No actual modder will ever tell you this is a good thing. Valve's implementation is particularly punishing to developers and players alike. I hope they pull it and never think of it again, along with anyone else hoping to turn their community into a micro transaction funnel.
Want to support your favorite mods? Donate. Then your money goes to the developers behind the work you like.
The AI scripts are located in the Liberty (WoL) and Swarm (HotS) mods. You can modify them by importing customized versions of the files over them using the import manager.
I think you misunderstand me. I've worked with the AI for years. I've already gone through much of the things the OP is attempting to do. You don't need to explain that stuff to me. I am merely trying to explain to the OP in a simple format why it isn't an easy fix to apply melee defense functions to campaign.
The galaxy you speak of is heavily dependent on various natives that are contained in the executable. Things like various parameters in regards to how the melee drop attacks function, portions of threat evaluation, how it determines blueprints for stock construction blocks, the distancing and placement of waypoints for melee attack waves, and a bunch of other things I cannot immediately recall.
/edit
As for exposing the melee code to triggers, I think you can just "include" the files in the map and then use a gui wrapper with custom code pointing to them. I had to do that to get a difficulty-independent triggered attack wave for my tests which isn't normally available to the editor.
You don't need to do different melee AI's for each player. Just replace the build order system with something that compares player number and map ID to determine their build. That is what we did to get player-specific AI (which also contained player-specific integers for things like how many units they grouped for attack waves, if they used drop attacks or not, etc).
Doing it by hand is the ideal way if you know how, though, and can make it perform well.
Splitting the barracks and depots into conditional checks for how many of each they own will separate the blueprint for base construction, resulting in tighter building placement and higher likelihood of it creating all of the desired structures.
I'm not sure what your point is. You didn't exactly address anything I said. I haven't seen anyone make a functional defense script in the editor yet and universally everyone who I have ever asked about the subject has been clueless and told me it has never been done before, so presumably you want to take it out of melee. Which will require you to rewrite a good chunk of how melee works. This was also the approach JademusSreg worked with in 2012-2014. Calling waves from melee as functions for triggered waves does not work correctly, and if you use melee waves as a body your attack wave triggers will for the most part be ignored due to how melee works other than the training of units. I've tried to piece it together manually when I was still working with the game, but suffice to say I was unsuccessful.
A good chunk of melee is contained in natives, ergo, it's hardcoded.
Yeah, defense isn't exposed to the editor or campaign AI. You're probably better off doing it manually if you can figure out an efficient way. Long story short, you won't be able to merge the two AI's without redoing the way melee attack waves handle in the first place, and even then I doubt all the hardcode running related to melee is going to play nicely with anything else you have going. It sure didn't for me.
I hear Oracle still wants to do this, but he has real-life commitments (marriage). I would leave it to him. No one else can really put the kind of money and energy behind it that he did, anyways.
These are pieces of the Apex F starcraft 2 campaign script, cobbled together and cut up for brevity. The project is dead, so the script is being used as a practice starting point for Apex H. The dialogue is both exceptionally politically correct and at times mature in subject manner. In short, if you get easily butthurt, I recommend avoiding it. There are more recordings than these I'll upload later in time.
Many names come from community members that were turned into characters for the campaign.
For those of you that occasionally send me questions regarding requests, I only start to consider requests for projects that are complete (as in actually complete, ergo not 99% of the stuff on b.ent) or are demonstrably near-complete (gameplay videos showing all your finished, custom assets and voice acting are a good start). I don't have a means to accept monetary payment, so that's never on the table. Otherwise I only consider requests for people I know from other communities.
To me, Renee, you are one of only 3-4 people in all of Starcraft 2, at least in the English speaking side, that has put forth effort into a serious project. I respect that more than anything.
That's the kind of community Blizzard games attract because that's the kind of company Blizzard themselves are. Casuals are all about instant gratification, and pet projects/original projects are far from instantly gratifying. They are about the opposite, especially for anyone just starting out, and especially with the kind of performance and UI problems the editor has. Additionally, most mappers who went to sc2 looked for fame and glory, a precedent not assisted by the promise of the marketplace, rather than personal accomplishment, and this is still mostly the case. The amount of people who complained in irc about popularity alludes to the mindset of the majority of mappers for the game as a whole, and this is not a healthy environment for any kind of objective quality, derivative or not.
That said, I never saw any difference between sc2 and wc3 in terms of how stagnant the content was. W3 was mostly carbon copy clones unless you dug; at least in wc3 you could dig. Sc2 is merely accelerated by being an extension of wc3 in both people and content.
Campaigns are a whole 'nother bag of toothy man-eating dicks, but suffice to say, I wish luck to anyone who tries to make campaigns in sc2. Just don't forget your roots and you'll find your way eventually.
Well, I'd probably have to do that some way. But there's a few ways you can attach models in unreal. The idea way would probably be via blueprint component through sockets, if they stay synced with extremely fast moving units at least. Then you could hand each AI a turret. The turrets would probably have to be broken down further than that, though, to handle all the different variations (turrets with 16+ cannons, turrets with PD, etc). I also don't know how turrets work in the first place in the game. The AI part wouldn't probably be that bad, though. As long as Unreal can handle extremely high acquisition distances.
It's a consideration, but I'd still need to figure out how I'd handle the character models. I can rip stuff, sure... but... most of what I need doesn't exist in games.
I'm not sure about the texture, but for UV's you could probably just explode the whole thing into a thousand chunks if there was a way to keep the resolution consistent. For all I know there's a way to generate dynamic plating based on some input other than UV's. The current texture is the only one I have with minimal surface detail that isn't like a mirror at the moment.
At a distance it isn't so bad.
I have no idea how I would ever do turrets. Even after a few months of working with the editor I still have no idea. I am not sure if I can even do bone-level manipulation in Matinee.
0
No actual modder will ever tell you this is a good thing. Valve's implementation is particularly punishing to developers and players alike. I hope they pull it and never think of it again, along with anyone else hoping to turn their community into a micro transaction funnel.
Want to support your favorite mods? Donate. Then your money goes to the developers behind the work you like.
0
I think you misunderstand me. I've worked with the AI for years. I've already gone through much of the things the OP is attempting to do. You don't need to explain that stuff to me. I am merely trying to explain to the OP in a simple format why it isn't an easy fix to apply melee defense functions to campaign.
The galaxy you speak of is heavily dependent on various natives that are contained in the executable. Things like various parameters in regards to how the melee drop attacks function, portions of threat evaluation, how it determines blueprints for stock construction blocks, the distancing and placement of waypoints for melee attack waves, and a bunch of other things I cannot immediately recall.
/edit
As for exposing the melee code to triggers, I think you can just "include" the files in the map and then use a gui wrapper with custom code pointing to them. I had to do that to get a difficulty-independent triggered attack wave for my tests which isn't normally available to the editor.
0
You don't need to do different melee AI's for each player. Just replace the build order system with something that compares player number and map ID to determine their build. That is what we did to get player-specific AI (which also contained player-specific integers for things like how many units they grouped for attack waves, if they used drop attacks or not, etc).
Doing it by hand is the ideal way if you know how, though, and can make it perform well.
0
Splitting the barracks and depots into conditional checks for how many of each they own will separate the blueprint for base construction, resulting in tighter building placement and higher likelihood of it creating all of the desired structures.
0
I'm not sure what your point is. You didn't exactly address anything I said. I haven't seen anyone make a functional defense script in the editor yet and universally everyone who I have ever asked about the subject has been clueless and told me it has never been done before, so presumably you want to take it out of melee. Which will require you to rewrite a good chunk of how melee works. This was also the approach JademusSreg worked with in 2012-2014. Calling waves from melee as functions for triggered waves does not work correctly, and if you use melee waves as a body your attack wave triggers will for the most part be ignored due to how melee works other than the training of units. I've tried to piece it together manually when I was still working with the game, but suffice to say I was unsuccessful.
A good chunk of melee is contained in natives, ergo, it's hardcoded.
0
Yeah, defense isn't exposed to the editor or campaign AI. You're probably better off doing it manually if you can figure out an efficient way. Long story short, you won't be able to merge the two AI's without redoing the way melee attack waves handle in the first place, and even then I doubt all the hardcode running related to melee is going to play nicely with anything else you have going. It sure didn't for me.
0
I hear Oracle still wants to do this, but he has real-life commitments (marriage). I would leave it to him. No one else can really put the kind of money and energy behind it that he did, anyways.
0
@Ahli634: Go
Right, haven't looked at sc2 for a long time now.
The options should be under the Export Floater menu. Don't use commit, it's buggy.
0
Assuming you used the art tools, export with Use DDS Paths. Else it uses local paths from your computer.
0
Further practice.
These are pieces of the Apex F starcraft 2 campaign script, cobbled together and cut up for brevity. The project is dead, so the script is being used as a practice starting point for Apex H. The dialogue is both exceptionally politically correct and at times mature in subject manner. In short, if you get easily butthurt, I recommend avoiding it. There are more recordings than these I'll upload later in time.
Many names come from community members that were turned into characters for the campaign.
https://soundcloud.com/iskatumesk/apexf-practice-blackking-2
https://soundcloud.com/iskatumesk/apexf-practice-narrator3x00
https://soundcloud.com/iskatumesk/apexf-practice-larry-darkprimus
https://soundcloud.com/iskatumesk/apexf-koladheem
For those of you that occasionally send me questions regarding requests, I only start to consider requests for projects that are complete (as in actually complete, ergo not 99% of the stuff on b.ent) or are demonstrably near-complete (gameplay videos showing all your finished, custom assets and voice acting are a good start). I don't have a means to accept monetary payment, so that's never on the table. Otherwise I only consider requests for people I know from other communities.
/edit
Also a dramatic reading of a TL blog post.
http://www.gameproc.com/meskstuff/deepthroatgazelle/teenliquidTHEREVENGE.mp3
/edit 2
A look at Acromagnus, who was the primary Protoss advisor in two segments.
https://soundcloud.com/iskatumesk/apexf-practice-acromagnus-2
0
I talk about wc3 as a game.
To me, Renee, you are one of only 3-4 people in all of Starcraft 2, at least in the English speaking side, that has put forth effort into a serious project. I respect that more than anything.
0
@EivindL: Go
That's the kind of community Blizzard games attract because that's the kind of company Blizzard themselves are. Casuals are all about instant gratification, and pet projects/original projects are far from instantly gratifying. They are about the opposite, especially for anyone just starting out, and especially with the kind of performance and UI problems the editor has. Additionally, most mappers who went to sc2 looked for fame and glory, a precedent not assisted by the promise of the marketplace, rather than personal accomplishment, and this is still mostly the case. The amount of people who complained in irc about popularity alludes to the mindset of the majority of mappers for the game as a whole, and this is not a healthy environment for any kind of objective quality, derivative or not.
That said, I never saw any difference between sc2 and wc3 in terms of how stagnant the content was. W3 was mostly carbon copy clones unless you dug; at least in wc3 you could dig. Sc2 is merely accelerated by being an extension of wc3 in both people and content.
Campaigns are a whole 'nother bag of toothy man-eating dicks, but suffice to say, I wish luck to anyone who tries to make campaigns in sc2. Just don't forget your roots and you'll find your way eventually.
0
Well, I'd probably have to do that some way. But there's a few ways you can attach models in unreal. The idea way would probably be via blueprint component through sockets, if they stay synced with extremely fast moving units at least. Then you could hand each AI a turret. The turrets would probably have to be broken down further than that, though, to handle all the different variations (turrets with 16+ cannons, turrets with PD, etc). I also don't know how turrets work in the first place in the game. The AI part wouldn't probably be that bad, though. As long as Unreal can handle extremely high acquisition distances.
It's a consideration, but I'd still need to figure out how I'd handle the character models. I can rip stuff, sure... but... most of what I need doesn't exist in games.
0
@Zolden: Go
Space Jihadists?
I'm not sure about the texture, but for UV's you could probably just explode the whole thing into a thousand chunks if there was a way to keep the resolution consistent. For all I know there's a way to generate dynamic plating based on some input other than UV's. The current texture is the only one I have with minimal surface detail that isn't like a mirror at the moment.
At a distance it isn't so bad.
I have no idea how I would ever do turrets. Even after a few months of working with the editor I still have no idea. I am not sure if I can even do bone-level manipulation in Matinee.
0
Imagine if I was an artist. The things I could do with this. But... I'm not. So a cinematic project is not really worth attempting.