I map because I love to tell stories and I love creating terrain. The SC2 editor is by far one of the best designed editors/game engines I have seen, hence the reason that I use it the most. Source SDK also quite good but it is more complicated to learn. In the SC2 editor, the terrain editor while somewhat restrictive, allows very easy creation. The trigger editor is simple yet comprehensive and the data editor... well it works. I enjoy scripting the story that goes with a map and designing how the terrain will affect how the story plays out. The beauty to game design is, depending on how much work you put into it, it is rarely (if ever) the same way twice.
Here are some in game pictures. Note that I used a lot of cheats when I did the play through but the pictures help demonstrate gameplay mechanics and other cool features in the map. Sorry about the poor quality but my computer is not the best. I played in medium graphics when I took the screen shots.
1.The APC in the game has a grenade launcher rather than a machine gun
2.A strike force attacking an infested dominion base
3.A heavily armored but slow brutalisk
4.When you have the ability to go to another map a dialouge button pops up so you decide when to advance to the next map.
5.Zerg drop pod
6.A transport lifing off
7.The main loading screen
8.There are short periods (less than 20 seconds) where the game must load in game this is what you see.
9.There are some points in the game you can make decisions. Here you get to select which mercanary contract to persue.
Optimised code should help decrease the load time. Right now I have a few hundred variables that I am going to replace with arrays which should greatly decrease the load time.
Also, here are some pictures that I took. They are from the editor and they don't display much but they are something. Next test I do, I will try to get some ingame screen shots.
My god that looks good. It barely feels like starcraft. You captured that cinematic effect very well. It must have been really hard to do. I can't wait until this comes out.
Condemned is a "multi map" campaign that will be playable on battle.net. It uses one map broken into several parts with modified game boundaries to give the feeling of multiple maps. Right now all the terrain, data, and scripted events are for the most part done. I am working on the help and cinematics right now. I have yet to clean up and simplify the code. Once done with that it will be tested for playability and a comprehensible storyline. Once all of that is done I am planning on posting the map on SC2 mapster for a beta test. Once all of the bugs are worked out and the code is optimized, I will post the final version on SC2 mapster and on Battle.net (NA servers). The release date is looking to be some time at the end of the summer.
As for the level design, all of the maps are big enough to fill their roles. None of the maps feel cramped or confined, and they have enough room to accomplish your objectives. The terrain varies on the maps, one map is in a volcanic cave, another is in a mountainous forest, and yet another is on a highway in some woods.
The story takes place at the same time as the WOL campaign. It takes place on a mining world called Vanek. When reports come in that the Zerg swarm is returning the Dominion leaves the planet to defend the core worlds. This leaves Vanek incredibly vulnerable. As a result, the colonists created a defense force. You play as the defense force to discover if you really are condemned.
The game play varies, for some of the campaign you must manage a base in other parts you just need to keep your squad alive. The units available are based on what units the colonists or other non-professional military forces had. As you progress through the campaign, the colonists will find some dominion tech and it will become available.
The code right now is not very efficient. Due to the architecture of the game, no matter how you cut it, there will be a long loading time. With version 1.4 the loading time was about five minutes, but with patch 1.5 it is only about a minute and a half :). During the game there are some periods where the game has to load additional stuff for the next map or for terrain changes. This right now can take up to 30 seconds with patch 1.5 it was similar in length on 1.4. With improved code, a lot of the load time will be cut down.
A special thanks out there to the SC2 mapster community for the tutorials and to the people who answer my help posts on battle.net.
You have to go into the terrain editor and go to pathing. Once in pathing you can select cliff and paint the cliff pathing over the unwalkable pathing on level 2 cliffs. This is the only way to do this. It is a pathing problem not a data one. Level 2 cliffs are automatically no pathing and no unit (save air units) can cross them.
0
I map because I love to tell stories and I love creating terrain. The SC2 editor is by far one of the best designed editors/game engines I have seen, hence the reason that I use it the most. Source SDK also quite good but it is more complicated to learn. In the SC2 editor, the terrain editor while somewhat restrictive, allows very easy creation. The trigger editor is simple yet comprehensive and the data editor... well it works. I enjoy scripting the story that goes with a map and designing how the terrain will affect how the story plays out. The beauty to game design is, depending on how much work you put into it, it is rarely (if ever) the same way twice.
0
Here are some in game pictures. Note that I used a lot of cheats when I did the play through but the pictures help demonstrate gameplay mechanics and other cool features in the map. Sorry about the poor quality but my computer is not the best. I played in medium graphics when I took the screen shots.
1.The APC in the game has a grenade launcher rather than a machine gun
2.A strike force attacking an infested dominion base
3.A heavily armored but slow brutalisk
4.When you have the ability to go to another map a dialouge button pops up so you decide when to advance to the next map.
5.Zerg drop pod
6.A transport lifing off
7.The main loading screen
8.There are short periods (less than 20 seconds) where the game must load in game this is what you see.
9.There are some points in the game you can make decisions. Here you get to select which mercanary contract to persue.
0
Optimised code should help decrease the load time. Right now I have a few hundred variables that I am going to replace with arrays which should greatly decrease the load time.
Also, here are some pictures that I took. They are from the editor and they don't display much but they are something. Next test I do, I will try to get some ingame screen shots.
0
My god that looks good. It barely feels like starcraft. You captured that cinematic effect very well. It must have been really hard to do. I can't wait until this comes out.
0
Condemned is a "multi map" campaign that will be playable on battle.net. It uses one map broken into several parts with modified game boundaries to give the feeling of multiple maps. Right now all the terrain, data, and scripted events are for the most part done. I am working on the help and cinematics right now. I have yet to clean up and simplify the code. Once done with that it will be tested for playability and a comprehensible storyline. Once all of that is done I am planning on posting the map on SC2 mapster for a beta test. Once all of the bugs are worked out and the code is optimized, I will post the final version on SC2 mapster and on Battle.net (NA servers). The release date is looking to be some time at the end of the summer.
As for the level design, all of the maps are big enough to fill their roles. None of the maps feel cramped or confined, and they have enough room to accomplish your objectives. The terrain varies on the maps, one map is in a volcanic cave, another is in a mountainous forest, and yet another is on a highway in some woods.
The story takes place at the same time as the WOL campaign. It takes place on a mining world called Vanek. When reports come in that the Zerg swarm is returning the Dominion leaves the planet to defend the core worlds. This leaves Vanek incredibly vulnerable. As a result, the colonists created a defense force. You play as the defense force to discover if you really are condemned.
The game play varies, for some of the campaign you must manage a base in other parts you just need to keep your squad alive. The units available are based on what units the colonists or other non-professional military forces had. As you progress through the campaign, the colonists will find some dominion tech and it will become available.
The code right now is not very efficient. Due to the architecture of the game, no matter how you cut it, there will be a long loading time. With version 1.4 the loading time was about five minutes, but with patch 1.5 it is only about a minute and a half :). During the game there are some periods where the game has to load additional stuff for the next map or for terrain changes. This right now can take up to 30 seconds with patch 1.5 it was similar in length on 1.4. With improved code, a lot of the load time will be cut down.
A special thanks out there to the SC2 mapster community for the tutorials and to the people who answer my help posts on battle.net.
0
You have to go into the terrain editor and go to pathing. Once in pathing you can select cliff and paint the cliff pathing over the unwalkable pathing on level 2 cliffs. This is the only way to do this. It is a pathing problem not a data one. Level 2 cliffs are automatically no pathing and no unit (save air units) can cross them.