SC2Mapster

@ ProzaicMuze: I've read this entire thread calmly and patiently, but I have to say your first post was the only one that got me raging.

I am one of those who wants to lock his map(s). Are you calling me a selfish idiot?! Hell If spend hours, days, mounths maybe even years to create a map is it so selfish that I don't want everyone to be able to steal my ideas? All my work? I never even considered opening someone else's map to see how this or that has been done. That is unless the map has been explicitly created as tutorial.

I figure everything out by myself and only ask the forums if am REALY stuck on something I can't find out by mysef.

So say for example I am making a 3rd Person Shooter Map and I really can't figure out how to make a character jump. So I bring up a topic on the forums and you(might as well refer to SC2Mapster in general) come around with a good jump system that allows collisions, jumping over obstacles and what not. Does that mean that once I am done with my map, I have to show it to you?

So you get to see:

1. Your jump system
2. My WASD movement System
3. My physics System
4. My camera System
5. My projectile engine
6. My custom GUI
7. My Score/Frag System
8. My Content e.g. Weapons, Powerups, Characters ...
9. etc.

So you provided less then 1/8 of the solutions and I provided 7/8 of the slutions. Still I have to show you my solutions that I worked on so hard? Otherwise by your definition I'd be a "selfish idiot"? There is something VERY wrong about that statement.

Don't get me wrong: I am not saying that I am not willing to share my knowledge, i certainly am. In WC3s days I made a cinematic that was very unsual and ended up being one of a kind. (No i am not boasting, just trying to get a point across) I got a lot of replies on the thread, asking how I did this or that and I was quite willing to provide answers. BUT i was not willing to give out an unlocked version of the map.

Do you see the difference? If someone wants to know how I did something in a map, that person just has to ASK ME. Not crack open my map.

Pros of that apprach:

1. It's much easier for that other person since he/she desn't have to bother with unlocking
2. he/she can get an explaination how it works and even a variation that suits his/her purposes better
3. It gives me the confidence that my work is appriciated
4. It formed more than one friendship
5. ...

Cons of that apprach:

1. ... I suppose you have to communicate ... very difficult ...

Mappers are not faceless companies, they are private persons. We can be TALKED with. I think most mappers would agree with me on that. Forums like these prove it enough. But if someone doesn't even bother asking and instead right away just spys me out or even steals my work, I can not accept that. And if I am defensive about a certain technique I used and I am not willing to share it(at least not as a whole) than I have my reasons and you should respect it instead of calling me a "selfish idiot".

Allright, I realize this is getting lengthy and there is annother problem I haven't touched yet. So:

@ Everyone still reading this:

What do we achieve with letting this "how to" in here? We show mappers that blizzard's locking system isn't safe? Hell, I don't know about you guys but I knew that all along. It was basicly clear even before it was introduced that it wouldn't be that awesome, it's their first time ever touching something ike that, after all. No offense but if any of you believed it to be safe, that was pretty naive.

So what do we achieve by showing mappers that blizzard's locking system isn't safe? Well we encourage mappers to develop some way of protecting their maps better, just like they did in Wc3. Isn't that right Sixen? That's your argument all along, correct me if i'm wrong. Well assure you, I have absolutely no idea of that business and I can't even think of how you might protect a file with a third hand tool and still make it possible to upload it via Galaxy.

And those people who are good at making protectors, don't you think they allready know how unsafe blizzards safe system is? What about the persons who made the Wc3 Protection tools? Do you think these peope need to be slapped in the face with this thread to wake up and start thinking of a solution? No. I assure you, these people have started searching for a protection method ever since they first saw a .SC2map file. I don't see the point of saying "try making a protection tool" to EVERY mapper on the planet since that is way beyond the avarage mapper's possibilities. But the people who actually have that kind of skill are the ones we should put our trust in and i am quite convinced that the are allready working on it. Mappers solve mapping problems, encrypters solve encryption problems. Wake up calls in the past have set major things in progress, but i think in this situation the wake up call was mounths ago. Don't underestimate the community.

In the end we don't really speed up the lock development process with this. Instead we speed up the unlock developement process.

Think about it: Can you help hospitals develop a vaccine by spreading the virus?

I think that about sums up what I was going to say. If you have things to critisize, go ahead. Especially you, Sixen and ProzaicMuze.

What exactly are the codes for?
do you just make these up or am i missing something?

Quote from tFighterPilot: Go

@Xelaran: Go Nothing intelligible except the texture file name.

Indeed! I actually missed it.
Once I saw all this nonsence I automatically though the whole file was like that.

Well that solved the problem completely. Thanks a lot to everyone.

Quote from malu05: Go

@Xelaran: Go If you want to change the texture of a unit you only use with that modified texture you can overwrite the exsisting texture by importing the new texture at the old texture's place in your map file.

I've been having trouble trying to do that. The new Texture would just start looking like the original as soon as i imported it. Strange thing.

Quote:

If that is not the case you can just hardcode the the new texture into the model (could use notepad there or a hex editor). As long as you don't mess with the size you don't need to alter the file header so you can change something like "Assets/Textures/Zergling_Diffuse.dds" to "Assets/Textures/Zergling_Diffus2.dds"

That's the whole problem. My Notepad doesn't give me anything intelligable if I try to open the m3 file. What exactly is a hex editor?

@DeepHorizons: Go

I don't have 3ds max, that's the whole problem.

I appriate your help. I'll send you the files but right now it's just a regular zergling texture turned green.
It want to make sure it works before i start spending ours on actual textures.

@llou: Go

It should be a piece of cake if there was some converter to turn the m3 file into something that can simply be opened with Notepad

Ok... I've been searching around the forums for hours now and some people have been asking the same question but i didn't find any answers that didn't involve 3ds-max.

I have a custom unit called "celloid". I want it to have the zergling model with custom textures. I want the Zergling to remain untouched however. How do I do that?

I exported the zerling_diffuse.dds texture I edited the texture and reimported it to the path Assets/Textures/celloid_diffuse.dds I exported the zergling m3 model. I though that i could just open the m3 file in notepad but all I saw was a whole lot of nonsence.

It was pretty easy to do this in wc3... we had mdl files and we had mdx files ... what did they change now and how does it work?

Quote from SouLCarveRR: Go

If your nesting 6 loops deep your doing something wrong IMO

True.

But the problem remains. I was greatful that local variables are now introduced which is useful for for loops.
But it seems like for loops are a pretty bad thing to use.
Thats good to know and as my first step when i get to optimization i will implement my own for loops.

Blizzard should stop taking us for complete idiots who never coded. That would make such extreme precautions uneccessary. I just wait untill they allow us to code in raw data rather than the UI, like they did in Wc3. That would fix all the messiness that comes from the UI. Even If statements and conditions are propably messy.

Quote from zenasprime: Go

Okay so I'm having some trouble "HasUnitInRegion" condition definition.

You suggested...

"For Each Unit (u) in (Units in Region (MyRegion)) Do"

but the closest thing I could figure out was...

"Unit Group - For each unit u in (Any units in Win Region owned by player Any Player matching Excluded: Missile, Dead, Hidden, with at most Any Amount) do (Actions)"

Do I have to create a condition definition for "UnitsInRegion" as well?

In any event, the result has been a defeat for the player even if they have units in the region. What am I missing?

Thats the right function you found. I just shortened it. The entire any player and exluded stuff is standard.
It should actually work.

Can you show us the code you have right now? Including the HasAUnitInRegion Condition definition in particular.

@James7285: Go You're sulotion should work, but its takes some more memory space than mine.
SouLCarveRR's suggenstion is right. "Number of units in region matching conditions" is an integer return type function. So you need to look into integer functions to find it.

Quote from stevehammon: Go

What I do is set up a trigger for each set of variables that = and end game sequence.

So say if timer runs out and player 1 has so many units in region 1 and player 1 has more than 50 minerals, then fade out instantly, kill all units, create a bunker for player 1, and then set default melee options.

You can maybe do something similar.

I don't know though. I'm just into hard core basics done awesome.

No offense but that solution is very poor.

It will always just be a black screen upon both victory and defeat.
It doesn't allow you to set up what victory or defeat looks like.
For instance in my map, upon defeat I zoom out the camera and let the player see his base overrun by enemies. There is also a transmission saying stuff like "this is our doom".
And if the player wants to, he can press "return to game" and see what status it was in before he lost.

All of these things are not possible with your solution. Victory and defeat will both look boring.

@zenasprime: Go

Well and for the Sudden death I would advise this:

Trigger: Sudden Death (Initially OFF!)
Events:
Any Unit Leaves MyRegion
Any Unit Dies
Condition:
Local Variables:
p: integer
winner: integer
foundOne: boolean
Action:
For Each Player (p) in (All Players) Do
- if (HasAUnitInRegion(p))
- - then if(foundOne)
- - - then skip remaining actions
- - - else set winner = p; set foundOne = true
- - else
VictoryFunction(winner)
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Then in the Placeholder it should say:
Turn Trigger (Sudden Death) On.

@zenasprime: Go

A little History:
In the Warcraft editor, the entire scripting was done with triggers and such. But there was a script language called "Jass" and each trigger function called a corresponding function in "jass". At some point in time, as a mapper you were given the choise wheter you want to use the trigger editor's "pseudo-code" or actual jass code. I have little doubt that it will be the same for GE at some point. So if you are more the typing kind of guy, just sit back.

Enough History.
I take from your post that you do have some scripting experience. That's good.
The Trigger editor basicly works the same way as any programming language for the most part.
There are different kinds of functions. All Functions can take parameters and have local variables.
There's things called "Action Definitions" These are basically sub-functions. They perform a squence of actions.
Then there's "Condition Definitions" Those are basically functions with the return type "boolean". These can be use as conditions.
Then there's Triggers. Those are your scripts connection to the game.
Trigger have Events, Conditons and actions. Simply put, if the event starts and the conditions are met, the actions are fired.
That's enough for now, getting weary xD

So on to the problem.
If we forget about sudden death for now its easy:
I dont care how you set up your data system. But you will obviously need a variable for the timer.
Var MyTimer:timer
Var MyRegion:Region

Trigger: Main Round
Event: Timer MyTimer expires
Condition:
Local Variables:
p: integer
winner: integer
foundOne: boolean
Action:
For Each Player (p) in (All Players) Do
- if (HasAUnitInRegion(p))
- - then if(foundOne) /* if we found one and now found annother, means theres no winner yet */
- - - then < Sudden Death Placeholder >; Skip Remaining Actions
- - - else set winner = p; set foundOne = true
- - else
/* (End Loop) <- the end will be obvious in the editor */
/* if we get to this point, we have a winner */
VictoryFunction(winner)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Condition Definition: HasAUnitInRegion
Parameters: p: integer
Local Variables: u: Unit
Actions:
For Each Unit (u) in (Units in Region (MyRegion)) Do
- if (Owner of (u)) == p
- - then Return true
- - else
/* (End Loop) <- the end will be obvious in the editor */
return false
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Action Definition: VictoryFunction
Parameters: winner: integer
Local Variables: p: integer
Actions:
For Each Player (p) in (All Players) Do
- if (p == winner)
- - then End Game For (p) in Victory (.....)
- - else End Game For (p) in Defeat (.....)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Normally I'd explain stuff but I think you get this as a scripter. When you have that, we'll care about sudden death. No more time to write right now.

Solution 1: From the brief look I took at research items, it was obvious that research can modify abilities in a any way you can image. However research will obiviously affect all units of a player, not only one unit like a behavior.

Solution 2: The only other way i can think of right now is using multiple abilities. Like have an Ability A with 100 energy cost and an Ability B which does the same thing but costs 50.

Then the ability Buttons would have requirements that would show or hide them. If the unit doesn't have the Behavoir, A is shown and B is hidden. If the unit has the Behavoir, B is shown and A is hidden.

The obvious downsides are that A and B won't share cooldowns, That you would have to determine if the unit has A or B if you want to order it to use the abiliy for any reason. And that it will get quite messy if you have more than 2 "Levels" of the Ability. There's propably more downsides...

---------

None of these solutions are perfect but they might suffice depending on what exactly you want to do. Is there only 1 possible improvement? Solution 2 might be fine. Is the user a hero that each player only has one of? Solution 1 will be clean and easy

I'll keep a keen eye on this thread, since i want to do something simliar myself. Solution 1 would suit me but I'd rather have it more versitile.

@YLM: Go

- Go to the Actor you want to be transparent.
- Events + > Right click > add Event
- Event -> Actor Creation
- Message -> Set Opacity x

x ranges between 0.0(Completely transparent) and 1.0(Completely Visible)

I tried these steps but it didn't help.

EDIT: I have fixed the problem now. It seems like in my case, the problem was that I had some players set up to be a custom race that I made.

It seems like custom races are generally quite problematic at the moment.