Easy work around is to have an action after the cinematic mode to run a trigger. That trigger can be specifically for hiding the UI at the start of the map, as well as after cinematics.
Cinematic mode is more meant to be tied into a conversation. I have a combination of transmission triggers and a conversation from the data editor and I get both sound and subtitles.
Yea, it would be great for an RPG which involves the control of only a single unit. I'm curious if it would be possible, once you get the base UI Libraried, if you could make it possible to have a couple of other units on there as well, sort of like henchman and have their life bars under yours.
Take my map for example. While I control only a single unit most of the time there comes a point where I add another unit, controlled through a computer terminal, in order for my character to complete an objective she can't reach. I have Hib's Hero Select Library set up at that point so you can pick which unit you want to control. Most likely once I initialized Hib's interface it would nuke what ever other custom UI I had, but that could be easily fixed by running the UI function again after creation.
So here's a list of things that you could possibly add.
Changeable Portrait Style. Right now you have the static Nova portrait. I would be cool if you had a little + near the portrait that would replace that particular dialog bar with one that uses the animated 3D portrait.
Mini map Bolean/Position. When making the library, it would be nice if there was an option for the map maker to have a mini map, and if so, whether they want it place of the red square in the bottom left, green in the bottom right, or MMO style in the upper right.
Transmission Window. To help keep with the flow of the custom UI,
I'd probably also set up a transmission window in your same style, probably above the right square. If you do such a thing I would personally request (because I was just talking about wanting to see something like it in another thread) that the transmission box can slide from the edge of the screen and into position, with maybe the assistance of a graphical gear.
OR
make the red box a place to drop the portrait of the person sending the transmission and have it temporarily nuke the wireframe icon and character stats in the middle to display the text there.
Henchman/Party Health bars. I know I mentioned this earlier, but I'm trying to make things neat because I'm OCD and I wanted to expand upon that idea. Since this is something that other map makers will be using and some of those maps might be multiplayer, I would probably add in the ability to display the life bars of your ally's hero units. For a single player, it could basically be handled the same way. Each life bar gets assigned to a player's unit or a specifically stated extra unit for your hero.
Skill Tree. Love it. It could possibly be expanded Diablo/WoW style by adding different tabs to it. I'm still learning about the more indepth triggers and such so I'm not sure how hard turning this particular frame into a library would be because of the variance on abilities and trees. I would probably handle it in a grid system that map makers can set buttons into. You'd have your main rows, where the buttons go and possible the rows between them in which to draw lines of dependency (and possibly multiple dependencies like having to know ability x and y to learn z).
Exp bar. Can't tell from the screenies, but if you mouse over the Exp bar, does it show current exp and exp to next level in a little tool tip? If not that would be an awesome little extra.
Menu. I'd probably have it be collapse able. I'd also add the option to include another button for a map. Could be a more RPG style of handling the minimap by making the players pop it up only when they want to reference it.
Character stats. I love the transparent screen feel it has, it looks a little naked and I would probably include the units stats, like character level, total damage (e.g. weapon + strength + any other modifiers), armor, etc. Maybe move the attributes from the right of the icon to the left and use the right side for these stats. What would be cool is if you could make both of these collapse as well, leaving just the wireframe icon right in the middle by itself.
That's all I can think of right now. Awesome job and I hope I gave you something to think about. Honestly though, I wouldn't care if all of my suggestions were denied as long as we managed to get our hands on this UI.
Edit: If you want help with story and/or terraining, I can help with that. You're obviously a lot more knowledgeable when it comes to triggers than I. I'm also working on improving my skills with 3ds Max for model edits and imports.
Yea, I've been trying to think of the easiest way to handle random doodads. Some of them would be more difficult than others because the direction in which they were facing would be important, but something like a cactus or tree can face any direction w/o really changing anything.
I completely second that, randomizing the doodads that are placed around the map that are of the same design as the hider's doodads. Eventually it will get to the point where it's impossible for the hidders because the seekers will immediately know when something is out of place. It would be a lot of extra work but I believe it would add to the long term survival of this map, which right now seems super fun.
Interesting, so you have multiplayer dialog? My map is a single player dungeon crawl so I don't really have to worry about the if/then stuff for dialog. I do not to figure out a choice system though, which would involve if/then.
I imagine that there will be a little backtracking with the HoS campaign. You'll play for a bit before the end of WoL and then you'll have the post WoL game, which should be a majority. I think part of the problem is that we're getting conflicting information, or a major spoiler. Kerrigan has been deinfested, yet she's still going to be the main character in the zerg campaign? The only way I can imagine this working is that she still controls some of the zerg, but she's not being controlled by the zerg DNA. She now uses the zerg to help Raynor try to take down the Dominion and probably goes after Mengsk for revenge, possibly stepping on a few toes and maybe even upsetting Raynor in her tactics to take that dirty dictator down.
I hope they handle it more like an RPG. Kerrigan is so BA I do hope she's a tad OP, like in the WoL campaign. Unfortunately the deinfestation process has scaled her current and potential powers down from what the Queen of Blade was capable of, as well of neutralizing most of the power she had.
So far I've been pretty disappointed with the hero units. Warcraft 3 had a great hero system, and they have a lot of tools at their disposal, even built in to the Galaxy Editor.
I don't intend to be stuck with only text, but it certainly should be pretty. I know there are a couple of communities (check the Artists section) of people who like to do voice overs for people's creations, so if you really wanted to mix that in it would be possible.
I would add some other textures to the mountains to spice it up a bit. The base of the mountain should be a tad different from the sections higher up. Possibly throw in a little bit of a rocky terrain, rather than the cracked ground it is now.
I haven't even really read about modifying the way units look yet, aside from trying to attach two of them together, so some of that didn't make sense just yet, but I will keep that in mind. Heck, I don't even know what a footprint is in terms of SC2 even though I've seen that in the data editor.
Amazing reply, yet so true. I'm sorry that I'm currently all but inept when it comes to 3ds and my main focus right now is finishing up my map. I promise that eventually you won't be the only person zipping in to save the day.
I did a little bit of dialog for the first version of my intro, but I haven't really touched on it too much yet, except for popping up chat bubbles. Right now I just want to get my map to point where I'm finished with building it, and then I can go back through and polish it up, play with dialog options and add in the voice overs I'll be recording.
Currently, for my intro I set up a conversation for the subtitles. It goes into cinematic mode and the first speaker pops up with their dialog, and then the second person pops up, making the transmission start noise, and they just go back and forth. I'm not too proud of it right now and I would love to get their faces animated eventually.
Considering that I know what I'm doing I test my map, as far as my objectives and what does what, I haven't added any official objectives or assistance dialog, but I do plan on doing that. I would love to see some of the ways other people are handling it.
What I would love to do, or even see, is have a UI box animate out on the screen, like when you exit cinematic mode and the UI gets assembled, and have the portrait and text contained within that box
Sigh, I'm been trying to think of one, looking at the list of names and the first one I think of is probably not usable, if you are looking for a serious name, but there are some others that might have a Protoss feel to them
0
@JeffQ: Go
Easy work around is to have an action after the cinematic mode to run a trigger. That trigger can be specifically for hiding the UI at the start of the map, as well as after cinematics.
@Xan0: Go
Cinematic mode is more meant to be tied into a conversation. I have a combination of transmission triggers and a conversation from the data editor and I get both sound and subtitles.
0
@Sweepingzero: Go
Yea, it would be great for an RPG which involves the control of only a single unit. I'm curious if it would be possible, once you get the base UI Libraried, if you could make it possible to have a couple of other units on there as well, sort of like henchman and have their life bars under yours.
Take my map for example. While I control only a single unit most of the time there comes a point where I add another unit, controlled through a computer terminal, in order for my character to complete an objective she can't reach. I have Hib's Hero Select Library set up at that point so you can pick which unit you want to control. Most likely once I initialized Hib's interface it would nuke what ever other custom UI I had, but that could be easily fixed by running the UI function again after creation.
So here's a list of things that you could possibly add.
OR
That's all I can think of right now. Awesome job and I hope I gave you something to think about. Honestly though, I wouldn't care if all of my suggestions were denied as long as we managed to get our hands on this UI.
Edit: If you want help with story and/or terraining, I can help with that. You're obviously a lot more knowledgeable when it comes to triggers than I. I'm also working on improving my skills with 3ds Max for model edits and imports.
0
@Bounty_98: Go
Yea, I've been trying to think of the easiest way to handle random doodads. Some of them would be more difficult than others because the direction in which they were facing would be important, but something like a cactus or tree can face any direction w/o really changing anything.
0
@Mogranlocky: Go
I completely second that, randomizing the doodads that are placed around the map that are of the same design as the hider's doodads. Eventually it will get to the point where it's impossible for the hidders because the seekers will immediately know when something is out of place. It would be a lot of extra work but I believe it would add to the long term survival of this map, which right now seems super fun.
0
@38dedo: Go
The game has an importer built in, just hit F9 to open that window and then Ctrl - i to browse to the file.
0
@Nashadun: Go
Interesting, so you have multiplayer dialog? My map is a single player dungeon crawl so I don't really have to worry about the if/then stuff for dialog. I do not to figure out a choice system though, which would involve if/then.
0
@RileyStarcraft: Go
I agree. Love the dungeon crawls, which is what my current project is of course.
0
I imagine that there will be a little backtracking with the HoS campaign. You'll play for a bit before the end of WoL and then you'll have the post WoL game, which should be a majority. I think part of the problem is that we're getting conflicting information, or a major spoiler. Kerrigan has been deinfested, yet she's still going to be the main character in the zerg campaign? The only way I can imagine this working is that she still controls some of the zerg, but she's not being controlled by the zerg DNA. She now uses the zerg to help Raynor try to take down the Dominion and probably goes after Mengsk for revenge, possibly stepping on a few toes and maybe even upsetting Raynor in her tactics to take that dirty dictator down.
I hope they handle it more like an RPG. Kerrigan is so BA I do hope she's a tad OP, like in the WoL campaign. Unfortunately the deinfestation process has scaled her current and potential powers down from what the Queen of Blade was capable of, as well of neutralizing most of the power she had.
So far I've been pretty disappointed with the hero units. Warcraft 3 had a great hero system, and they have a lot of tools at their disposal, even built in to the Galaxy Editor.
0
You inspire me.
0
@QMJ3: Go
I don't intend to be stuck with only text, but it certainly should be pretty. I know there are a couple of communities (check the Artists section) of people who like to do voice overs for people's creations, so if you really wanted to mix that in it would be possible.
0
@Wakeman: Go
I would add some other textures to the mountains to spice it up a bit. The base of the mountain should be a tad different from the sections higher up. Possibly throw in a little bit of a rocky terrain, rather than the cracked ground it is now.
0
@38dedo: Go
I haven't even really read about modifying the way units look yet, aside from trying to attach two of them together, so some of that didn't make sense just yet, but I will keep that in mind. Heck, I don't even know what a footprint is in terms of SC2 even though I've seen that in the data editor.
0
@UltiDrgn: Go
Amazing reply, yet so true. I'm sorry that I'm currently all but inept when it comes to 3ds and my main focus right now is finishing up my map. I promise that eventually you won't be the only person zipping in to save the day.
0
I did a little bit of dialog for the first version of my intro, but I haven't really touched on it too much yet, except for popping up chat bubbles. Right now I just want to get my map to point where I'm finished with building it, and then I can go back through and polish it up, play with dialog options and add in the voice overs I'll be recording.
Currently, for my intro I set up a conversation for the subtitles. It goes into cinematic mode and the first speaker pops up with their dialog, and then the second person pops up, making the transmission start noise, and they just go back and forth. I'm not too proud of it right now and I would love to get their faces animated eventually.
Considering that I know what I'm doing I test my map, as far as my objectives and what does what, I haven't added any official objectives or assistance dialog, but I do plan on doing that. I would love to see some of the ways other people are handling it.
What I would love to do, or even see, is have a UI box animate out on the screen, like when you exit cinematic mode and the UI gets assembled, and have the portrait and text contained within that box
0
@Wakeman: Go
Sigh, I'm been trying to think of one, looking at the list of names and the first one I think of is probably not usable, if you are looking for a serious name, but there are some others that might have a Protoss feel to them
Kulendar.
Tal'Daris
Zel'Dansus