Thanks for the replies, I figured this was pretty much how things were. The only AI scripts I could find (GTAI) used a custom launcher to get the game to accept them. Even if I could replicate that method there isn't an obvious way to add new races. Getting the game to recognise my edited files is just going nowhere.
At least we have triggers. It's a huge shame but I'll accept defeat and script it that way.
Does anyone here have any experience editing the AI scripts?
I'm trying to make the AI work for a custom race I've built. It will need melee scripts but I'm getting out of my depth and need some guidance.
So far I've got my head around the basic stuff - build orders and so on - but I'm struggling to work out how the game actually works out the race of the AI player and picks which race's scripts to use.
I've found that AI.galaxy lists the races and mentions the native function "AIGetSelfRaceVal" but there's two problems:
1) I can't find the Galaxy.cpp file mentioned in AI.galaxy which seems to be key in creating the list of playable races.
2) I'm not even sure if "AIGetSelfRaceVal" is how the game chooses which race's scripts to use. I may be missing something but if it's using some other method to choose then the whole thing is irrelevant anyway.
I think this is pretty advanced stuff and I'm not sure if anyone has gone this far BUT if anyone has and can offer some guidance that would be super awesome!
I just found this thread looking for answers to the same problem.
After some poking around I found what I think is the best option (assuming you have lots of lights to handle) which I'll note down in case anyone else needs it:
The way it works in the campaign mission is to use the Action "Send Actor Message To Game Region"
Set the actor message to be "LightPowerDown" and "LightPowerUp" (depending on whether it's daybreak or nightfall) and the region to be "Entire Map".
You can slip these Actions into the Triggers that handle the rest of your day/night transition. It's much easier and cheaper code-wise than doing one Action for each light.
Hey guys, does anyone know if it's possible to override a factory's desire to sit still and do nothing while it builds? I'd really like to have a factory on wheels that can roll around dispensing fresh tanks :)
The constant stream of mods on this very site is a constant source of pleasure to me. I don't see the glass as half empty at all. SC2 is by far the most flexible RTS engine I've ever seen. Amazing things can be done and are being done every day. SC2 is THE game to mod if you have any interest in RTS modding what so ever.
You can discuss the problems Blizzard is having with its distribution service but you're missing the wood for the trees. Blizzard HAS a distribution service integrated directly into their game, amazing!
Ultimately, comparing the modding community of a well established, years old game to one that's a few months old is premature. The bottom line is that a mod community takes a long time to become established. Comparing like for like, did anyone even understand HOW to mod the CnC3 engine this soon after launch?
However I still got the error despite doing it right...
Also I found that it didn't just affect one unit but rather ALL morphs are bugged in this way (supply depot raise/lower, zerg burrow/unburrow etc.)
I found it was a rogue actor that was causing the problem. I'm not 100% sure what it was about the actor that was the issue, it looked okay, but I deleted it and the map works fine now.
I would recommend saving your map with a new filename and then deleting all the actors and then see if a stock supply depot will raise and lower correctly.
If it does then undo and delete the actors in batches to find out which one is the root of the problem,
If you get any further in working out exactly what it is about the actors that can cause this bug I'd be fascinated to know.
Bit late - but if it's still relevant you need to set a create event in the actor's events list to create the actor when something happens.
The most normal trigger would be "unit.creation" - set the msg type to whatever unit type you want to attach the actor to, e.g. "Marine" and have the event msg be set to "create". You will also need to set another event triggered by the "unit.death" that has the event set to "destroy" which removes the actor. You can adjust the triggers based on what the actor is actually meant to be created by,
Hey, thanks again dude. Too bad it could be a bug but that at least means Blizz may fix it.
I am going to be investigating it too because they defiantly do use the player filter for some of the visuals such as bunker placement markers. It would be weird if it is completely impossible. If I get anywhere I will post an update.
My goal was to make the word "enemy" appear over enemy unit's heads as an alternative to house colours.
I make a text actor and set it up to be created when a marine is born/removed when he dies and that works fine.
The idea was to make the text for every unit then filter it by player so only enemy players can see each unit's text.
To make that happen I checked the "Ally" and "Self" boxes in the "Actor - Filter" field, but it shows up on all units regardless of hostility.
I've tried checking all the boxes and leaving them all unchecked but they don't seem to affect anything one way or the other.
Maybe the map itself is set up weirdly? I uploaded it here: http://staff.tankrush.com/~korona/Prototyping/VRTagPlay.SC2Map
Thanks, actually you covered most of the things I was puzzled over :)
Maybe when we start to add custom units things will start breaking...
edit : ah one thing that is giving me issues is the Actor - Filter field. I set some text to filter out Neutral and Enemy players but it doesn't seem to do anything. Different combinations all draw a blank. Is there something I am missing?
Hey thanks for the tutorial - this is one area that I have found particularly complex and daunting.
Something I was wondering about is the unit actor events that handle animations. All units seem to have a lot of animations but there are a variety of different methods used to trigger them. Looking at the Zealot, attack works how I expected, there is the Birth Stand Death trigger that seems to work differently, movement isn't referenced at all even though obviously zealots do have a move animation. I am guessing there is code in place to handle the common animation groups automatically but any illumination you could spread on this area would be pretty helpful.
Yeah visually it's similar but the code is very different. I used a data driven approach which allows for a much closer integration of the various elements of the final unit. For example with this unit you can see it allowed me to make the DT swing his scythe rather than standing idle while the Zergling mount launches his attacks.
TPBH uses triggers which isn't really going to let you do any more than join one actor to another at a preset point. I agree that it looks similar but if anyone is annoyed I have to plead ignorance :P
The way I did it is to open the map file with MPQEditor and extrat the data xmls. You can then reverse the process to insert them in a new map. There may be a better way but this is pretty fast especially across multiple maps, and gets more so as the amount of data gets larger.
0
Thanks for the replies, I figured this was pretty much how things were. The only AI scripts I could find (GTAI) used a custom launcher to get the game to accept them. Even if I could replicate that method there isn't an obvious way to add new races. Getting the game to recognise my edited files is just going nowhere.
At least we have triggers. It's a huge shame but I'll accept defeat and script it that way.
0
Does anyone here have any experience editing the AI scripts?
I'm trying to make the AI work for a custom race I've built. It will need melee scripts but I'm getting out of my depth and need some guidance.
So far I've got my head around the basic stuff - build orders and so on - but I'm struggling to work out how the game actually works out the race of the AI player and picks which race's scripts to use.
I've found that AI.galaxy lists the races and mentions the native function "AIGetSelfRaceVal" but there's two problems:
1) I can't find the Galaxy.cpp file mentioned in AI.galaxy which seems to be key in creating the list of playable races.
2) I'm not even sure if "AIGetSelfRaceVal" is how the game chooses which race's scripts to use. I may be missing something but if it's using some other method to choose then the whole thing is irrelevant anyway.
I think this is pretty advanced stuff and I'm not sure if anyone has gone this far BUT if anyone has and can offer some guidance that would be super awesome!
Thanks everyone
Korona
0
thanks jcraigk, that's far and away the most elegant solution.
0
I just found this thread looking for answers to the same problem.
After some poking around I found what I think is the best option (assuming you have lots of lights to handle) which I'll note down in case anyone else needs it:
The way it works in the campaign mission is to use the Action "Send Actor Message To Game Region" Set the actor message to be "LightPowerDown" and "LightPowerUp" (depending on whether it's daybreak or nightfall) and the region to be "Entire Map". You can slip these Actions into the Triggers that handle the rest of your day/night transition. It's much easier and cheaper code-wise than doing one Action for each light.
0
Hey guys, does anyone know if it's possible to override a factory's desire to sit still and do nothing while it builds? I'd really like to have a factory on wheels that can roll around dispensing fresh tanks :)
0
The constant stream of mods on this very site is a constant source of pleasure to me. I don't see the glass as half empty at all. SC2 is by far the most flexible RTS engine I've ever seen. Amazing things can be done and are being done every day. SC2 is THE game to mod if you have any interest in RTS modding what so ever.
You can discuss the problems Blizzard is having with its distribution service but you're missing the wood for the trees. Blizzard HAS a distribution service integrated directly into their game, amazing!
Ultimately, comparing the modding community of a well established, years old game to one that's a few months old is premature. The bottom line is that a mod community takes a long time to become established. Comparing like for like, did anyone even understand HOW to mod the CnC3 engine this soon after launch?
0
Dunno if you're still struggling with this but I had the exact same problem, but I did resolve it -
Step #1 is to make sure you have the morph set up correctly: http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/11028-tutorial-data-misc-how-to-morphing-shapeshifter-druid/ This tutorial works great
However I still got the error despite doing it right... Also I found that it didn't just affect one unit but rather ALL morphs are bugged in this way (supply depot raise/lower, zerg burrow/unburrow etc.)
I found it was a rogue actor that was causing the problem. I'm not 100% sure what it was about the actor that was the issue, it looked okay, but I deleted it and the map works fine now. I would recommend saving your map with a new filename and then deleting all the actors and then see if a stock supply depot will raise and lower correctly. If it does then undo and delete the actors in batches to find out which one is the root of the problem,
If you get any further in working out exactly what it is about the actors that can cause this bug I'd be fascinated to know.
Good luck!
0
I hate to gloat, but it works very nicely for me, thanks to RainGame, that was very helpful!
0
Bit late - but if it's still relevant you need to set a create event in the actor's events list to create the actor when something happens.
The most normal trigger would be "unit.creation" - set the msg type to whatever unit type you want to attach the actor to, e.g. "Marine" and have the event msg be set to "create". You will also need to set another event triggered by the "unit.death" that has the event set to "destroy" which removes the actor. You can adjust the triggers based on what the actor is actually meant to be created by,
0
Hey, thanks again dude. Too bad it could be a bug but that at least means Blizz may fix it.
I am going to be investigating it too because they defiantly do use the player filter for some of the visuals such as bunker placement markers. It would be weird if it is completely impossible. If I get anywhere I will post an update.
0
My goal was to make the word "enemy" appear over enemy unit's heads as an alternative to house colours.
I make a text actor and set it up to be created when a marine is born/removed when he dies and that works fine.
The idea was to make the text for every unit then filter it by player so only enemy players can see each unit's text.
To make that happen I checked the "Ally" and "Self" boxes in the "Actor - Filter" field, but it shows up on all units regardless of hostility.
I've tried checking all the boxes and leaving them all unchecked but they don't seem to affect anything one way or the other.
Maybe the map itself is set up weirdly? I uploaded it here:
http://staff.tankrush.com/~korona/Prototyping/VRTagPlay.SC2Map
Thanks for the help.
0
Thanks, actually you covered most of the things I was puzzled over :)
Maybe when we start to add custom units things will start breaking...
edit : ah one thing that is giving me issues is the Actor - Filter field. I set some text to filter out Neutral and Enemy players but it doesn't seem to do anything. Different combinations all draw a blank. Is there something I am missing?
0
Hey thanks for the tutorial - this is one area that I have found particularly complex and daunting.
Something I was wondering about is the unit actor events that handle animations. All units seem to have a lot of animations but there are a variety of different methods used to trigger them. Looking at the Zealot, attack works how I expected, there is the Birth Stand Death trigger that seems to work differently, movement isn't referenced at all even though obviously zealots do have a move animation. I am guessing there is code in place to handle the common animation groups automatically but any illumination you could spread on this area would be pretty helpful.
0
ha I'd not seen it, I take it you mean this: ?
Yeah visually it's similar but the code is very different. I used a data driven approach which allows for a much closer integration of the various elements of the final unit. For example with this unit you can see it allowed me to make the DT swing his scythe rather than standing idle while the Zergling mount launches his attacks.
TPBH uses triggers which isn't really going to let you do any more than join one actor to another at a preset point. I agree that it looks similar but if anyone is annoyed I have to plead ignorance :P
0
The way I did it is to open the map file with MPQEditor and extrat the data xmls. You can then reverse the process to insert them in a new map. There may be a better way but this is pretty fast especially across multiple maps, and gets more so as the amount of data gets larger.