What you want to achieve is not very hard, but it can get very annoying if you have a lot of force fields. I don't know if there is a less stressful way, but sadly I doubt it. You have to create 2 actors for every AoE indicator on the ground.
What you want to look into when you see these AoE-indicators are Actors called "Splat". In case of the force field it is an actor called "ForceFieldCursorSplat (Unnamed)", it gets created with an actor event Abil.ForceField.Cursor, which is, well, the aiming time of the force field ability.
What you want to do now is just duplicate this actor, make sure that the actor events are the same. Now this splat actor will get created multiple times when you are the in the cursor state of your Force Field ability, but they are all at the same spot (the cursor). So the last thing you have to do is to attach these actors at an offset, and in case of actors this is done with other actors called Site Operations (Local Offset). Create a new actor of that type and change the "Actor: Local Offset" to the values of your persistent offsets from the effect you created earlier. Now go into your duplicated Cursorsplats and give each of them an offset by changing the field "Hosting: Host Site Operations". Just leave the BasicScope Site Op or how it is called there (this makes the splat follow your mouse cursour I think) and add your fresh local offset actor to it. That should be it.
By the way what I forgot to say... I would make sure that the offsets you are creating in your persistent effect are symmetrical, especially when it is easy to do like with your circle or with a wall. Else it might easily happen that all the offsets from your site operations are messed up because I think the persistent effect rotates with the caster while the cursor splat doesn't. Actually I didn't test this and the more I think about it it might be messed up :) Let me experiment a bit.
edit:
Yeah actually I messed that up. I will try to fix it, but I'm not sure I can do it.
edit 2:
Okay, I tried it but I give up (at least for the moment), the Set Rotation actor events are really messy. I thought I might be able to get something presentable but I can't fix it, sorry :( I really don't know how to make an hosted/attached actor face at the direction I want, if somebody can help there I would be really grateful!
The fastest way to get something like this would be to make a new effect of type "Create Persistent", go to the "Ability" tab and search for your force field ability, set the "Effect - Effect" to your selfmade persistent effect.
Now go into this effect and change the values of:
"Period Count" - this is the number of force fields you want to cast
"Period Effects" - change this to the "Sentry - Force Field" effect (the original force field effect which is used in the ability)
"Periodic Offsets" - this determines where your force fields will be cast. Make as many offsets as you have force fields, the offsets are XYZ coordinates where the X is left/right to where your caster faces and the Y is forward/backwards.
Have you properly imported the library into your map? You have to go into the Trigger Editor, right click into the top left library window, and then Library -> Import Library.
If you have done that also remember to change the Library ID, you can do that by right clicking the library (the "WASD" folder) and then go to Library -> Change Library ID or something like that.
If you have done that too the only problem that I could think of is that you read the instructions wrong/are searching in the wrong menus. The way you would set this library up is to create a trigger with the event "Key pressed". Then set the event value to either "Up" or "Down" and double click the actions field to create a new action. Search for "WASD" and choose the action that matches the event. The "WASD Set Controlled Unit" action should be used in a trigger with the "Map Initialization" event.
Wow, I wasn't part of this forum when this thread was created, but this is very depressing to read. So much help offered for such a big map :(
Also I wonder how everyone posting their screenshots here have this many triggers, especially when they have such a trigger heavy map that they get into size problems. I mean as far as I understand the efficiency of triggers/functions/action definitions there isn't really a reason to have more than 1 trigger for every event type (which would be <50 triggers)? If you only handle the event for specific parameters (for example Key Pressed "1") it gets inefficient as soon as you add the same event for different parameters (for example Key Pressed "2"), because every time I press a key he would check both event conditions anyway, right? So I can just outspace it into an action definition which is less clumpy than a trigger and check the conditions there with a switch or loop. Also it gets much easier to read this way from my point of view.
As far as I know triggers (and thus action definitions/scripts) have the exact same amount of input possibilities as human players have. You can obviously also make the computer have an unfair advantage if you want to, because triggers can do a lot of more stuff than the player can do ingame.
Obviously a fully working AI via triggers can get as complicated as you want it to be if you script everything it has to do. But I don't think you can actually change the code of the existing AI with scripts.
As for the existing AI of Starcraft which you can control with the AI and AI Advanced Triggers, I really don't know if they fulfill your conditions, sorry.
You really don't need the weapon "Marine - Shotgun" on the marine for your purposes. It is completely redundant for your way of using it and it is causing the sound errors. Just delete it from the unit in the Combat - Weapons tab and the sound will be gone.
Go into the Data Editor.
Go into the Actors Tab.
New Actor "ShotgunLaunchSound" or something -> Sound -> SoundOneShot
Set Sound - Sound to your weapon launch sound, for example "Ghost_AttackLaunch"
Go into Events - Events:
Add Event: Effect.ShotgunShells.Start, Create
Add Term: At Caster
Now you will have your launch sound.
Do the same with your impact sound, just remove the term "At Caster".
I really don't know why he even finds the caster, because your way of spawning the effect via triggers is really weird. But apparently you do mark your unit as a caster with that trigger :)
And I think just spawning the sound via triggers would be exactly the same, as Actor Events aren't that much different to triggers. Do whatever you prefer, you don't have to get the sound via the data editor.
Also note, that this way of using the shotgun won't make it a proper shotgun. The way of how it was designed in the first place was that the enemies are always at a maximum range of something like 9 or 10 maybe. So the shotgun actually spreads the shots. If you shoot your shotgun at a very high range as you would in an FPS, your shotgun doesn't lose any of its accuracy, it just hits as well as it does in melee range.
Also to design other weapons you will need better data knowledge. You should really look into the data editor and try to understand what you have to understand for your map, it really helps.
Thanks for responding this fast :) And how do I call functions? Thats my main problem right now.
edit:
Oh, I got it, its made directly by setting the variable. That makes sense.
So functions ALWAYS return values in galaxy? Or how do I call them else?
I'm just getting into some more complex triggering stuff, and I noticed that there is a predefined "Return" action, but how do I use it? I think I have to use a function in this case?
The context in which I want to use it is that I implemented an Action Definition (as a Thread) which is applied to single units and should give them commands in a specific time window (something like 2-10s, not sure yet, see the "Multithreading and AI" tutorial for reference). That part is working as I want it to be (individual orders for different units which are applied periodically), but my problem is that I want to use quite a lot of different unit states for different unit actions and it would be really nice if I could write them into triggers outside of the original Action Definition (even if its just to get a clearer arrangement of everything, especially as I want to run different actions for different unit types), but I have to be able return values afterwards and save them into Variables in the Action Definition (to switch between the unit states). Is that possible?
It should be Action Definition -> Runs Trigger/Function XY -> Trigger/Function XY Returns Value Z -> Saves Value Z into Local Variable A in Action Definition
Do I have to work with functions instead of triggers in this case? What is the difference between functions and triggers in the Galaxy Editor anyway? How do I use functions here?
Sorry if these questions have been answered before, I hope they are not too annoying and you can help me :) I'm not very experienced with the Galaxy language and it doesn't really help that there is a whole lot of predefined functions that you don't know where to start and what you are allowed to do and what you aren't allowed to do.
I have actually no idea about 3D modeling and everything, but this is really nice information, and after reading it I have some questions (which are actually more about the game part than about the actual modeling part, and probably already answered a lot of times in this forum, but I'll still ask):
Is there an easily reproducable (even for someone unexperienced) way to add additional attachment points to extracted SC2 models? Does this also work for Turret Z attachments? Lets say I want to split a marine in half so his upper body part works like a turret. Is this possible to do with already existing models? Or would it be very stressful to do something like this?
How do animations with Turret Z models work? Lets say I use a goliath. If I want to use the general attack animation, it only uses the upper part of the goliath. The walk animation only uses the lower part. The actor/model/game/whatever realizes that and it is possible that both animations run independently at the same time. Is it hard to set up animations like that? Or is this the default way of 3D-models handeling animations? I have so little clue about 3D-modeling :/ It's a shame.
Ah, that is actually exactly the stuff I meant :) I don't know how to get a good way around the player vision problem you mentioned above. And I'm definitely not an expert on the whole AI thing, I'm just starting to fiddle around with what is possible and how I get units to do the things I want myself. Sadly there is really little content on SC2M about how you get something AI related to work properly. I think this is mainly because AI is a very special work, which requires completely different concepts for different types of games/maps.
The thing about AI is that you really have to cover everything that should be done. So what I mean is that you could try to start with a completely neutral AI, and work your way up from there, start with making units attack you under circumstances that fit etc.
I played your map in the meantime btw, and I think it is great. But for everyone who played Diablo, it is just annoying to encounter mobs in rooms which have already been cleared before. It makes you feel really unsafe and you get overly cautious, especially at your first levels when you can't get a lot of tp scrolls and potions.
Also I personally would prefer the camera to be zoomed in a bit more, and also play a bit more with the light and shadow inside the dungeon. But I don't know how that looks in action, I guess you already tried a lot out and just applied what looked best, and I think that is a good way to go :). I personally think Diablo I is the best game of the series so far (yes, I have played Diablo 3! ;) ), and it is mainly because of the atmosphere, so I'd love to have even more light and shadow (mainly shadow) stuff in there.
A funny thing to note: The Diablo I AI actually reacted according to the players light radius. So if you didn't see them, they couldn't see you either. As there were items obtainable which decreased your light radius, it was possible to aggro very little mobs while running through the whole game, because they just didn't see you ;)
There are a lot of ways to make AIs work, it is hard to tell which way is the best.
0
Any EU publish in sight?
0
@threeleven: Go
What you want to achieve is not very hard, but it can get very annoying if you have a lot of force fields. I don't know if there is a less stressful way, but sadly I doubt it. You have to create 2 actors for every AoE indicator on the ground.
What you want to look into when you see these AoE-indicators are Actors called "Splat". In case of the force field it is an actor called "ForceFieldCursorSplat (Unnamed)", it gets created with an actor event Abil.ForceField.Cursor, which is, well, the aiming time of the force field ability.
What you want to do now is just duplicate this actor, make sure that the actor events are the same. Now this splat actor will get created multiple times when you are the in the cursor state of your Force Field ability, but they are all at the same spot (the cursor). So the last thing you have to do is to attach these actors at an offset, and in case of actors this is done with other actors called Site Operations (Local Offset). Create a new actor of that type and change the "Actor: Local Offset" to the values of your persistent offsets from the effect you created earlier. Now go into your duplicated Cursorsplats and give each of them an offset by changing the field "Hosting: Host Site Operations". Just leave the BasicScope Site Op or how it is called there (this makes the splat follow your mouse cursour I think) and add your fresh local offset actor to it. That should be it.
By the way what I forgot to say... I would make sure that the offsets you are creating in your persistent effect are symmetrical, especially when it is easy to do like with your circle or with a wall. Else it might easily happen that all the offsets from your site operations are messed up because I think the persistent effect rotates with the caster while the cursor splat doesn't. Actually I didn't test this and the more I think about it it might be messed up :) Let me experiment a bit.
edit:
Yeah actually I messed that up. I will try to fix it, but I'm not sure I can do it.
edit 2:
Okay, I tried it but I give up (at least for the moment), the Set Rotation actor events are really messy. I thought I might be able to get something presentable but I can't fix it, sorry :( I really don't know how to make an hosted/attached actor face at the direction I want, if somebody can help there I would be really grateful!
0
The fastest way to get something like this would be to make a new effect of type "Create Persistent", go to the "Ability" tab and search for your force field ability, set the "Effect - Effect" to your selfmade persistent effect.
Now go into this effect and change the values of:
"Period Count" - this is the number of force fields you want to cast
"Period Effects" - change this to the "Sentry - Force Field" effect (the original force field effect which is used in the ability)
"Periodic Offsets" - this determines where your force fields will be cast. Make as many offsets as you have force fields, the offsets are XYZ coordinates where the X is left/right to where your caster faces and the Y is forward/backwards.
0
Have you properly imported the library into your map? You have to go into the Trigger Editor, right click into the top left library window, and then Library -> Import Library.
If you have done that also remember to change the Library ID, you can do that by right clicking the library (the "WASD" folder) and then go to Library -> Change Library ID or something like that.
If you have done that too the only problem that I could think of is that you read the instructions wrong/are searching in the wrong menus. The way you would set this library up is to create a trigger with the event "Key pressed". Then set the event value to either "Up" or "Down" and double click the actions field to create a new action. Search for "WASD" and choose the action that matches the event. The "WASD Set Controlled Unit" action should be used in a trigger with the "Map Initialization" event.
0
Wow, I wasn't part of this forum when this thread was created, but this is very depressing to read. So much help offered for such a big map :(
Also I wonder how everyone posting their screenshots here have this many triggers, especially when they have such a trigger heavy map that they get into size problems. I mean as far as I understand the efficiency of triggers/functions/action definitions there isn't really a reason to have more than 1 trigger for every event type (which would be <50 triggers)? If you only handle the event for specific parameters (for example Key Pressed "1") it gets inefficient as soon as you add the same event for different parameters (for example Key Pressed "2"), because every time I press a key he would check both event conditions anyway, right? So I can just outspace it into an action definition which is less clumpy than a trigger and check the conditions there with a switch or loop. Also it gets much easier to read this way from my point of view.
Or am I totally wrong with this?
0
This looks really nice, I will totally try that out once you get beyond beta phase and you get a chance to up it for EU :)
0
As far as I know triggers (and thus action definitions/scripts) have the exact same amount of input possibilities as human players have. You can obviously also make the computer have an unfair advantage if you want to, because triggers can do a lot of more stuff than the player can do ingame.
Obviously a fully working AI via triggers can get as complicated as you want it to be if you script everything it has to do. But I don't think you can actually change the code of the existing AI with scripts.
As for the existing AI of Starcraft which you can control with the AI and AI Advanced Triggers, I really don't know if they fulfill your conditions, sorry.
0
You really don't need the weapon "Marine - Shotgun" on the marine for your purposes. It is completely redundant for your way of using it and it is causing the sound errors. Just delete it from the unit in the Combat - Weapons tab and the sound will be gone.
Go into the Data Editor.
Go into the Actors Tab.
New Actor "ShotgunLaunchSound" or something -> Sound -> SoundOneShot
Set Sound - Sound to your weapon launch sound, for example "Ghost_AttackLaunch"
Go into Events - Events:
Add Event: Effect.ShotgunShells.Start, Create
Add Term: At Caster
Now you will have your launch sound. Do the same with your impact sound, just remove the term "At Caster".
I really don't know why he even finds the caster, because your way of spawning the effect via triggers is really weird. But apparently you do mark your unit as a caster with that trigger :)
And I think just spawning the sound via triggers would be exactly the same, as Actor Events aren't that much different to triggers. Do whatever you prefer, you don't have to get the sound via the data editor.
Also note, that this way of using the shotgun won't make it a proper shotgun. The way of how it was designed in the first place was that the enemies are always at a maximum range of something like 9 or 10 maybe. So the shotgun actually spreads the shots. If you shoot your shotgun at a very high range as you would in an FPS, your shotgun doesn't lose any of its accuracy, it just hits as well as it does in melee range.
Also to design other weapons you will need better data knowledge. You should really look into the data editor and try to understand what you have to understand for your map, it really helps.
0
@Ahli634: Go
Thanks, this helps a lot! I think I figured it out now, I did a quick test and as far as I can tell everything is doing what it should do.
The main usage of Action Definitions & Functions if no direct events are involved seems natural and I'll probably try it like that. Thanks again!
0
@SouLCarveRR: Go
Thanks for responding this fast :) And how do I call functions? Thats my main problem right now.
edit: Oh, I got it, its made directly by setting the variable. That makes sense. So functions ALWAYS return values in galaxy? Or how do I call them else?
0
Hey guys,
I'm just getting into some more complex triggering stuff, and I noticed that there is a predefined "Return" action, but how do I use it? I think I have to use a function in this case? The context in which I want to use it is that I implemented an Action Definition (as a Thread) which is applied to single units and should give them commands in a specific time window (something like 2-10s, not sure yet, see the "Multithreading and AI" tutorial for reference). That part is working as I want it to be (individual orders for different units which are applied periodically), but my problem is that I want to use quite a lot of different unit states for different unit actions and it would be really nice if I could write them into triggers outside of the original Action Definition (even if its just to get a clearer arrangement of everything, especially as I want to run different actions for different unit types), but I have to be able return values afterwards and save them into Variables in the Action Definition (to switch between the unit states). Is that possible?
It should be Action Definition -> Runs Trigger/Function XY -> Trigger/Function XY Returns Value Z -> Saves Value Z into Local Variable A in Action Definition
Do I have to work with functions instead of triggers in this case? What is the difference between functions and triggers in the Galaxy Editor anyway? How do I use functions here?
Sorry if these questions have been answered before, I hope they are not too annoying and you can help me :) I'm not very experienced with the Galaxy language and it doesn't really help that there is a whole lot of predefined functions that you don't know where to start and what you are allowed to do and what you aren't allowed to do.
0
I love this way of announcing new announcements frequently.
We are lucky that the announcement dates are BOUNDless!
0
I think the minimum graphic settings for saturation are Medium (for Shaders). Else it won't have any effect at all.
0
I have actually no idea about 3D modeling and everything, but this is really nice information, and after reading it I have some questions (which are actually more about the game part than about the actual modeling part, and probably already answered a lot of times in this forum, but I'll still ask):
0
@Ahli634: Go
Ah, that is actually exactly the stuff I meant :) I don't know how to get a good way around the player vision problem you mentioned above. And I'm definitely not an expert on the whole AI thing, I'm just starting to fiddle around with what is possible and how I get units to do the things I want myself. Sadly there is really little content on SC2M about how you get something AI related to work properly. I think this is mainly because AI is a very special work, which requires completely different concepts for different types of games/maps.
The thing about AI is that you really have to cover everything that should be done. So what I mean is that you could try to start with a completely neutral AI, and work your way up from there, start with making units attack you under circumstances that fit etc.
See this thread http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/1828-trigger-multithreading-and-ai/
I played your map in the meantime btw, and I think it is great. But for everyone who played Diablo, it is just annoying to encounter mobs in rooms which have already been cleared before. It makes you feel really unsafe and you get overly cautious, especially at your first levels when you can't get a lot of tp scrolls and potions.
Also I personally would prefer the camera to be zoomed in a bit more, and also play a bit more with the light and shadow inside the dungeon. But I don't know how that looks in action, I guess you already tried a lot out and just applied what looked best, and I think that is a good way to go :). I personally think Diablo I is the best game of the series so far (yes, I have played Diablo 3! ;) ), and it is mainly because of the atmosphere, so I'd love to have even more light and shadow (mainly shadow) stuff in there.
A funny thing to note: The Diablo I AI actually reacted according to the players light radius. So if you didn't see them, they couldn't see you either. As there were items obtainable which decreased your light radius, it was possible to aggro very little mobs while running through the whole game, because they just didn't see you ;)
There are a lot of ways to make AIs work, it is hard to tell which way is the best.