SC2Mapster

Out of Bounds Contest Results

I would like to give a big thanks to everyone who participated in this Contest, Bounds were my absolute favorite type of map during the old SC1 days. Checking out a lot of these entries really brought back some old memories (especially Level Up Bound, man I miss that map). I'm kind of inspired to go recreate one of my old bounds now... Anyway, thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations to our top 3: progammer, Xen10, and Introversity, with D1000 coming in a close 4th! Stay tuned for the next contest, should be coming around pretty shortly, ;).

1. progammer - The Amazing Probe - 18
2. Xen10 - Level Up Bound - 13
3. Introversity - Lights Out - 11
4. D1000 - Unnamed - 10
5. Noidealol - Bounce - 7
6. nevjmac - Unnamed - 6
7. Victiln - Got Ninja - 5
8. Zarakk - A Zerglings Journey (Level 3) - 5
9. Obliviron - Dog Meat - 5
10. Zarakk - A Zerglings Journey (Level 1) - 4
11. Zarakk - A Zerglings Journey (Level 4) - 4

The Out of Bounds Contest votes have begun. Go check out the submissions and vote for your favorites!

Weekly Data Exercise by nevjmac

With the success of the Weekly Terraining Exercise by Mozared, nevjmac took it upon himself to start a similar event for those users crazy about the Data Editor. If you're bored and want to do some tinkering around in the Data Editor to learn or just brush up, this is definitely a great way to do it. Here's a few results from the first WDE...

Blizzard wants to know what your favorite Ladder map is, so everyone go vote!

Quote:

From the verdant valleys of Jungle Basin to the arid dunes of Blistering Sands, those who engage in StarCraft II ranked multiplayer games will find themselves doing battle in a variety of different environments - each featuring its own unique set of challenges and advantages.

Of all the available 1v1 ladder maps (listed above), which is your favorite to play in ranked games, and why? What about the battlefield appeals to you? Is it the artwork, the terrain around your main, or maybe the positioning of certain features like natural and high-yield expansions? Let us know!

Blizzard just released a minor patch on the KR servers... That means it'll hit US and EU sometime tomorrow!

Quote:

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.1.3

General

• New game categories have been added to filter Tower Defense and Tug of War custom maps.
  

Balance

TERRAN

• Thor
  + This unit will now prioritize attacking ground combat units over Medivacs.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a desync that could occur when trying to watch replays that had a dependency on bank files.

We have just added a Broken Maps category for users who are experiencing issues with their maps and believe the source of the problem to be within the Galaxy Editor itself. If you find yourself in this situation, upload your map to the Broken Maps category. This will make things easier for us to push your maps over to the guys at Blizzard that can actually get these problems fixed. Your files will still remain private, as only the SC2Mapster Moderators and Blizzard will touch them. Thanks!

Out of Bounds Contest

Something we have noticed is that there is a lack of Bound/Obstacle maps on Battle.net these days... (So yes, Battle.net is out of bounds! *drumroll*) For those of you who were around during the days of SC1, Bounds ruled the Customs list. If you can remember, we have also had a Minigame Contest before. However it was generic and this time we want to focus on specifically making Bounds and Obstacles.

What to do?

You are making a portion of an obstacle course/bound. Feel free to make an entire map out of it, but each submission should only be one obstacle. You allowed to create any kind of obstacle you want... A maze, explosions, dodge units, anything you can think of in terms of being challenged in the form of an obstacle is fair game. Remember, the more creative, the better!

What you have to give

• You have to provide a youtube video of one obstacle. If you can't record, post the map and ask, someone will help you recording it :)
• If you want to have multiple obstacles, just submit multiple videos. It'll make things easier for judging if we keep it to one obstacle per submission.
• If you want to have a music background, you can import and play it in the map, but it is recommended to add it in the video.
• You have to attach the map used to take the video

Deadlines

You have 10 days to complete this contest.

• End of the submissions: Wednesday, November 17th - Midnight PDT (Los Angeles) [Thursday, November 18th - 9 AM GMT (Paris)]
• A public vote will be held after the end of the submissions to decide who wins.

Reward

The main goal of the contest is to further community development within GalaxyEdit. The rewards can be see as follows:

• First: 1-year Curse Premium
• Second: 6-month Curse Premium
• Third: 3-month Curse Premium
• Everyone else: 1-month Curse Premium

You have one free name change on Battle.net if you misnamed your character :) [One day it'll come to mapster too!]

SC1 Legacy Remake Contest Results

I would like to give a big thanks to everyone who participated in this Contest, I really enjoyed seeing all these oldschool Melee maps make a comeback. I know I (Sixen) will definitely be playing on some of these maps for training with some friends as I do play a lot of Melee. Anyway, thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations to our top 3: Saeris, Onetwo, and bigbluemonkey! If you enjoyed this contest, keep your eye out, I'd like to do a War3 Legacy contest as well in the [near?] future.

1. Highland Denizens by Saeris - 28
2. Border Dispute by Onetwo SC - 23
3. Full Circle by bigbluemonkey555 - 11
4. Crescent Moon by OutsiderXE - 8
5. Twisted Fate by Saeris - 6
6. Ashrigo by Saeris - 5
7. Ramparts by dimfish - 3
8. Fading Realm by Naim2k10 - 3
9. Baby Steps by Veledesh - 3

Blizzard Custom Map Contest Winners

They have been officially announced by Blizzard. I'm glad that the first map is from a mapster member :) They are the same ones as I announced before the Blizzcon. There's only Zergling Round-Up added. Since it was forbidden to take pictures on custom maps from the Blizzcon we don't have anything on it yet :(

1. Benjamin Lagarhus (Acemore) – MAD
2. Ivan Vidusenko – Zergling Round-Up
3. Andreas Lundkvist – Photon Command

Power Level Overwhelming by Ultimaswc3

Power Overwhelming will re-joy all the PvP fans out there. It's fast-paced hero action with some really sexy effects :) I highly recommand you to try it out on the US realms!

Left 4 Death by Mephs

If you didn't follow the drama, Mephs published a map called Left 2 Die and has received a mail saying it would be taken by Blizzard. Therefore he has renamed it Left 4 Death and is about to release the v2. Here's a trailer to keep you waiting :)

Blue Posts

Another round of Blue Posts with great news for cooperation on big projects. Copying Doodads from map to map will no longer forget about the Z value.

Quote:

(Malu) - So, copying doodads from one map to another or simply making a exact clone of a area is a pain since you have to enter all the height offsets manually for every single doodad you copy, is this intended or simply a bug?

This is a bug that we hope to address in a future patch.

(Visual) - What are map sections and how are they used?

In order to make it easier for multiple developers to work on a single map simultaneously, various map data may be assigned to a named "section", and data for given section may merged in from a separate map file without changing the rest of the map. Only certain components of the map data may use sections: Placed Objects (units, points, cameras), Regions, and Triggers.

(Klishu) - I'm having a problem regarding beams. As far as I can tell, the bounding volume of a beam is around the beam's launch point. So, if I have a long beam, the beam disappears when the camera pans away from the beam's launch point. I suppose this is because the bounding volume of the beam moves out of the view frustum. I've tried changing the Visual Radius of the beam's model but I still cannot get the beam to remain visible. Is there any way I can prevent the game from culling the beam when it considers it out of view?

There's no solve for this currently. The setting used to prevent the culling is in the asset itself and not readily available to modders. Moreover, while the concept of a fixed sized bounding volume works fine for models, it isn’t ideal for beams that could be fired across an arbitrary range. We’re aware of the issue and hope to have a solution for this problem in the future.

(Duke) - Flag "Use line of sight" (unit parameter in data editor) limits unit`s sight radius to very small number that is not enough for my map. With this flag unchecked sight radius becomes right to it value but unit can see over cliffs this way =(. I need to see cliffs correctly but have sight radius more than it limited. Will this problem be fixed?

Units using line of sight are limited to a small sight radius in order to optimize the vision system and it's unlikely that we will remove this limitation.

(Duke) - Is there a way to rotate turret actor of unit? I know there is an action "set angle of actor" or something like this, but i can get only actor of type Unit from unit, but not the turret actor. It will be very good if someone tell me the way my tank always focusing his turret on target, even if i use action "make unit face angle" - because now this action breaks turret rotation and it focus target again only when unit stops rotating.

The only way to point a turret at an arbitrary location is to create an invisible dummy unit and a dummy weapon that doesn’t do any damage for that turret. You can then attack the dummy unit with the dummy weapon and move the dummy unit to simulate whatever turret motion you want.

This isn't ideal, obviously. We'd like to explore more game-side turret behaviors and include the ability to have actor-only turrets that look cool, but don’t affect gameplay.

(Andreyker) - How to combine different areas (R) into one?

You can combine Regions by selecting the regions and then using the Edit -> Merge Selection command.

(Andreyker) - Please add no-base resource squares in category "H". If there is a non-standard location of resources - may occur holes. Not so convenient to build.

You can view the tiles near resources by enabling the Show Near Resources option of the placement grid. This is located in the Terrain Editor menu: View -> Show Placement Grid (Ctrl+Shift+H) -> Show Near Resources.

Update: All the ingame screenshots are courtesy of Starcraft-source.com and post content courtesy of Blizzard.

The StarCraft II Custom Maps and Editor panel, new this year to BlizzCon, proved to be a treasure trove of information for aspiring mapmakers and anyone interested in the StarCraft II custom map scene. Lead Level Designer Matt Morris, Senior Level Designer Richard Khoo, Level Designer Jason Huck, Level Designer Matt Gotcher, and Data Specialist Justin Klinchuch discussed a variety of topics with the audience, including their design philosophy, mapmaking tips and suggestions, official custom map previews, and a critical look at the StarCraft II Editor.

All-New Blizzard Custom Maps: Left 2 Die, Aiur Chef, and Blizzard DOTA

The team then went on to discuss how their design approach is applied in practice, using three upcoming Blizzard-made custom maps as examples. They also gave audience members some insight into each map’s inspiration and the overall gameplay.

Blizzard DOTA

After seeing so many great player-made maps based on Aeon of Strife and Defense of the Ancients, the designers felt inspired to create their own adaptation of these legendary StarCraft and Warcraft III custom mods using updated graphics, customized character models, and epic new environments.

Blizzard DOTA will be a 5-vs.-5 mini-game with a chess-board theme, featuring three lanes, two bases, creep-based farming, and an emphasis on protecting key structures. Players will get to choose among 12 iconic heroes from the Blizzard universe, including superstars like Kerrigan, Sylvanas, Jim Raynor, and Muradin Bronzebeard, each with his or her own unique abilities and tactics.

It's important to note that all of these custom maps are still in their formative stages and do not yet have a release date. While BlizzCon attendees have a unique opportunity to check out early demos, these maps will continue to be tuned, polished, and possibly even augmented as the development process continues to ensure that they’re epic, balanced, and—most importantly—fun to play.

StarCraft II Editor

Next, the developers showcased several short videos demonstrating the variety of cool visual effects that are possible to create using Trigger and Data Editors to manipulate existing art assets, encouraging avid mapmakers to seek out similar ways to really make their maps shine.

Embodying the design team's appreciation of community feedback, the panelists then highlighted an upcoming addition to the StarCraft II Editor that was directly inspired by player discussion on the Custom Maps forum. In patch 1.2.0, the next major feature and balance patch for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, players will be able continually track the mouse position in triggers. A video demonstration of the new functionality in action and a final reminder to the audience that "Feedback Becomes Features" served as a transition into an open Q&A session.

Question and Answers

There will be a full transcript tomorrow

• MousePosition(point X, point Y) will be added, not sure about Z.
• Marketplace coming Soon(TM) and map size limitations may change pretty Soon(TM) as well.
• Blizzard is recreating War3 assets for SC2
• All four Blizz Maps will be unlocked for learning
• rrowland asked about the Map Locking feature, Blizz says they will update the security on it.
• Inventory System is being worked on.
• Map Linking will be something they may add in the future for multiplayer.
• Star Tools (Art Tools) will be available sometime...
• UI Editor coming Soon(TM)

Left 2 Die

Left 2 Die offers a cooperative take on the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty campaign mission Outbreak (i.e. the mission where it was only safe to go out during the day), which received a lot of positive feedback from the community. Feeling that Outbreak created a dynamic, fun environment that encouraged coordination and promoted the importance of both offense and defense, the design team adapted this mission into a team-based mini-game that allows players to share tech trees, earn research points by destroying infested buildings during the day, and create elaborate ground defenses, all in the hopes of surviving through the night against hordes of slavering zerg zombies.

Aiur Chef

Players will get to wear the hat of zealot warrior chefs skilled in the arts of cooking and killing in this round-based mini-game. Every round of Aiur Chef will feature a theme ingredient, and players will need to fight (sometimes to the death) to collect components scattered around the map to make a variety of succulent meals. Each dish created using the theme ingredient will award points, and the player with most points at the end of all three rounds will be named Executor Chef, culinary guru of the entire Koprulu Sector.

The designers also shared the origin story for "Aiur Chef," noting that the inspiration for this particular custom map came while browsing through the unit list in the StarCraft II Editor. Upon discovering that there were a number of food objects available, the idea for a cooking-based mini-game where zealots skewered delicious treats on their psi-blades was born.

Allez cuisine!

Starjeweled

Custom Map Philosophy

The panel kicked off with a breakdown of the design team’s approach to mapmaking into three clear steps:

1) Find the “fun factor.” No matter how intricate or perfectly coded your map is, if it isn’t fun, no one will want to play it. Because of this, it’s a good idea to get your map working as quickly as possible, holding off on final polish and fine-tuning until you know the map is truly fun to play. This can help you avoid a situation where you’ve invested countless hours into a single map, only to publish it and discover that your original vision was never truly realized.

2) Make sure the map is easy to learn. Ideally, players should be able to join your custom map for the first time and feel like they can compete right away. This doesn’t mean your map can’t be elegant or complex, but it should be accessible and intuitive, with gameplay elements that are clear and easy to pick up.

3) Actively seek and encourage feedback. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or act on constructive criticism you receive.

The designers emphasized that, above all, the team’s goal in creating official custom maps is not to upstage player contributions, but to continually provide better, more robust tools for the mapmaking community. By using the StarCraft II Editor to produce official maps, the designers can identify ways to improve the process, making it easier for aspiring and veteran mapmakers to get their work published on Battle.net and maybe even create the next big thing.

New features for battlenet confirmed for January timeframe:

• Master League: 1-2 % of player population
• Grand Master League: 200 top players in a region. Visible for everyone.
• Featured Replays : Replays accessible for everyone on battlenet.

Reminder: There's only 2 days left on the Starcraft 1 Legacy Melee Remake Contest.

HD: SC Rally by HRPuffinStuf

The famous shoutcaster HD is promoting a map called SC Rally. It's a car game featuring items and car AIs. It looks really like mario kart :)

Outbreak Cinematic by Twobit2354

The Galaxy Editor is a great tool to make cinematics. Here's one made by Twobit2354 about a strange creature ...

Starbenog by Schwick

If you played Warcraft 3 great are the chances you played Burbenog TD. Schwick decided to port the map on Starcraft 2 and therefore call it Starbenog. The map is currently in beta stage and published on the US. He would like some feedback :)

Blizzard just started their Halloween Contest yesterday, everyone go participate and win one for SC2Mapster! :).

Guardian Model by Skizot

Skizot brings us yet another unit from the SC1 days...

Replay Bug still not fixed Found by Rodrigo

Rodrigo has done some testing and has found that the latest patch did not correctly resolve the replay desync problems users were having. According to Rodrigo, the bank is still not being properly loaded, which is resulting in have a 0'd out Bank. Because this 0'd out Bank does not match up with the maps actual Bank, if you use Bank data, the replay will desync after the call to the Bank. He has a few examples in his thread of what I mean.

Planet View Library by progammer

This does exactly what it says it does! It lets us use a Planet View of the game instead of an ordinary map, as we do in Singe Player when choosing missions.

Color Chooser by xDSchurke

What this will do is tint a unit or dialog item in real time, and return the color value to you. This may be extremely helpful for map testing and finding certain colors if you need to.

Update: Due to the number of submissions in the Blizzard Contest, they will be extending the judging deadline to October 8th. The winners will be announced then... As posted by Bashiok.

Also, congrats to Sixen on being one of the first Battle.net MVPs, ;).

Editor Related Questions

I received a mail from one of the Galaxy Editor developers telling me that he was going to answer questions posted on this topic on a regular basis. This time, those answers will really be interesting :)

Quote:

(Kaelmis) - Do you plan to fix the order of dependencies? If you load all 4 at the same time, which most new people do, the campaign usually doesn't work. Basically, people have to know that the order of dependencies matter (I don't see why it should matter), and the default arrangement you give them doesn't work so they get all confused: "I loaded the campaign dependency, but it didn't actually load the dependency...."

Dependencies should work correctly in 1.1.0 and will receive additional improvements in later patches.

(Kaelmis) - Can you make the item system better? When buying from a shop, it seems like the items don't always enter the hero's inventory, but get dropped on the ground. When a hero dies, he always drops his items. I am sure that is nice for some maps, but others want heroes to keep their items on death and making a trigger do that isn't always perfect.

Heroes dropping items when killed will be fixed in 1.1.0 and will also have their items stored in banks.

(Kaelmis) - I see data field to share a fraction of kill experience with nearby players, but what about kill resources?

We’ll look into adding support for this in a future patch. Good idea :)

(Kaelmis) - Is there a way to modify the mover for a specific unit, not the entire unit type. The only way I have found to modify the mover is through the catalog set value trigger but that would affect all units of the same type.

We try to limit per-unit attributes for performance reasons so it's not likely that you will be able to change the mover for a specific unit unless there is a strong need for it. It can already be changed with upgrades and CatalogFieldValueSet, so there is already some flexibility available. Feel free to provide more justification if it's really important for your project.

(Kaelmis) - I have an item shop that I want to sell hero specific items. How do you make requirements of these items based on the player trying to purchase the item, such as if that player owns a specific type of unit?

We'll look into adding support for this in a future patch.

Counter Zone by dingoo71

If you are like me, you don't really like laddering because there's too much macro management, you want to FIGHT! Counter Zone is a dota-like map but instead of having one hero you make your own unit composition, and then you go to the battle. If you are in Europe you should give it a try :)

Tutorial: Triggers Objectives by OneTwo

In this tutorial OneTwo is going to explain how to use the trigger objectives to make quests. He is going to make a serie of two quests: find a npc and a kill one. As usual this is very detailed and interesting to listen to :)

Nexus Wars Cheezy Strat by Okiama

I wish people could tell me when they make review videos of custom maps :) This one by Okiama is a cheezy strat on Nexus Wars: they are 4 friends building a LOT of reapers. This is really nice to see how coordination is important in this game.

Patch 1.1 has been released and there are a TON of Editor related changes like new types, new functions, localization, lobby changes, etc. You can read the full patch notes here (and ONLY EDITOR CHANGES in this newspost). Also, if you happen to find any undocumented editor changes, which will be pretty tough, you can post them up here. Any strategy related changes will be up in the near future over at SC2Replayed as well. Today's news can be found below.

Quote:

StarCraft II Editor Improvements

• Added new requirement types: Odd, Divide, Mod, Multiply.
  
• Added a chance field to effect data.
  
• Added support for the Slider dialog control type.
  
• Added a trigger to deal damage from a unit.
  
• Added a trigger event response to provide the amount a player or unit property changes.
  
• Added a trigger event when an effect executes.
  
• New Trigger Editor functions:
  o Save Data Conversation State Value (Action).
  o Load Data Conversation State Value (Action).
  o Players On Team (returns Player Group associated with teams in game lobby).
  o Unit Owner Changes (Event).
  o Old Unit Owner (returns player ID in response to Unit Owner Changes).
  o New Unit Owner (returns player ID in response to Unit Owner Changes).
  
• XP, Level, and Bounty unit properties can now be modified by triggers.
  
• Banks now save/restore XP, learned abilities, and items.
  
• Message Window now includes a time stamp for each message.
  
• An actor event is now dispatched when a missile cannot hit its target.
  
• When loading documents with Battle.net-only dependencies, you will now be prompted to log in and download the dependency data, rather than failing to load.
  
• Game variants now automatically use the default melee variants for new maps, without requiring manual generation. This will not take effect for maps created prior to this patch.
  
• The Custom game variant is no longer automatically included when other non-default variants are defined.
  
• Increased the maximum recharge vital rate for heal effects.

Bug Fixes

• Custom Games
  o Default race in a game lobby is now properly set to Random.
  o Players can now configure the lobby for 1v5 matches.
  o The search functionality for map searches has been improved.
  o Lobby hosts will now receive a toast when an invited player declines an invitation.
  o Custom game lobbies will now remember the game mode chosen under a category.
  o Fixed an issue where changing the category to "Custom" would default the teams to 5v3.
  o Fixed an issue where custom maps could not be reported from the map preview screen.

• StarCraft II Editor
  o The Player Leaves Game event now fires when a player leaves or they are defeated/victorious.
  o Loading screen progress bar option now works when using Melee loading screen type.
  o Test Document now works properly on maps with Battle.net-only dependencies.
  o Publishing a new file using Major revision will now properly set the document version to 1.0.
  o Publish dialog now properly remembers the Show Real Name setting from previous publish.
  o File preview panel now displays author's real name if that option was set during publishing.
  o The Import module will now allow importing an override Assets.txt file.
  o Undoing a terrain object modification will now also undo associated terrain changes.
  o Editor will display document text from another locale if no text for the active locale exists.
  o Copying points with custom models will display the model properly on the pasted point.
  o It is no longer possible to have multiple default variants in the Game Variants dialog.
  o Removed icon support for attribute and variant definitions, as Battle.net does not display these.
  o Fixed issues with invalid map bounds when creating 32x32 maps.
  o Fixed issues with poor performance in the Terrain Editor when scroll bars are visible.
  o Fixed issues with drag-and-drop in Trigger Editor when tracking is not enabled.
  o Fixed an issue that would cause a crash if multiple unit forms had too many abilities.
  o Fixed an issue with temporary publish names in the Publish dialog still verifying the original name.
  o Fixed an issue with the Unit Manipulates Item trigger.
  o Fixed excessive delays on some systems when saving files using the Smaller Files option, and also when publishing Locked files.
  o Fixed preview panel display in Terrain Editor palettes.
  o Fixed performance issues in Terrain Editor when modifying terrain with many road tiles on the map.
  o Fixed initial display of variables in the Trigger Debugging Window.
  o Fixed generated script for built-in attribute values, which caused them to not be accessed properly.
  o Fixed action list when modifying a Custom Script action without sub-views enabled.
  o Fixed loading map dependency data.
  o Fixed an issue where loading complex bank files would cause the client to disconnect from Battle.net.

(today's news can be seen below)

Update: The first feature and balance patch release for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will be available next Tuesday, September 21, 2010, between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. PDT. You can read all about Blizzard's plans for patch 1.1 in the Situation Report.

Also, vote for Queen of Blades as your favorite villain against Darth Vader!

We have made two small modifications to the forums organizations

• The General Map Development has been renamed to Miscellaneous Development and moved at the bottom of the Development section. The idea is that this forum is a fallback if your question doesn't fit into the other various specific forums such as Data, Triggers, Galaxy Scripting and Terrain.
• Creation of the Data Assets forum where you can show off your Spells, Abilities, Heroes, Weapons, etc

Important: The Votes for the Epic Battle Scene Contest are now open for 4 days! You have to vote for the best of the 9 entries :) Tomorrow will start another contest so get ready!

Zone Wars by Tinnenmannetje

I don't know you, but I have always loved Zone Control maps but they usually lacked of polish. The terrain was flat, a zone is being controlled by a tower switching to your team ... Nothing fancy. However Tinnenmannetje and a friend reinvented the Zone Control for their Blizzard Contest submission! There's a Zone Wars map published on the Europe Battle.net. The Flag Model is available for your maps :)

Trigger Debugger - How to Open & Use it by Zanam

Since testing the Blizzard Contest entries was really hard, a lot of maps has received some huge balance improvements and bug fixes now that they have been released on Battle.net. I hope that your submitted version wasn't too bad :(

I wanted to pass a message to the players Shape Wars that have been affected by the 'Double Spawn Bug', Zanam told me that it has been fixed and the map is now playable again :) It's also published on Europe!

He used the Trigger Debugger in order to optimize his map. If you don't know what it is, just check this little tutorial out.

Canal Pit - 1v1 Melee by LoL_Ish

There's not so often melee maps being commented by their authors. LoL_Ish created a 1v1 map that plays a lot with the line of sight and has a really interesting backdoor layout.

Tutorial: Multi-phase spells by ProzaicMuze

If you have watched the Spell Contest Entries you should have no doubt that the Data editor is really powerful. ProzaicMuze today wants to share how to make a spell with multiple phases.

Quote:

Abilities are broken down into a series of phases. These phase follow the following order and are tied to specific instances during an the ability. If left with no duration, the phase is skipped over. If no phases are given values the ability is an instant cast spell.

• Approach: To be honest I don't see the point for this phase. You can't set it's duration thus it isn't useful for anything other than namesake.
• Prepare: For all intents and purposes this is the "starting" phase of a spell. Typically only used if you want to create multiple animation stages prior to triggering the Effects.
• Cast: This is the last phase before the Effects are triggered.
• Channel: This is the phase immediately after the Effects have been triggered. This phase is typically the one that begins while the Effect Chain is still in progress. This is also when the ability cooldown begins.
• Finish: This is last phase of the ability that completes the ability. If you used the Channel Phase this usually begins as soon as the last Effect has ended.

Read the full tutorial ...

The Blizzard Custom Map contest is now over and so is the Non Disclosure. You can start talking about the maps you've done on the forums! Here is a thread for everyone to share their submissions. Make a YouTube video of it and the chances of your map being featured on Mapster front-page are even better, :)

Where's Waldo? by LordFelco

It is extremly hard to convert a known game into a fun real time map. But it looks like LordFelco managed to do it successfully with Where's Waldo. You are controlling Waldo, a guy among many other guys. Instead of just running around (which is not fun) there are objectives to do! Watch the video it's well explained :)

WTE #5 - Under the Mountains by Mozared

Oh yeah, i'm only one week behind the WTE! This WTE #5 is about "Under the Mountains" and there are awesome terrains are usual. I would like to mention that making videos of terrains is a really great way to enlight them. It's better than screenshots :)

Dungeon Keeper by redmarine

The Galaxy Editor allows us to create a large variety of games. Since inventing a new game is really hard, there are people like redmarine who likes trying to port actual games into Starcraft 2. Today it's a proof of concept of the famous Dungeon Keeper.

Tower Offense by Catalisk

Instead of doing another Tower Defense, Catalisk invented a new map type: Tower Offense. Like a TD you have a worker than can build towers. But instead of fighting against monsters, you fight against other people towers. If you played Peon Wars on Warcraft 3 you won't be lost, except this one is at a much faster pace.

The map has been published on the US if you want to test it out :)

Update: Blizzard has reset popularity on the NA server as of 2:30PM PST.

First Blizzard Custom Map - Burning Tide

Blizzard just released his first custom map. Sadly it's nothing really fancy, it's a campaign-like map adapted to multiplayer. You basically have to gather as much mineral as possible. The map itself is locked but progammer managed to extract the galaxy script used. That's 1800 lines of code!

Quote:

Featuring timed lava surges and collectable mineral caches, Burning Tide is a 3v3 map that combines several thematic elements from the epic single-player campaign mission "The Devil's Playground." Like the campaign mission, the goal of this game is greed, and the first team to reach the specified resource total wins! Players hoping to achieve victory on this map will need to work together, carefully managing their team's unit production and safeguarding their vulnerable workers as they defend against enemy forces.

Check out Burning Tide now in the custom games list in the game client.

Cinematic - Revenge of the Tal Darim by wachoo86

The day the editor was released I knew it was a fantastic tool for cinematics and machinima. wachoo86 just finished the cinematic Revenge of the Tal Darim which is really nice :)

Custom Zerg Model by Triceron

The first new complete model is now out! Triceron did a zerg unit modeled, textured and animated! He is going to reveal how he did it in a future ModCraft :)

Editor Questions Answered by Blizzard

I am not sure what Blizzard is trying to do there but they answered 7 questions from users on the official forum. We learn nothing really fancy there ...

Quote from Blizzard:

We’ve been reading over the questions that you have been posting and the development team has taken some time to provide answers to some of these below. If you have not seen an answer to one of your questions as of yet, do not worry, we are continuing to keep an eye on the thread there and will be providing further answers to your questions where we can.

tai- Is there an easy way to call a unit in the map? For example, if in a trigger I want to have a condition "Triggering Unit == Marine," but not a marine that's already on the map or something that uses "unit in unit group," "last created unit," or some other function that does everything except have a general statement for any marine.

We’re not entirely sure of what you’re asking but we’ll take a stab. If this doesn’t help you out, please feel free to post again and provide a little more context so that we can pin point what it is you’re trying to do.

If your trigger is intended to target a Marine that has just been created, then the 'issue order' to 'last created unit' is actually most likely the reference you are looking for to get that Marine. As an aside, you would want to use the 'issue order to unit group' and 'last created units' if you are spawning multiple Marines.

However if you're looking to avoid using 'last created unit', or it doesn't work for you based on how your triggers are structured, then you could use the "Unit enters region" event and set the region to "Entire Map". Combined with the "Triggering Unit == Marine" condition, that would cover any spawning cases.

If you are looking to get a unit that was spawned previously and is now necessary for something else, then you actually would want to use "Unit from Unit Group" and the "Units in Region Matching Condition" function to narrow it down to the specific unit. There isn't a running list of units on the map that you can simply pick from once things are in full swing; you have to filter it down somehow to get exactly the one you want or be able to get that marine off of a specific event.

We’d also recommend storing any unit that you want to find later to a global variable if it is important.

Jumby- Not sure if this is the right thread but, how do you make it so you can build on ramps in the game? Thanks

Great question! Building placement, meaning where you can and cannot place a building, is governed by that unit's footprint which can be modified in the Footprint data type. The 'Placement Check' and 'Placement Apply' Layers of a Footprint dictate where it can be placed, and what kind of effect it has on pathing and other footprints once it is placed A ramp is considered a "No Build" location, which is considered invalid by footprints by default. What you'll need to do is uncheck the 'No Build' flag under the 'Invalid' flags of the 'Placement Check' Layer for that footprint.

As a side note, once you do this you will be able to build your buildings ANYWHERE. You will probably want to flag 'Ground - No Spawn' flag under the 'Invalid' flags as well. :) This will prevent you from building your buildings on other buildings (no matter how much Xzibit may want you to do so), and on cliffs.

And as a final side note to that previous side note, the edges of ramps are considered cliffs. You will only be able to build on the terrain in the middle of a ramp.

Zealot- Can anyone tell me how to make place units that join you when you touch them (e.g, in Belly of the Beast, the Dominion Soldiers)? It seems to be a different method than in the original SC editor. Also, how the heck do I place Resources (min. fields and Geysers)? I'm totally lost in this new editor!

Gaius- I've only started using this editor, but if it has similar triggers to the SC1 Editor and doesn't allow you to flag units as "Rescuable" like in SC1, I would simply make a Region/Trigger combo to give all units at <location> owned by player <neutral player> to player 1. Sorry I don't know the specific strings to reference but I assume that they're not too difficult to find. Hope this helps.

What Gaius said is correct. The most efficient way to do this would be using the "Rescue Unit/Rescue Unit Group" trigger and specifying the unit/units to rescue.

Additionally, you may want to use the "Unit Enters/Leaves Range Of Unit" event. It would make the process much simpler!

Warheart- Does anyone know how to make units and buildings smaller than their normal size when placing them on the map?

Gaius- Go to the Unit info in the Data Manager. In the bottom-left window in the Data Manager scroll down to the Actors section and click on the Actor tied to the unit's appearance (ie. for Ghost it is 3rd one down titled Ghost (Ghost.)) After you select the Actor, scroll down the list of values on the right until you get to CActorModel_Scale and change the value from 1.0 to whatever you want. Voila!

Gaius is once again correct! The Actor data for that unit can be used to scale it. Additionally, there is a 'Set Scale' trigger you could utilize, and the Model data can scale it as well (including introducing a random scale).

As for scaling a unit in the terrain editor, like you would with a doodad, that is not possible.

Ash- Do you guys have any intention of adding a "beginner friendly" mode to Galaxy Editor that more closely matches the power of the Warcraft III World Editor? Lots of great maps came from fairly inexperienced mappers who are being shut out by the complexity of the current editor. Any news regarding changes to make it more user-friendly would be greatly appreciated.

Making the editor more user friendly is a noble goal, one that we've actually accomplished several times during development, haha. With great customizability comes great complexity, unfortunately. It can be overwhelming at times, but like many things in life most of the intimidation comes from the fact that it is unfamiliar.

Again, as an aside, we are kicking around a couple of ideas for addressing the intimidation potentially experienced by a new user to the editor. :)

Ravensword- Simple question, how would I make it so a unit didn't have to turn all the way around to attack? Sort of like the diamondback or a turret I suppose. If theres a way, please tell me!

Weapons have an 'Arc' field that govern the field of fire for a weapon. As an aside the 'Arc Slop' field governs the firing arc allowed once a weapon is already being fired at a target. Basically it's how wide a target can move before the firing unit reorients itself with the target. This is useful for channeled weapons (IE: the void ray) so that it doesn't break every time the target shifts even a smidgen.

Torrasque- So I'm trying to use the map editor to make a battle cruiser have interceptors, load units like the Hercules, warp rifts like the mothership, and deployable turrets like the raven. Any tips would really help. This map editor is waay more complicated...

Fortunately what you're asking is pretty simple! Just add those abilities to your unit. So you would first add 'Carrier Hangar', 'Queue (5)', 'Hercules - Transport', 'Raven - Place Auto Turret' abilities.

Then you would need to add command card buttons for those abilities so that you can order the unit to use them in game. I'm sure if you fiddle with it for a minute or two you'll figure it out.

You guys may have all noticed, but we did a slight forum restructure. That means any previous links to the Project Workplace or Tutorials Forums have been broken and need to be fixed! Please make a note of this! We will do our best to redirect the old links to the new ones, but there is no ETA on this just yet.

The first MLG Starcraft 2 tournament is running and you can view it on the live stream shoutcasted by HD and Husky :)

Patch 1.1 Preview by Blizzard

Blizzard has released a preview of the patch notes for their next major patch, 1.1. In this patch is fixes for GalaxyEdit and some changes to how the Custom Games system currently works. Read the summarized set here or the complete post from their blog.

Doodad Hunt by Bounty_98

Doodad Hunt is a team based hide and seek game. One team will be selected to be the seekers, while the other will be selected to choose a doodad to hide/blend in as. The game is currently in closed beta but if you are interested in joining in on the fun you can contact the author @Bounty #820. The map will feature best of 3 rounds in the official release. Oh and yes, the music DOES play in the actual game, not just the video.

Volcanic Elevation (Melee) by csyver

This is a 1v1 Melee map that is currently published on Battle.net. The map is redstone-themed. There's 6 expansions (not including main+nat), however not easily defend-able. The first expansion is easily defendable. Your base holds two entrances, so be aware of any sneaky attacks. You can view some screenshots below or the full minimap image in his project thread.

Interface Contest Results

It's been a while since this has ended, we just phale at keeping track on it, :(. While there were only 4 total submissions, I think that we have had a complete breakthrough in regards to UI with these few submissions. I'd like to give a huge thanks to those who have submitted entries and hope that everyone enjoys them as much as we did... You can watch all of them below.

1. Battle.net UI by programmer
2. Lib Circle Hero Selection by SweetZombieJesus
3. Cockpit by Caipa
4. Collapsible Animated Dialog Menu by SCMapper

Battle.net UI by programmer

Lib Circle Hero Selection by SweetZombieJesus

Cockpit by Caipa

Collapsible Animated Dialog Menu by SCMapper