now that looks more like it :D The Golds are muchh better.
is that a xel'naga tower right next to the natural? or are my eyes failing me. I cant seem to spot them in the green version visibly.
the dam idea in the middle is awesome for aesthetics. Its these kinds of stuff that make up the artistic value of melee maps. Love that bridge btw.
oh and LOS blockers, dont forget em. they change the game alot by allowing some baneling surprises and such.
My only other concern would be that huge chunk of higher ground (the one thats part of your main and is sticking out towards the second ramp from your base). Now im nowhere near pro, my highest league stats currently is platinum on 4v4. and several golds for 3v3, but that area is asking for some defensive tower/siegemode tank placements :P and has potential to fight back any ground aggression towards your natural. encourages turtling for the most part, but idk how it will turn out. Blinkstalker/Reaper/Collosi cliff abuse would definitely be a good choice in your map as you said.
if its in that sense, then yes. Crysis is rather a graphics showcase. Story wasnt too touching or creative.
Just a quick run-thru of your layout. Your natural and main are in pretty okay positions. Your third too. Hpwever:
- The attack paths are too narrow and limited. Currently i can only see 2 obvious attack paths with no open shortcuts or some other way to maneuver around it without breaking rocks. The paths on bottom left and top right are too narrow for a large scale attack to pass through effectively. This could be fixed however, if the hole in the middle of the map is made pathable, to encourage more aggressive play.
- There are some "dead-space" in your current layout. What i mean by this is places where its just a dead end without an expo. Could be good to encourage creative proxies. Unless of course, you are making them unpathable, in which its not much of a big deal.
- The Golds are too safe. Players should see the gold expansion as something risky to take. Furthermore your rocks-on-ramps blocking them make these Gold expos an imbalance for Terrans. Someone could liftoff at the start of the game and move their main to the gold and turtle without much risk, and protected by rocks. My suggestion, open up one of the ramps. This is my main point of concern.
How do i know this? i get these criticisms from melee players alot :( and I play ranked melee in SEA.
If I do your two region idea wouldn't that require like 2x the amount of triggers? If its the only way to do it then sure I'll do it, but I'm very picky about my code/trigger length.
Don't be picky about it. Its been done since Dota in Warcraft 3. There wasnt any noticeable lag and its an awesome game. Heck today we have starcraft 2, that is far superior compared to triggers in Wc3. I am pretty sure the effect of having a trigger for each region will be little to none.
Yeap2, I too, like being able to create bizarre, badshit crazy terrain but requiring it to function is entirely something else, and often requires putting obvious limitations like say, Melee maps. Shooters have their own limitations as well like you said about zoning in a map, and I wont be saying either genre is better than the other. Both have its limitations and advantages.
If i had to pick making terrains for a shooter or a melee map for a life, hell ill be picking the shooter for sure :) (as long as it involves a creative art style, not mainstream cookie-cutter ones)
Also, comparing Crysis and Angry Birds, doesn't work very well. Crysis is a elaborate graphics demo, while Angry Birds is a actual game. Crysis focus on graphics and atmosphere is way too heavy, they neglected nearly anything else in the process, because they want to sell the engine to other people. Their Artstyle is not very good either. If you actually wanted to compare two games against each other, take something from the same game type that were developed by about the same number of people with about the same budget. Otherwise you compare an apple to an orange.
But wait, Crysis IS a game isnt it? Unless im reading or getting something you wrote wrong. All of the Crysis series so far are actual games with multiplayer support even if they are not popular. I've bought and played them. I do know they are selling their engine tho, maybe thats why ur calling it a demo? Nevertheless their art style isnt really creative, true that. Angry Birds would win IMO. Even with their budget differences and workforce differences, Its not about how big or large an artwork's canvas is, its about what the artist does within the constraints of his canvas size that matters. Im totally with Angry Birds in this one.
I agree with you there about the apple and the orange. But that is exactly why i chose them, to represent a comparison between a Melee map with a Custom shooter map :)
Yes I would pick the redhead too LOL
Just some random ramblings:
well... about your definition of art. I cannot argue with that as the term 'art' is entirely relative. Some artists value idealism while others value realism; hence the line between the realistic looks of Western RPGs (Mass Effect, Crysis, BF) and the more idealistic look of JRPGs (Final Fantasy, nuff said.) Some don't even see them at all in games :)
IMO (just my opinion really), i consider games as Interactive Visual Art. Where the viewer is involved to communicate the work of art. An example would be Dead Space 2 , a shooter, probably just like your map there. The psychological horror and lighting effects are truly, works of art. Portal 2 is a good choice too, as Moza said. I hope Dragon Age ONE (was RPG of the year before i think), is in that list Mozared, the story is epic. Bioware did a good job crapping its sequel.
I do agree some games are just... plain brainless tho.
Art overall ""relative to me"", is an artist's (or a group of people's, in a game studio point of view) creativity in doing something that is 'out of the box' while still staying inside the restrictions of a larger box. Different games from different companies will definitely have different sized 'canvases' that they can 'paint' on depending on their budget, workforce, game genre, story, game engine, etc. Using Angry Birds again here (and thus why i used it before), that mobile game definitely has a canvas so tiny in comparison to EA's Crysis but they have truly made something astounding with something of their scale.
That is a good point too. Perhaps the most influential yet elusive point of quality in melee maps is the ridiculous amount of textureplay that goes into the empty areas to make them look fuller. It's most obvious in citylike maps where park and different types of streetstone create variation, but it's nearly invisible on rocky or grassy tilesets; even though it's obvious so much work has gone into it.
its funny how i find making melee map terrain harder than a custom map terrain. like you said, alot has gone into terrain-play, which we dont really see in custom maps. Sometimes I open Blizzard's maps and I see just how beautiful some of them are, in terms of cleanness and precision.
and as Foxtail said, alot has gone into planning and execution of melee map details. Where your natural is, where the ramp is, where the xelnaga towers are, to create balance. Totally agree on both of you guys here.
@Gorandor: Go
Its true that melee maps have a certain limitation around them that mappers cannot violate. Such as being clean with doodads and not too crazy with them either. However I must say that melee map 'art' should not be judged by how visually appealing it looks in comparison to TPS terrains and any other custom games. A melee-map's artistic value should be judged from how the map author has made the map look good while abiding to the rules that make a good, clean and balanced melee game.
Its like comparing graphics between a game like Crysis and Angry Birds. Crysis has definitely more details, and has put ALOT of work into making something with superb beautiful graphics. However i would not immediately say its lightyears more artistic than Angry Birds. Its art style is more realistic, but it does not mean its superior compared to Angry Birds.
There is art in simplicity. That is why corporate logos are all so simple, but they still communicate their company well. The same should be said to other stuff with artistic value such as fashion, fine art, etc etc. Melee maps should not be condemned of not being 'heavily artistic' because alot of work goes into making a simple but pleasing terrain.
Then again i am not by any means trying to pick a fight here :D im just saying melee maps have terraining value too. Your terrain is definitely awesome for TPS and shooter maps :) Your terrain work is definitely more 'complex' than melee maps in general.
should work as intended. that code runs when a player leaves right?
maybe you should debug your code by showing a debug message of the player's mineral spent score? i somehow have this gut feeling that could be your source of error since technically thats not a variable is it. Its the one the game uses for melee maps yes?
another thing to note is in melee map, if someone leaves the game, his/her income goes to the team. Make sure it doesnt as this might screw up your mineral tracking.
When I create a new map or open a map with all 4 standard dependencies and search for 'zz' in doodads, actors, models or the model file browser, they don't show up.
if im not mistaken. they are terrain objects. (like say the avernus glass floor thingy). so looking for them in doodads will not show results lol.
Whenever I try to use my own custom buttons based on artwork I import into the editor, when I view them in-game they lack the race-specific border that all command card buttons naturally have (zerg = orange, terrran = green). My buttons therefore look out of place and like they don't belong in the game. The uploaded .dds picture appears in the command card exactly how I built it in photoshop (which is bad). Sorry I can't post a screenshot, all my screenshot I try to take of sc2 end up all black.
I tried cutting 4 pixels off of every edge (like the Blizzard-made buttons) and tried a variety of colors as backgrounds and no luck: my ability buttons still look like crap.
What's the way around this?
if you have a program like fraps, u can screenshot using that program instead. My screenshots are bugged too, the colors are washed out. But using a a third-party program should do the trick.
Did u add an alpha channel by any chance? simply cutting 4 pixels isnt enough. You need to add an alpha channel and make the 4 pixel-wide border transparent.
anything to advertise this community more i guess :D
advertising sites isnt illegal in terms of Blizzard's map policy is it? Its something ive been asking myself before putting www.sc2mapster.com in-game as a community site for my map's project.
Try the Completed at Unit instead of just completed.
If that does not work, try to compare it to a number. The Count Behavior obviously returns a number (the stack count of the behavior), so if you compare it to another number ( for example >0) you get your enable/disable boolean. However, it should work without the comparison as well, any number >0 should be interpreted as a true statement.
yes. Completed at Unit should solve this. I have requirements that are behavior based and it works on Completed at Unit.
idk either but to test out i used actor model addition with host _selectable:implict... , SOpAttachWeaponRight, UnitBirth.immortal create and it works np
works like charm. thanks alott :D seems like I am only missing the '_Selectable' on the Host field. The actor i copied apparently didn't have it.
Yep. Ever since I was about 8. I like WhiteRa and HuK though. Idra's my hated enemy (well, him and Wil Wheaton. But that's for later.). One of these days, I'll kick his ass and make him break his F4 key.
Make Idra ragequit with mass hallucinations again please :D (like that time when HuK was losing against him). It was... shocking.
idk either but to test out i used actor model addition with host _selectable:implict... , SOpAttachWeaponRight, UnitBirth.immortal create and it works np
alrite. I'll test it out as soon as I get the chance. hope it works :)
0
@Gorandor: Go
now that looks more like it :D The Golds are muchh better.
is that a xel'naga tower right next to the natural? or are my eyes failing me. I cant seem to spot them in the green version visibly.
the dam idea in the middle is awesome for aesthetics. Its these kinds of stuff that make up the artistic value of melee maps. Love that bridge btw.
oh and LOS blockers, dont forget em. they change the game alot by allowing some baneling surprises and such.
My only other concern would be that huge chunk of higher ground (the one thats part of your main and is sticking out towards the second ramp from your base). Now im nowhere near pro, my highest league stats currently is platinum on 4v4. and several golds for 3v3, but that area is asking for some defensive tower/siegemode tank placements :P and has potential to fight back any ground aggression towards your natural. encourages turtling for the most part, but idk how it will turn out. Blinkstalker/Reaper/Collosi cliff abuse would definitely be a good choice in your map as you said.
0
@Gorandor: Go
if its in that sense, then yes. Crysis is rather a graphics showcase. Story wasnt too touching or creative.
Just a quick run-thru of your layout. Your natural and main are in pretty okay positions. Your third too. Hpwever:
- The attack paths are too narrow and limited. Currently i can only see 2 obvious attack paths with no open shortcuts or some other way to maneuver around it without breaking rocks. The paths on bottom left and top right are too narrow for a large scale attack to pass through effectively. This could be fixed however, if the hole in the middle of the map is made pathable, to encourage more aggressive play.
- There are some "dead-space" in your current layout. What i mean by this is places where its just a dead end without an expo. Could be good to encourage creative proxies. Unless of course, you are making them unpathable, in which its not much of a big deal.
- The Golds are too safe. Players should see the gold expansion as something risky to take. Furthermore your rocks-on-ramps blocking them make these Gold expos an imbalance for Terrans. Someone could liftoff at the start of the game and move their main to the gold and turtle without much risk, and protected by rocks. My suggestion, open up one of the ramps. This is my main point of concern.
How do i know this? i get these criticisms from melee players alot :( and I play ranked melee in SEA.
0
Don't be picky about it. Its been done since Dota in Warcraft 3. There wasnt any noticeable lag and its an awesome game. Heck today we have starcraft 2, that is far superior compared to triggers in Wc3. I am pretty sure the effect of having a trigger for each region will be little to none.
I say go with Enexy :D
0
damn you mozared, i was gonna reply!
@Gorandor: Go
lol I actually read your whole post :P
Yeap2, I too, like being able to create bizarre, badshit crazy terrain but requiring it to function is entirely something else, and often requires putting obvious limitations like say, Melee maps. Shooters have their own limitations as well like you said about zoning in a map, and I wont be saying either genre is better than the other. Both have its limitations and advantages.
If i had to pick making terrains for a shooter or a melee map for a life, hell ill be picking the shooter for sure :) (as long as it involves a creative art style, not mainstream cookie-cutter ones)
But wait, Crysis IS a game isnt it? Unless im reading or getting something you wrote wrong. All of the Crysis series so far are actual games with multiplayer support even if they are not popular. I've bought and played them. I do know they are selling their engine tho, maybe thats why ur calling it a demo? Nevertheless their art style isnt really creative, true that. Angry Birds would win IMO. Even with their budget differences and workforce differences, Its not about how big or large an artwork's canvas is, its about what the artist does within the constraints of his canvas size that matters. Im totally with Angry Birds in this one.
I agree with you there about the apple and the orange. But that is exactly why i chose them, to represent a comparison between a Melee map with a Custom shooter map :)
Yes I would pick the redhead too LOL
Just some random ramblings: well... about your definition of art. I cannot argue with that as the term 'art' is entirely relative. Some artists value idealism while others value realism; hence the line between the realistic looks of Western RPGs (Mass Effect, Crysis, BF) and the more idealistic look of JRPGs (Final Fantasy, nuff said.) Some don't even see them at all in games :)
IMO (just my opinion really), i consider games as Interactive Visual Art. Where the viewer is involved to communicate the work of art. An example would be Dead Space 2 , a shooter, probably just like your map there. The psychological horror and lighting effects are truly, works of art. Portal 2 is a good choice too, as Moza said. I hope Dragon Age ONE (was RPG of the year before i think), is in that list Mozared, the story is epic. Bioware did a good job crapping its sequel.
I do agree some games are just... plain brainless tho.
Art overall ""relative to me"", is an artist's (or a group of people's, in a game studio point of view) creativity in doing something that is 'out of the box' while still staying inside the restrictions of a larger box. Different games from different companies will definitely have different sized 'canvases' that they can 'paint' on depending on their budget, workforce, game genre, story, game engine, etc. Using Angry Birds again here (and thus why i used it before), that mobile game definitely has a canvas so tiny in comparison to EA's Crysis but they have truly made something astounding with something of their scale.
0
its funny how i find making melee map terrain harder than a custom map terrain. like you said, alot has gone into terrain-play, which we dont really see in custom maps. Sometimes I open Blizzard's maps and I see just how beautiful some of them are, in terms of cleanness and precision.
and as Foxtail said, alot has gone into planning and execution of melee map details. Where your natural is, where the ramp is, where the xelnaga towers are, to create balance. Totally agree on both of you guys here.
@Gorandor: Go Its true that melee maps have a certain limitation around them that mappers cannot violate. Such as being clean with doodads and not too crazy with them either. However I must say that melee map 'art' should not be judged by how visually appealing it looks in comparison to TPS terrains and any other custom games. A melee-map's artistic value should be judged from how the map author has made the map look good while abiding to the rules that make a good, clean and balanced melee game.
Its like comparing graphics between a game like Crysis and Angry Birds. Crysis has definitely more details, and has put ALOT of work into making something with superb beautiful graphics. However i would not immediately say its lightyears more artistic than Angry Birds. Its art style is more realistic, but it does not mean its superior compared to Angry Birds.
There is art in simplicity. That is why corporate logos are all so simple, but they still communicate their company well. The same should be said to other stuff with artistic value such as fashion, fine art, etc etc. Melee maps should not be condemned of not being 'heavily artistic' because alot of work goes into making a simple but pleasing terrain.
Then again i am not by any means trying to pick a fight here :D im just saying melee maps have terraining value too. Your terrain is definitely awesome for TPS and shooter maps :) Your terrain work is definitely more 'complex' than melee maps in general.
0
@JosinJJ: Go
should work as intended. that code runs when a player leaves right?
maybe you should debug your code by showing a debug message of the player's mineral spent score? i somehow have this gut feeling that could be your source of error since technically thats not a variable is it. Its the one the game uses for melee maps yes?
another thing to note is in melee map, if someone leaves the game, his/her income goes to the team. Make sure it doesnt as this might screw up your mineral tracking.
0
if im not mistaken. they are terrain objects. (like say the avernus glass floor thingy). so looking for them in doodads will not show results lol.
0
if you have a program like fraps, u can screenshot using that program instead. My screenshots are bugged too, the colors are washed out. But using a a third-party program should do the trick.
Did u add an alpha channel by any chance? simply cutting 4 pixels isnt enough. You need to add an alpha channel and make the 4 pixel-wide border transparent.
0
@DeProgrammer: Go
anything to advertise this community more i guess :D
advertising sites isnt illegal in terms of Blizzard's map policy is it? Its something ive been asking myself before putting www.sc2mapster.com in-game as a community site for my map's project.
0
@Mozared: Go
Is that a random fish civilian from spongebob? omg!
10/10
0
yes. Completed at Unit should solve this. I have requirements that are behavior based and it works on Completed at Unit.
0
It would be cool if Blizzard would decide to do a 'Wyrmling'. A dragon-like zerg that breathes fire :D or spew acid.
that would cure a chunk of my warcraft cravings.
0
nope. to test i changed it to a probe model but still no good.
works like charm. thanks alott :D seems like I am only missing the '_Selectable' on the Host field. The actor i copied apparently didn't have it.
0
Make Idra ragequit with mass hallucinations again please :D (like that time when HuK was losing against him). It was... shocking.
0
alrite. I'll test it out as soon as I get the chance. hope it works :)