Another tip for you guys: Make sure you turn on the Placement Grid and the Pathing layer under the View menu. This is extremely helpful for figuring out where to place your mineral deposits and vespene geysers.
I went and did a few hours of work last night on this right after it was posted, so here's what I've got so far converting Ashrigo. I'm gonna have to change the map up a bit to allow for a destructible back door, as the entry to every base is too much of a choke point. Far from done, but a good start I think. =)
Update 10/12/10: Cliffs adjusted, added back doors, resources properly placed, added textures, some doodads, and adjusted the lighting. Getting pretty close to done, I think. Just needs a lot of play testing for balance and some more polish. Here's a new picture.
Question/Suggestion: Could we also try to port WC3 melee maps? Or are we restricted to SC1 for this contest? If we can't, do a WC3 version of this later. =)
Things to consider for that: WC3 is hero centric, meaning much of the strategy for those maps revolves around effectively using heroes and leveling them. So, problem 1) Emulating Creeping: Come up with an alternative to creeping which fits in to the context of SC2. A great idea for this would be adding in "Scrapyards" such as in the campaign where you can periodically pick up a bit of vespene or minerals. Problem 2) Trees in WC3 were not only a resource, they were a destructible pathing blocker. Finding ways to effectively use doodads in this manner will add depth to the strategy in your map.
Here are some obstacles you might run in to in this contest.
-Starcraft melee maps don't use too much cliff variation, finding a balance of mimicking strategy and adding detail will be a challenge.
-Doodad usage in Starcraft was also fairly sparse, and poses a similar challenge as the above.
-Fotunately, the percentage of space on a map which a base occupied was much larger in SC1 compared to SC2, giving you some room for detailing.
-Not all expansions in SC1 maps were a full 8 mineral veins and 2 vespene geysers such as in SC2. Study the economics of each map to determine a proper balance for SC2.
A good idea for approaching this type of conversion would be to grab a piece of paper, outline the general shape of the original, and just work from those shapes. Importing might be more trouble than it's worth.
With that, good luck on your entries! I might try and submit something for this one, but in all likelihood I'll give up after a few hours of fiddling with it. Hope to see some well balanced terrain. =)
So I've never really been able to watch the show when it's broadcast; I'm just in that demographic of NA viewers that can never be up early enough to watch it. (I'm in California, your show is on long before I'm awake)
However, the bits and pieces I have seen have been amazingly helpful. When I get the time, I'll watch them all to learn more about 3DS Max. Really what you've got here shows the complete work flow from conception to implementation, which most tutorials never get in to. It's very practical information, something you'll be hard pressed to find anywhere else as well. Keep it up!
I'd also like to suggest a topic for a future show, something I've been trying to figure out on my own lately. A lot of us are using models from WoW in our maps now, but not to the full extent at which we could. One big problem I'm facing right now is Exporting the various buildings from WoW using WoW Model Viewer for use in my maps. Here's the issue:
WMV's m3 exporter was set up to convert .m2 files to .m3. This is fine for most things, such as characters, npcs, monsters and doodads.
Buildings (Such as Inns, Barracks, Towers) on the other hand, are .wmo files. These can only be exported as Lightwave 3D .lwo or Wavefront Object .obj, and thus require the extra step of material conversion in 3DS Max before they can be exported for use in SC2. This is where I'm currently stuck.
Now let's get down to using these in-game. Simplest thing would be to use them as a structure model. Preferably though, I would like to see them used for RPG's. One thing I'm sure people would love to learn is how to create structures units can enter and walk around in. Let's use an example you could possibly cover in your show. Say you've got an Inn from WoW imported and Scaled in SC2 to be large enough for a single Ghost or similar unit could walk through the door, using a close-up top-down camera (such as in the dungeon crawler campaign maps). Solution: on entering a region (placed under the structure), the model for the Inn changes to another variation clipping away the upper floor and roof, allowing you to see inside. There could be other ways to achieve this same effect, and I would leave that up to you to decide upon.
Let me know if this is possible. I understand it could be far more complex on the modeling side, but that's about how much I understand modeling at the moment.
Sorry, I'm a little late in chipping in to this thread. But I've got an idea for you that you might not have already considered.
Seeing that you're using the Spectre and you're already manipulating it's colors. Do you think it would be possible to change the glow on his suit? I'm talking about the Blue ring on his back and the lines on his arms/legs. Why? Simple, Dead Space's health indicator. You could easily adapt this as a simple way to indicate health without cluttering the UI while simultaneously making the game more immersive and realistic.
Could easily do Green/Blue for full HP, down to Yellow -> Red for low HP, with a Blinking Red for critical. I've got a bit of an idea of how this can be done as well. On the Spectre's model, those glowing parts should be an emissive texture. You can take that and edit it's color to change the glows, and probably through some model variations you can have them hot swap via actor triggers, I think. That should give you a place to start anyways.
I'm really excited to see where this map goes and I'm especially impressed with how you got the outside of the Battlecruiser to show through the windows like that. Never would have thought it to be possible until this video.
If you need any help with the map, shoot me a pm or find me on the IRC, I'd be very willing to lend a hand on this project.
Oooh, very nice touch, comment and going Saeris. I haven't really felt like doing anything on it lately, but I definitely intend on 'finalizing' it so more can be done with it. I'll take a proper look at what you've done tomorrow, but it does sound promising.
Now if someone can fix those damn bridges and do my job for me... =P
Seriously though, what I did is hardly noticeable XD You can see some of it around the Nuclear plant and the garage with the hellion nearby it. It's just some darker dirt underneath the building to break it up from the surrounding sand. And some sandy concrete for the "driveway".
I'd be very pleased if you let me know the next time you do one of these. Hell, I'll even give you an idea for one. Now that you've done Mar Sara, go for another familiar tileset and do the ruins of a lost Protoss society on Bel Shir. Should turn out looking great.
Well, I wanted to do some work on this after watching the video for it in the news. Should have done something sooner. That latest version is pretty far along! Next time you do one of these I'll have to jump on it.
I think you can largely ignore the changes I've made, they're very subtle. Texture and displacement details here and there to blend some of the buildings and roads in a bit, took some of the flat cliffs and added a bit of displacement variance.
One thing I'd like you all to take note of. When you're making a building out in the middle of a desert, keep in mind a few things. For example, you've just went and made a structure from Manmade Cliffs and you're using panels for roofing textures, or concrete for parking lots, etc. This is a desert. There's sand everywhere, and it's windy. That sand is going to pile up in all the corners up against walls, all the little nooks and crannies, get spread out over concrete and asphalt.
It will help make your textures look a lot more realistic and blended with their environment if you lightly add dirt on top of them. And for sure, blend the edge of concrete/asphalt into dirt then in to sand. That hard edge can look really unnatural.
This also applies to vehicles. Tires track dirt, it's a simple fact. There are a lot of parked vehicles on this map, often on really clean asphalt and no indication of travel between the roads and the parking lots. Taking a small brush and a slightly contrasting texture can be used to lightly paint tire tracks on the ground.
Adding in subtle little things like this may be tedious and time consuming, but in the end that extra level of polish will make your terrain stand miles above the rest.
Here's the latest version, there are still plenty of things that can use improving, but not much room left to add anything new.
Same for me... my map required too many triggers to be finished in time and I sent an incomplete map that surely can't win :|
Let's see the next contest
Heh, yea for my triggers I never got my capture points working, but, that was an optional win condition, so I could have cut it from the release. The bigger problem was just the sheer number of custom units. I've got 48 special units, 15 heroes, 3 basic units, a base that morphs in to a flying base as an upgrade, 15 unit upgrades, etc etc.....
They were all gonna have custom names, buttons, spell animations, tooltips, hotkeys, help menu entries..... I got about 30% done entering all of the values which I've gotten all written down. I could have finished it had I not gone to school this week, but it was very likely I would get dropped from my classes if I skipped.
So, the map was playable, and players would be able to win using the primary objective, but there were only about 20 complete units in the game. The rest hadn't been renamed or given their abilities yet, though they had all their stats and were balanced against each other.
I just thought Blizzard might be impressed by all the effort that went in to making it, which is pretty obvious from the map editor.
I wasn't able to finish my map in time, though I submitted it anyways just so they'd see it. So, probably won't have to worry about how well your map does against mine.
Basically, it came down to me being too ambitious and trying to do too many things, and although I had all the values I had to enter written down and ready to go, it simply took too long to enter them all. I spent about 48 hours straight working on it up until the deadline, which I thought was 12:01am Sept 12th, not 12:01am Sept 11th. (Meaning I assumed we had the deadline day to finish up) So for all of you who didn't submit it before then, you're probably disqualified.
I'll be posting the opening cinematic once I'm done perfecting it, now that I have the time to make it look better. More details to come soon.
hahaha, Golem Wars Classic seems to be more popular in Europe atm than in the US XD
Too bad I can't really do much to support it there. Hopefully the updates coming to it later this month will bump it up a few pages in both US and EU. Thanks for posting these! Helps me a lot to see where my map is elsewhere.
If you put up a ventrilo server, I'll be on it, probably constantly. I like the IRC channel as-is to get feedback on ideas and answers to questions, but for Vent, I'd prolly double that. And, probably give a lot more help as well.
Well I know my map was an utter failure the other night, but I think the Localization issues have been sorted out now! So, if you get a chance, please give Golem Wars Classic another chance. I'm very dedicated to making the map the best it can be and true to the original, while being accessible to a new audience, and I'd really like to improve it in any way I can (given I have the time to make updates). It should be somewhere on the EU map list now, I have no way of telling how well it's doing there. If you find any issues with it, please contact me on IRC or via the Facebook community page, and I'll make sure I address any issues for the next build.
If you can't find enough people to play it, you can usually find me in the IRC channel, or, you can easily play it by yourself to learn how to play. The game will automatically create AI opponents for you. Take your time, as I've got a content update coming after the Blizzard Map Contest is over.
So a problem that was plaguing my map for quite some time was how to create a random unit for a player. The first thing I tried was making a Unit Type array, but there's a big problem with this.
As soon as you make a Variable = Unit Type an array, it changes to Variable = No Game Link[N] !!! (Pretty sure it's a bug o.O!)
So, how to work around this? Here's my solution: Use a String Array instead.
For example.
Local Variables
Random Unit Type = "" <String[4]>
Actions
Variable - Set Random Unit[1] = (String(Marine))
Variable - Set Random Unit[2] = (String(Zealot))
Variable - Set Random Unit[3] = (String(Zergling))
Unit - Create 1 (Unit type from Random Unit Type[(Random integer between 1 and 3)]) for player 1 at Spawn Region using default facing (No Options)
And a sure fire way to make sure you don't misspell a units name? Simply use a Convert Game Link To String. That way you can choose exactly what unit type you want, it converts that unit type a string, stores it in the Array, and you can call them randomly via a Math -Random.
0
Another tip for you guys: Make sure you turn on the Placement Grid and the Pathing layer under the View menu. This is extremely helpful for figuring out where to place your mineral deposits and vespene geysers.
0
I went and did a few hours of work last night on this right after it was posted, so here's what I've got so far converting Ashrigo. I'm gonna have to change the map up a bit to allow for a destructible back door, as the entry to every base is too much of a choke point. Far from done, but a good start I think. =)
Update 10/12/10: Cliffs adjusted, added back doors, resources properly placed, added textures, some doodads, and adjusted the lighting. Getting pretty close to done, I think. Just needs a lot of play testing for balance and some more polish. Here's a new picture.
0
Question/Suggestion: Could we also try to port WC3 melee maps? Or are we restricted to SC1 for this contest? If we can't, do a WC3 version of this later. =)
Things to consider for that: WC3 is hero centric, meaning much of the strategy for those maps revolves around effectively using heroes and leveling them. So, problem 1) Emulating Creeping: Come up with an alternative to creeping which fits in to the context of SC2. A great idea for this would be adding in "Scrapyards" such as in the campaign where you can periodically pick up a bit of vespene or minerals. Problem 2) Trees in WC3 were not only a resource, they were a destructible pathing blocker. Finding ways to effectively use doodads in this manner will add depth to the strategy in your map.
Here are some obstacles you might run in to in this contest.
-Starcraft melee maps don't use too much cliff variation, finding a balance of mimicking strategy and adding detail will be a challenge.
-Doodad usage in Starcraft was also fairly sparse, and poses a similar challenge as the above.
-Fotunately, the percentage of space on a map which a base occupied was much larger in SC1 compared to SC2, giving you some room for detailing.
-Not all expansions in SC1 maps were a full 8 mineral veins and 2 vespene geysers such as in SC2. Study the economics of each map to determine a proper balance for SC2.
A good idea for approaching this type of conversion would be to grab a piece of paper, outline the general shape of the original, and just work from those shapes. Importing might be more trouble than it's worth.
With that, good luck on your entries! I might try and submit something for this one, but in all likelihood I'll give up after a few hours of fiddling with it. Hope to see some well balanced terrain. =)
0
So I've never really been able to watch the show when it's broadcast; I'm just in that demographic of NA viewers that can never be up early enough to watch it. (I'm in California, your show is on long before I'm awake)
However, the bits and pieces I have seen have been amazingly helpful. When I get the time, I'll watch them all to learn more about 3DS Max. Really what you've got here shows the complete work flow from conception to implementation, which most tutorials never get in to. It's very practical information, something you'll be hard pressed to find anywhere else as well. Keep it up!
I'd also like to suggest a topic for a future show, something I've been trying to figure out on my own lately. A lot of us are using models from WoW in our maps now, but not to the full extent at which we could. One big problem I'm facing right now is Exporting the various buildings from WoW using WoW Model Viewer for use in my maps. Here's the issue:
WMV's m3 exporter was set up to convert .m2 files to .m3. This is fine for most things, such as characters, npcs, monsters and doodads.
Buildings (Such as Inns, Barracks, Towers) on the other hand, are .wmo files. These can only be exported as Lightwave 3D .lwo or Wavefront Object .obj, and thus require the extra step of material conversion in 3DS Max before they can be exported for use in SC2. This is where I'm currently stuck.
Now let's get down to using these in-game. Simplest thing would be to use them as a structure model. Preferably though, I would like to see them used for RPG's. One thing I'm sure people would love to learn is how to create structures units can enter and walk around in. Let's use an example you could possibly cover in your show. Say you've got an Inn from WoW imported and Scaled in SC2 to be large enough for a single Ghost or similar unit could walk through the door, using a close-up top-down camera (such as in the dungeon crawler campaign maps). Solution: on entering a region (placed under the structure), the model for the Inn changes to another variation clipping away the upper floor and roof, allowing you to see inside. There could be other ways to achieve this same effect, and I would leave that up to you to decide upon.
Let me know if this is possible. I understand it could be far more complex on the modeling side, but that's about how much I understand modeling at the moment.
Thanks again for doing the show!
0
@Sephiex: Go
Well, just as I said, I'm late to the thread. Didn't read through all of it, lol. Scrap what I said then =)
0
Sorry, I'm a little late in chipping in to this thread. But I've got an idea for you that you might not have already considered.
Seeing that you're using the Spectre and you're already manipulating it's colors. Do you think it would be possible to change the glow on his suit? I'm talking about the Blue ring on his back and the lines on his arms/legs. Why? Simple, Dead Space's health indicator. You could easily adapt this as a simple way to indicate health without cluttering the UI while simultaneously making the game more immersive and realistic.
Could easily do Green/Blue for full HP, down to Yellow -> Red for low HP, with a Blinking Red for critical. I've got a bit of an idea of how this can be done as well. On the Spectre's model, those glowing parts should be an emissive texture. You can take that and edit it's color to change the glows, and probably through some model variations you can have them hot swap via actor triggers, I think. That should give you a place to start anyways.
I'm really excited to see where this map goes and I'm especially impressed with how you got the outside of the Battlecruiser to show through the windows like that. Never would have thought it to be possible until this video.
If you need any help with the map, shoot me a pm or find me on the IRC, I'd be very willing to lend a hand on this project.
0
Seriously though, what I did is hardly noticeable XD You can see some of it around the Nuclear plant and the garage with the hellion nearby it. It's just some darker dirt underneath the building to break it up from the surrounding sand. And some sandy concrete for the "driveway".
I'd be very pleased if you let me know the next time you do one of these. Hell, I'll even give you an idea for one. Now that you've done Mar Sara, go for another familiar tileset and do the ruins of a lost Protoss society on Bel Shir. Should turn out looking great.
0
Well, I wanted to do some work on this after watching the video for it in the news. Should have done something sooner. That latest version is pretty far along! Next time you do one of these I'll have to jump on it.
I think you can largely ignore the changes I've made, they're very subtle. Texture and displacement details here and there to blend some of the buildings and roads in a bit, took some of the flat cliffs and added a bit of displacement variance.
One thing I'd like you all to take note of. When you're making a building out in the middle of a desert, keep in mind a few things. For example, you've just went and made a structure from Manmade Cliffs and you're using panels for roofing textures, or concrete for parking lots, etc. This is a desert. There's sand everywhere, and it's windy. That sand is going to pile up in all the corners up against walls, all the little nooks and crannies, get spread out over concrete and asphalt.
It will help make your textures look a lot more realistic and blended with their environment if you lightly add dirt on top of them. And for sure, blend the edge of concrete/asphalt into dirt then in to sand. That hard edge can look really unnatural.
This also applies to vehicles. Tires track dirt, it's a simple fact. There are a lot of parked vehicles on this map, often on really clean asphalt and no indication of travel between the roads and the parking lots. Taking a small brush and a slightly contrasting texture can be used to lightly paint tire tracks on the ground.
Adding in subtle little things like this may be tedious and time consuming, but in the end that extra level of polish will make your terrain stand miles above the rest.
Here's the latest version, there are still plenty of things that can use improving, but not much room left to add anything new.
0
Heh, yea for my triggers I never got my capture points working, but, that was an optional win condition, so I could have cut it from the release. The bigger problem was just the sheer number of custom units. I've got 48 special units, 15 heroes, 3 basic units, a base that morphs in to a flying base as an upgrade, 15 unit upgrades, etc etc.....
They were all gonna have custom names, buttons, spell animations, tooltips, hotkeys, help menu entries..... I got about 30% done entering all of the values which I've gotten all written down. I could have finished it had I not gone to school this week, but it was very likely I would get dropped from my classes if I skipped.
So, the map was playable, and players would be able to win using the primary objective, but there were only about 20 complete units in the game. The rest hadn't been renamed or given their abilities yet, though they had all their stats and were balanced against each other.
I just thought Blizzard might be impressed by all the effort that went in to making it, which is pretty obvious from the map editor.
0
I wasn't able to finish my map in time, though I submitted it anyways just so they'd see it. So, probably won't have to worry about how well your map does against mine.
Basically, it came down to me being too ambitious and trying to do too many things, and although I had all the values I had to enter written down and ready to go, it simply took too long to enter them all. I spent about 48 hours straight working on it up until the deadline, which I thought was 12:01am Sept 12th, not 12:01am Sept 11th. (Meaning I assumed we had the deadline day to finish up) So for all of you who didn't submit it before then, you're probably disqualified.
I'll be posting the opening cinematic once I'm done perfecting it, now that I have the time to make it look better. More details to come soon.
0
hahaha, Golem Wars Classic seems to be more popular in Europe atm than in the US XD
Too bad I can't really do much to support it there. Hopefully the updates coming to it later this month will bump it up a few pages in both US and EU. Thanks for posting these! Helps me a lot to see where my map is elsewhere.
0
If you put up a ventrilo server, I'll be on it, probably constantly. I like the IRC channel as-is to get feedback on ideas and answers to questions, but for Vent, I'd prolly double that. And, probably give a lot more help as well.
0
Well I know my map was an utter failure the other night, but I think the Localization issues have been sorted out now! So, if you get a chance, please give Golem Wars Classic another chance. I'm very dedicated to making the map the best it can be and true to the original, while being accessible to a new audience, and I'd really like to improve it in any way I can (given I have the time to make updates). It should be somewhere on the EU map list now, I have no way of telling how well it's doing there. If you find any issues with it, please contact me on IRC or via the Facebook community page, and I'll make sure I address any issues for the next build.
0
Suggestion: Golem Wars Classic
If you can't find enough people to play it, you can usually find me in the IRC channel, or, you can easily play it by yourself to learn how to play. The game will automatically create AI opponents for you. Take your time, as I've got a content update coming after the Blizzard Map Contest is over.
0
So a problem that was plaguing my map for quite some time was how to create a random unit for a player. The first thing I tried was making a Unit Type array, but there's a big problem with this.
As soon as you make a Variable = Unit Type an array, it changes to Variable = No Game Link[N] !!! (Pretty sure it's a bug o.O!)
So, how to work around this? Here's my solution: Use a String Array instead.
For example.
Local Variables
Random Unit Type = "" <String[4]>
Actions
Variable - Set Random Unit[1] = (String(Marine))
Variable - Set Random Unit[2] = (String(Zealot))
Variable - Set Random Unit[3] = (String(Zergling))
Unit - Create 1 (Unit type from Random Unit Type[(Random integer between 1 and 3)]) for player 1 at Spawn Region using default facing (No Options)
And a sure fire way to make sure you don't misspell a units name? Simply use a Convert Game Link To String. That way you can choose exactly what unit type you want, it converts that unit type a string, stores it in the Array, and you can call them randomly via a Math -Random.
Hope this helps you all out!