitive is to provide talking portraits, something we all have since the good old times of Starcraft 1.
So, I'm thinking of making a library which has the following features:
One action definition for transmission
Possibility of adding voiceover of your choice and starting sound (beloved com-beep)
No internal wait or delays
I am looking forward to know if any of you would be interested in such a library. Only shortcoming would be the need to actually create a preset for each portait, in which I link muted sounds and potrait models. So there would be also a small bit of data (only one element with multiple sound entries).
An AI of this kind will play much worse than any human, just like any real AI is worse than humans at everything.
But it is a fantastic idea to open up this to researchers and, hopefully, to the community as well via Galaxy Editor. Could make up for interesting missions...
What would really be great is the possibility of adding an high level AI to, for example, understand what a human want to do (maybe trained before) and then use a scripted way to counter it efficiently. Imagine how better any campaign map could become thanks to this (thinking about Base vs Base kind of match).
Is your project posted somewhere? I'm very curious to how did you implemented those things and I would certainly like to follow your progresses, even if the project itself is (from what I got) more or less abandoned :)
Yes, you are right... I checked in the editor, here's a screenshot in the attachment.
The problem is that I uses a_units_detector_abilities instead of a_units_warrior_abilities, which is the correct one.
The reason of this error is a mistake while I was copy and pasting istructions for detectors and warriors, as you can see. Thank you very very much for reporting this, I fixed it in my own version, and when I will release an update I will include the fix. :)
The conceptual problem I found with automation is that you cannot make it work for everyone in every situation. The map maker should have control when making maps and taking out this control, even for performance or improved "intelligence" is bad, from my point of view.
It would create a situation similar to SC1, where the AI will do what it wants and you cannot (by just using editor) set it in any specific way. :)
Defence is easy, it just call a number (customizable) of warrior units FROM the defined (expansion, guarded, town, ecc...) region where the attacked unit is once for a clock. Why only the region where it is? Because this is a campaign AI, and it should be quite static in defence. ;)
This way defence gives a feeling of escalation. The more you attack, the more they defend.
Expansion is done this way: you just place points where you want the AI to expand (one for each building, like CC, Turrets, even units if you like), and add a region which cover also resources, to be used later.
When you reach a certain point in the build order (you can check by setting the flag string and use generic event to intercept it), you can trigger the expansion. First, you add the region I was talking about before, this way the AI will start placing warriors and detectors there at random, making also the region available for defence.
Then you can add the points for the units at the expansion to the build order and reduce the build time to, for example, 0. This way the AI will start building in the points in parallel (if it has the resources, and always in the given order) and, when a town hall (e.g. CC) is completed in the region, will also add workers and send them to mine. It will also build extractors for vespene.
Of course, adding points follow the FIFO model, so if you trigger an expansion while you have other points in the build order it will place that at the end of the queue. Of course, by using again the flag this can be easily regulated. For a working example, check the InsaneAI Battleground example map. :)
Yes, of course. I got the idea to allow custom units watching the Jayborino video of your campaign. Of course, the AI must still play Starcraft. If you want it to play Civilization or Dota it will not work :)
It actually does not care what is in the tech tree, you have to manually define each unit to be what you want in the way you want. Maximum customization. As I told in the first post and in the project page, this is no plug and play AI. This is a tool to make campaign AIs easy to code ;)
I see other errors in what I presume is the example map. But I never got those errors at home. Are you able to run the map at all? Can you try and report me when the error shows up? Also, I like more the editor GUI, for I think is much more cleaner to watch to (mainly because of the horrible id the galaxy put on the variables and functions.
Also, the error is given when you access a_units_detector_abilities[][] or when accessing the Unit Group?
For example, in order to create build order you just define some points and pass them to the appropriate action. Then the AI will time the "Add as bully action with rebuild count 1" and will readd them when they died decrementing the effective rebuild count you passed via counter.
Also, for example, you can define a region for supplies, and it will build supply in this region trying to align them (just by using points, this feature actually should be improved a bit, it's far from perfect).
The waves are done by the map maker, just by using AI personality. For example, InsaneAI could be used to code all of Starcraft Mass Recall AIs with ease, and, if used well, also to code a melee like AI, but they always must be specific on the map (it needs regions and points to work).
Since I know you are (in positive, I remember reading your guide to SC1 modding some years ago), I am sure you can understand what it is by just looking at the example map in the galaxy editor for a few minutes ;)
I just tried to make Campaign AIs easy to code and bug free by a clean trigger interface which allows the player to do at least what the old good World Editor AI module did.
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Yes, sometimes .zip are reffered to as archives... maybe that's the reason...
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I wish to report a small bug. In the insert link command in the posting wizard, even if you select "Open New Window" it will not.
Here's an example: No New Window, New Window.
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Click on View -> Show UI -> Palette and Minimap and all should be well.
;)
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Hello all, while I've been active for a while, I just noticed I forgot to make any presentation.
Silly me.
I'm InsaneMonster and I've been very passionated in working with Blizzard's Editors since Warcraft 2. I'm not very passionate in the competitive multiplayer thing though :D
Anyway, cheers to everyone :)
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Hello fellow Mapsters :D
While working in the Galaxy Editor I noticed how difficult and unintuitive is to provide talking portraits, something we all have since the good old times of Starcraft 1.
So, I'm thinking of making a library which has the following features:
I am looking forward to know if any of you would be interested in such a library. Only shortcoming would be the need to actually create a preset for each portait, in which I link muted sounds and potrait models. So there would be also a small bit of data (only one element with multiple sound entries).
What do you say? Does it sound useful to you? :)
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Worderful Conclave guys!
Great work :)
Do they also have animations? If they do, I'm curious about them :D
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An AI of this kind will play much worse than any human, just like any real AI is worse than humans at everything.
But it is a fantastic idea to open up this to researchers and, hopefully, to the community as well via Galaxy Editor. Could make up for interesting missions...
What would really be great is the possibility of adding an high level AI to, for example, understand what a human want to do (maybe trained before) and then use a scripted way to counter it efficiently. Imagine how better any campaign map could become thanks to this (thinking about Base vs Base kind of match).
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@IskatuMesk: Go
I can understand that. Good luck anyway with all your projects. You are welcome to pass by to provide feedback whenever you want :)
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@IskatuMesk: Go
Is your project posted somewhere? I'm very curious to how did you implemented those things and I would certainly like to follow your progresses, even if the project itself is (from what I got) more or less abandoned :)
0
@Ahli634: Go
Yes, you are right... I checked in the editor, here's a screenshot in the attachment.
The problem is that I uses a_units_detector_abilities instead of a_units_warrior_abilities, which is the correct one.
The reason of this error is a mistake while I was copy and pasting istructions for detectors and warriors, as you can see. Thank you very very much for reporting this, I fixed it in my own version, and when I will release an update I will include the fix. :)
0
@IskatuMesk: Go
The conceptual problem I found with automation is that you cannot make it work for everyone in every situation. The map maker should have control when making maps and taking out this control, even for performance or improved "intelligence" is bad, from my point of view.
It would create a situation similar to SC1, where the AI will do what it wants and you cannot (by just using editor) set it in any specific way. :)
0
@captaindando: Go
Easy answer:
1) Start a campaign AI
2) Place Bullies with add bully, for example in random point in regions
OR
2) Set Stocks, then call Enable Stock
3) Enjoy
This is also something you should really do ;)
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@IskatuMesk: Go
Defence is easy, it just call a number (customizable) of warrior units FROM the defined (expansion, guarded, town, ecc...) region where the attacked unit is once for a clock. Why only the region where it is? Because this is a campaign AI, and it should be quite static in defence. ;)
This way defence gives a feeling of escalation. The more you attack, the more they defend.
Expansion is done this way: you just place points where you want the AI to expand (one for each building, like CC, Turrets, even units if you like), and add a region which cover also resources, to be used later.
When you reach a certain point in the build order (you can check by setting the flag string and use generic event to intercept it), you can trigger the expansion. First, you add the region I was talking about before, this way the AI will start placing warriors and detectors there at random, making also the region available for defence.
Then you can add the points for the units at the expansion to the build order and reduce the build time to, for example, 0. This way the AI will start building in the points in parallel (if it has the resources, and always in the given order) and, when a town hall (e.g. CC) is completed in the region, will also add workers and send them to mine. It will also build extractors for vespene.
Of course, adding points follow the FIFO model, so if you trigger an expansion while you have other points in the build order it will place that at the end of the queue. Of course, by using again the flag this can be easily regulated. For a working example, check the InsaneAI Battleground example map. :)
@Bilxor: Go
Yes, of course. I got the idea to allow custom units watching the Jayborino video of your campaign. Of course, the AI must still play Starcraft. If you want it to play Civilization or Dota it will not work :)
It actually does not care what is in the tech tree, you have to manually define each unit to be what you want in the way you want. Maximum customization. As I told in the first post and in the project page, this is no plug and play AI. This is a tool to make campaign AIs easy to code ;)
@Ahli634: Go
I see other errors in what I presume is the example map. But I never got those errors at home. Are you able to run the map at all? Can you try and report me when the error shows up? Also, I like more the editor GUI, for I think is much more cleaner to watch to (mainly because of the horrible id the galaxy put on the variables and functions.
Also, the error is given when you access a_units_detector_abilities[][] or when accessing the Unit Group?
0
@IskatuMesk: Go
I just used the GUI trigger editor.
For example, in order to create build order you just define some points and pass them to the appropriate action. Then the AI will time the "Add as bully action with rebuild count 1" and will readd them when they died decrementing the effective rebuild count you passed via counter.
Also, for example, you can define a region for supplies, and it will build supply in this region trying to align them (just by using points, this feature actually should be improved a bit, it's far from perfect).
The waves are done by the map maker, just by using AI personality. For example, InsaneAI could be used to code all of Starcraft Mass Recall AIs with ease, and, if used well, also to code a melee like AI, but they always must be specific on the map (it needs regions and points to work).
Since I know you are (in positive, I remember reading your guide to SC1 modding some years ago), I am sure you can understand what it is by just looking at the example map in the galaxy editor for a few minutes ;)
I just tried to make Campaign AIs easy to code and bug free by a clean trigger interface which allows the player to do at least what the old good World Editor AI module did.
0
@SolidSC: Go
The second one is not actually a tutorial, but a library used to make easier to code the AI.
Of course, the source code of it can be of great help to see how to actually code an AI :)