SC2Mapster

Quote from Timthetoolman: Go

Essentially, I've rotated a Reaper unit on it's side facing to the left or right and panned the camera down directly on that reaper. Then, with some clever triggers and assorted shenanigans, I've changed the direction of gravity so the reaper treats all unpathable areas, such as the edges of the walls, as the ground, walls, and ceiling.

Sick twist :D I love it... Brings me back to the days of Dukenukem 1-2 and the C64

Mind if at some point I pinch the idea for a minigame in a map of mine? (full credit ofc) Its just nuts!

Edit: Ooh and ever thought of putting windows into it? (Spaceplatform cliff level 0 style)? I think it would REALY jell with your camera angle... ill link a map tonight as an example.

Quote from Mozared: Go

@Maxsvard: Go

I do have to say I just plain like what you did with those viking 'launch bays', though. That's an original concept, it works well and you've pulled it off exactly right.

I have to agree... Mechwarrior flashbacks anyone?

Quote from tigerija: Go

Well I name name of bones that sc2 engine uses. Coz I hear its a bit different from wc3. Its not bone_chest but its bone_center in SC2. Or something similar.

Your best bet is simply to...

• Create a unit in the galaxy editor
• Go to the menubar at the top of hte window and go Window->Preview Window
• Now click the unit you created in the galaxy editor (or click the unit type in the unit tab OR search for the unit in the preview window search)
• This will let you pruse the models details (textures, bones, attachemnt points e.t.c)

For the siege tank (tank mode) look for something along the lines of turretZ for the turret bone. (as the name implys it is in the Z axis so can only do Yaw and not Pitch/Roll...)

Quote from tigerija: Go

Hello, I would like to request list for all bones and description what for is specific bone/attachment is used for. And if I create 1 unit with 2 actors, legs and torso. On what bone is torso attached... etc.

You can check this out by going to the data editor...

Check out the Data Editor->Turret (every turret has its associated actor linked to it, this will find you actor names)

Now head to Data Editor->Actor (search by the name of one of the turret actors... I believe they have a bone field, for siege tank (tank mode)) its something allong the lines of TurretZ. (As a side note, mouse over the attribute and it gives you a tooltip with a requirement for the bone (soft or somesuch, can't rember and dont know the jargon)...

This (and inspecting the siege tank model in the preview window or a 3rd party program) will give you enough info for what you need.

If no one has done this by tonight ill edit this post when I get home and can find it out for you myself.

Quote from xcorbo: Go

You can modify them any way you wish. They're 4 different pieces per cliff (there's three sets of 4 pieces per cliff type) For example, those screenshots only have modified "down" "natural" cliffs There's also 4 other pieces for first level natural and for second levels too. Same should apply for man made cliffs.

So much potential for a Mt Rushmore competition!

Ill post a top down sample in a few days, though the only way (I know of) to do it is fairly rugged...

I suspect that blizzard will put in a function to query the mouse cursor position of a player eventually... anyhow, watch this space.

Quote from HeroicPrinny: Go

As you mention, I had also considered the Mutalisk Glaive method: creating new missiles at the location of the previous one. I'm not entirely sure what you are referring to with ballistics/guidance/throw/etc. Is there an example of units in SCII with these projectile types?

Hmm... good question.

I was referring to an attribute of Data Editor->Movers

They are very complex, but for a simple breakdown there are 3-4 types:

Ground:

• Ground are used for ground units.
• They allow a unit to move when/where it is told to by a user/trigger.
• Ground has an attribute called 'path' which effects where it will try to walk/where it can walk... (Marine is ground, Colossus uses scalier, Reaper uses jumper)
• Ground has an attribute called height? or somesuch. This effects the height the unit is seen at (Fly: Smoothed height changes, about 6 units above the ground. Ground: Un-smoothed height changes, 0 units off the ground. Glide: Semi smoothed height changes, about 6 units off the ground.

Flock

• Much the same as ground but WITHOUT smart pathing! (used for air units... direct line from A to B)
• Allow units to TRY and move anywhere... Set up a flock mover the exact same as the default ground one, and units will have ALL the same pathing rules, but they will not know it... so will smack into the sides of cliffs/buildings and stand against the side of it TRYING to run through he wall : /
• Flock is very useful for first/third person shooters, as you DONT want your avatar trying to walk around the wall, if you tell him to run forward he had best run right into that wall face first!

Another?:

• Cant recall the name? not hugely important for most uses... (Could be building??? if so self explanatory)

Missile;

• This is a mover that is NOT controlled by telling it to move from A to B... (sorry boss, select and attack command wont work on this sucker)
• These movers are controlled by a thing called 'drivers' which I will go into later
• These movers have a source point, a destionation point and a set of physics (kenetic) rules... such as angles/targets/gravity/accelleration/whether to ignore the ground/other meaning of life stuff

Now you know enough about movers to know that they are what control a units movement in starcraft... Now into some depth about missile drivers

Drivers (Missile):

Throw Driver: (First movement phase of Left and Right movers (name???) for the Brood Lord's attack)

• An example of this driver can be found in the start of the brood lord attack (tosses one of his 2 broodlings from behind him to in front of him, after this a guidance driver takes over to shoot the broodling to the target)
• Throw is based off the source unit (the brood lord) and 'throws' in an angle controlled by the throw vectors (X is left/right, -Y is forward +Y is behind, Z is up/down). Throw is nifty, it can be affected by gravity, and as it is relative to the source (brood lord) if you only threw (note brood lord missile then changes to guidance) the chances of ever hitting your target are nill (unless you happen to throw in the perfect direction...

Guidance: (Banshee LM Mover for the Banshee Seeker Missile)

• Most important stat is acceleration... without this the missile cant turn/track (possibly some other stats can allow it to change direction WITHOUT changing absolute speed, test this yourself if you want...)
• The missile will accelerate towards its target (but its speed is bound within the minimum/maximum speeds set in the mover.
• I think there is a mover called Banshee LM or something smiler that uses ONLY guidance, fiddle with the values of this to make your missile do nifty tricks and to learn about guidance (obviously this mover is for the banshee missile!!!)

Ballistics: (Cant think of an example... I don't believe there is one in any of the default movers...)

• This mover is hax...
• It will move a missile from its start point to its end point and give it a sufficient vertical velocity to EXACTLY compensate for the gravity*flight time
• This makes a missile LOOK ballistic (like a gun shot or a cannon shell) as it will arc perfectly for the gravity/flight time
• This does NOT make a missile ACT ballistic... if you have a TINY speed or HUGE gravity you will get an insane arc to make the distance... it wont fall short... ever... it just hacks the verticle angle/muzzle velocity to cheet (unless you cap the max velocity... it REALY dosnt like this and will do some crazy buggy things if you do)

Parabola: Reapers Jump Down (Reaper turns into a missile for duration of jumps and uses 'Jump Down' (for both up and down jump... go figure!)

• This is kinda hard coded... I have a heuristic understanding but its not clear enough to put in writing...
• For the example... Reaper has a 'cliff jumper' mover (or something close to it...) its a ground type mover with path type Jump (this allows jump type 'behaviors' to be linked to it). The jump behavior (the only Data Editor->Behavior->Terran->Jump in there so its not hard 2 find) references the reapers mover and states rules for its jumping, and the mover that controls jumping 'reaper jump down'.
• Reaper Jump down is self explanatory, fiddle with values and test how it effects the jumping of a reaper...

That's about enough on movers and specifically missile mover drivers for one day... Anyhow as I said, go experiment with movers to get the effect you want... Good Luck

@HeroicPrinny: Go

The Impact itself, its a behind the scenes thing... If you missile fails to hit it (dosnt get within the impact range defined in the 'Launch Missile' event) then it wont die, you can see this with missiles that have had there abbility to redirect nerfed enough that they miss (missiles without enough accelleration to turn and hit a moving unit for example)

I dont think you can supress its death if it DOES impact...

If you make your impact radius 0 and make your missile miss by a tiny ammount it wont die, if you do this you will need a persistant effect to search for targets close enough to damage as any impact event wont fire if you dont impact.

Alternatly if you choose to let your missile succeed in hitting the impact site you would need to create a new event on impact (like the mutlisk attack does) to create a new unit. This could work if you make the target for the 2nd missile the origonal fireing unit and force the missile to go in the opposite direction to the one it wants.

For ballistics this is impossable (as it would go crazy with the height), for Guidance/Throw/Prabola(possibly) this MAY be able to be acheived through assigning a negative max/min/current speed (im not sure if this is possible or not) and 0->negative accelleration values.

Another way to possibly do this would be to have an impact effect on your missile that creates a new missile using a throw driver... that way the yaw and possibly the pitch would be preserved... rember with throw vectors, X is lateral offset, Y is longitudional offset (-Y is forward), Z is... Z offset...

(To kill a missile that has found a target with search rather than impacting, use the neutral damage effect 'Suicide (Kill Self - Generic)' or something similer. (combine effects to do a damage AND this using a 'set' effect)

@zpnx: Go

Not completly sure what your asking sorry, though if your wanting to be informed when you click an already selected unit a second time (say a unit in a group of already selected units, or even being informed when clicking the only unit you have selected a second time you can use a unit cllicked triger. To enable clicking events for a given unit go to "Data Editor"->Units and for a given unit disable its 'Unit - Flags'->'Cannot Be Clicked' flag.

Alternatly if you ONLY want the events to fire when you click on a unit that is already selected (rather than whenever clicking a unit selected or otherwise), you can disable this flag (allowing clicking events) in the triger editor on units when you select them, and enable (preventing clicking events) on units when you de select them, therefore only getting informed of clicks on already selected units.

Edit: If you are an admin and try the following, please take screen shots and fill out this post with them... I dont have the time at the moment (an will not likely get the time to play with the editor for a while so it may never come from me...

If your still here either your insane (didnt try the first 1/2 and think 'ill just skip that bit') or insane (actualy want the effect and are willing to read a page of block text w/o a single screen shot to guide you!!!)

This is a long one, I should have done a tutorial but I’m supposed to be studying for my HCI exam and procrastination doesn’t stretch that far! Excuse the spelling or correct if your admin and you REALY want!!!

It can defiantly be done... the first way I can think of to create the effect in the video is REALY bad practice, but hay, that just makes it all the more fun to implement!

For a top down (no issues with mouse over sky) like the one in the demo I would grid out the floor in nearly invisible units (say alpha at 100%) (About 1/2 to 1/3 size XY and 1/10 size Z cube should do the trick) Tricky distinction alert!!! If there is no model then your mouse wont fire a highlighted event, but if there’s a model at 100% alpha, then there’s a model even though you cant see it

Then you have a trigger

• Event:
• Unit is highlighted (any unit)
• Action:
• Set unit 'highlighted unit' to trigger unit
• Set int 'targeting player' to trigger player
• Set unit 'origin unit' to mech[targeting player] unit mech[15] is a global array with index n housing player n's mech.

Now you know who’s mech is shooting, which grind square is being shot, and the player doing this violence! All you need to do is create a unit order to attack the offending square!!! (with your unit)

Now you need to create a turret/weapon so you can get the effect you want when you order your mech to shoot the offending grid square!

Weapon Instructions:

• Create a weapon that is similer to the siege tank example above.
• Experiment with the 'Weapon - Options' untill your weapon atacks when/what it is told, but ONLY when it is told to (and attack is not stopped by movement)
• If (AND ONLY IF!!!) you fail to achieve this you will have to find another way of flagging a target for attack (such as making the grid square you wish to attack (and only that square) robotic, then makeing the tank auto attack as in the siege tank example, then simply set 'Weapon - Scan filters' = Robotic (Required). This is less direct than giving an attack order, therefore IF 'Weapon - Allowed Movement' dosnt prevent attack orders being wiped by move orders, this should still give you what you want...

Turret Instructions:

• Create a turret that is similer to the siege tank example above
• Mix it up as you see fit (at some point try 'Idle' = Spin... trust me, its worth it!)

Now for your effect (The missile that you fire and the things controlling it)!!!

You want to create a 'Launch Missile' effect (look at the Effects->Terran->Launch Missile->'Banshee - Screecher Missiles (Launch Missile)' effect for inspiration but be wary, the banshee weapon uses a persistent effect to create two rockets (Aformentioned effects) out of sync with each other... ignore this step and pretend the banshee weapon creates its (Launch Missile) effect directly NOT via a (Persistent) effect (or better yet change it so that it does!!!)

Ok... so you wana make a 'Launch Missile' effect, its unit is gona be special! Where the banshee creates a unit (Weapon - Banshee) that has a mover (Banshee LM Weapon) with a driver of type guided (allowing it to home in on the target) you will make a unit with a mover driver that’s type throw (with accelleration/accelleration range/gravity/speed range = 0, max speed/min speed/speed = 2 (to start with!!! once it all works set higher!), Throw Vector X=0,Y=-1 (Note that negative Y is the turrets direction, positive T is facing away from the turret) this is not all you will want to/can do with your mover but its the basics! This should cause your missile to continue in the intended direction untill you want it to die (either by a leave region trigger event... a mover timeout... a duration effect... you pick!

Now... to make this missile of death do something... currently it will carry on until it hits its target (which it cant do because its impact range is 0 and it has no way of aiming towards the impact point, so it will never be at the right height (could be wrong here if it can hit add a slight offset to the X throw vector in your mover to throw it off in the XY)!

You want to give (missile effect) teeth by creating scan (a Persistent effect) set scan to be your ('Launch Missile' effect)'s 'Effect - Launch Effect' effect

Persistant Effect (Will priodicly launch a search effect):

• Scan will have a period count of -1 (this should give it infinite!)
• A duration of 0 (this should min out at 1/16 of a second)
• A period effect of searchAndDistory (Search Area effect) that you are soon to create)
• As a nasty hack give an initial delay so that the missile can get away from your mech w/o targeting it, there are good ways to fix this with velitors and flags in the later events but play with them once you have the rest working

Search Area Effect (Will search a small area around the missile for potential targets):

• searchAndDistory (Search Area effect) radius = distance you want to kill things within
• exclude self (the Missile) from the search effect
• either set an effect validater to ignore your good friend the grid squares! or for a quick hack set them to say... robotic... and set the search filter to ignore robotic...

Set Effect (What happens when your search and distory picks up a target!):

• now you want to give your searchAndDistory effect a (set) effect that will do two effects on anyone it finds... a damage (if its AOE (at target if you want it centred on the found unit, or at source if you want it centred on the missile) otherwise at target!...
• the 2nd effect will be a damage as well... it will do a Neutral->Damage->Suicide (Kill Self - Generic) to destroy the missile... OR if you wana have the missile just blast right on through and continue its destruction don’t have the 2nd effect... see if I care!

While we are talking about sets, you can have the Weapon fire multiple types of ammo (by having a effect thats a set containing multiple 'Launch Missile' effects, to fire ammo in multiple directions by haveing a set that firest 3 different 'Missile Launch' effects each with units that have movers differing according to the following... (with movers that have Throw Vector X values of .5, 0, -.5 you will achieve ammo that fires in a spread (like you see in old school arcade games when your weapon powers up!)) Alternatly you could achieve this but having an offset in the impact location (this way will change the angle of the spread based on how close your mouse is to the mech as spread = fixed distance difference at target rather than fixed angle difference at launch angle)

Edit: Model colission detection awareness week post of the day! You can detect when your mouse is over a model by using the hilighted/selected/clicked events!!! This has disadvantages (as you must have a cursor up to do so, and there is no way to force the cursor to move to or stay at the centre of the screen) but it has some neche uses... And can do something that testing for tracelines intersecting with regions cant... model detection rather than 'is cam angle intersecting a cylinder' detection... There are uses but not many if you want mouse controlled look (so dont go thinking world of halocraft on me!)

If however you feel like making world of halo craft in spite of my warning!!! feel free to pendition for a QueryScreen(X,Y) function, the model detection code for it is already there for mouse selection blizzard just hasnt thought to put in manual control, (without a beta key I cant pendition for it myself so my tantrums are restricted to the mapster forums!)

• @tigerija: Go

The following will create an effect similer to that in the video (the initial instructions will give you a similer look and let you see whether its what your aiming for, the later instructions will show you ONE possible method of achieveing a very similer gameplay effect to that in the video

Create a map with a bunch of enimy supply depos spotted round it, and give yourself a siege tank (tank mode)

Modify the siege tank in the data editor according to the following

Weapon Modification: "Data Editor->Weapons->Terran->Sige Tank - 90mm Cannons"

• Set 'Weapon - Acquire Prioritization' = Angle
• Set 'Weapon - Allowed Movement' = Moving
• Set 'Weapon - Options' = 'Can Initiate Attack' (THIS IS THE ONLY ONE THAT SHOULD BE TICKED!)
• Set 'Stats - Period' = .5

Turret Modification: "Data Editor->Turrets->Siege Tank"

• Set 'Idle' = Hold
• Set 'Yaw Rate' = 50
• Set 'Fidget +'->Chance array to be 0 on turn, 50 on the other two (To stop the dam idle spin!!!)

(Also for the fun of it in Weapon change 'Effect - Effect' = 'Banshee - Screecher Missiles (Persistent)' for some idea of how it will look when shooting a missile rather than an instante damage effect.

This will show you the effect on the turret angle/shooting controls that my method will have, but it wont demonstrate the effect of the grid of cubes creating mouse position detection or the custom unit for the missile allowing the missile to fly past the targeted grid and continue untill entering range of a acceptable unit.

In the following post I have an alot more detailed (but but un tested) method of creating the completed effect in the sample video!

Quote from caspersc: Go

Native events don't really have parameters tho, it's all functions which return a global value. You'll notice that if you wait in an event handler you will in fact get a race condition.

O Rly! Thanks for the info, proberbly saved me ALOT of debuging some time down the line!!!

@tigerija: Go

Im not sure, though if you are trying to set up your mechs with a Torso Twist effect thats decupled from the leg rotation the best way that I can think of would be to make the top 1/2 of the mech a turret... This way you can set the rotation to follow that of the body/keep looking at a unit or point/reset to a default angle/lots of other crazy effects all while following the motion set about by over-riding animation... Also turrets can have pitch (though none of the models I have looked at seem to have a bone to support it so GL experimenting!)

Alternatly you could have two actors (one for the bottom 1/2 one for the top 1/2 and attach one to the other set to not inherit rotation (though this WONT turn the top 1/2 at all when the bottom turns and that kinda floating effect proberbly isnt what your looking for?

Customising the 'look at' direction of an actor works ok as well, and you can edit it to turn what ever points you want (head/chest/eyes/etc to what ever % you want... cant rember where in the data editor you create new presets for this but its somewhere in advanced and is not 2 hard 2 find...) however when the unit turns it resets the look direction untill turning finshes. At this point it will begin look again but this wont give you the effect I think you are looking for...

Sorry if I missed what you were asking, not 100% sure from the description so im just infrencing what ive seen ya wright about in other posts.

@therockman: Go

There are three cool events along the lines of what you need,

1. Unit Clicked (when you click a unit with the Unit Flag 'Cannot Be Clicked' disabled)
2. Unit Selected/Deselected (when you click/click off a unit that can be selected)
3. Unit Highlighted/Un-Highlighted (The way it works is that when your mouse moves over or off a units model with Unit Flag 'Cannot Be Highlighted' disabled and the model flag the event fires) This is for your machine gun. when ya left click is down boolean is true. If this even fires (and the clicking boolean is true) start a machine gun attack on the unit. When either the un-Hilighted event fires (with triger unit= the initial triger unitt) OR the clicking boolean is false remove the machine gun attack.

(Also important, for this to work on a unit its actor must have Model Flags->Allow Hit Test ticked)

In order to test Highlighted/Un-Highlighte have a Event when unit highlighted print a debug and place a few 'Cube' units on the map (they have the actor flag disabled by default). (Or if you are feeling violent just take the 'trigger unit' and kill it when the event fires!)

I dont have a good way for you to test where your mouse is when its over the ground (rather than a unit with these flags enabled) but I do have a few potential BAD ways (I mean REALY bad!!! terrible practise, should be shot for doing it kind of bad!).

The first (and by FAR the worst!!!) method is to grid out your map in tiny low height cube units, this will give you the quadrant that your mouse is currently in in combination witht he hilightable method above... (its rely very bad I know)

Alternatly i am currently working on an alternative that involves getting a handle on the actor splat (cursor pic actor generat at/following your mouse cursor when you click to use a move like EMP or nuke... Works going well but with uni it could be a week or 2 before I can finsh this and post what to do.

P.S. Using highlight as a selection method rather than a trace line has the advantage that the unit is only selected if your mouse is over the model, (CURVES!). rather than simply asking is my screen centre intersecting with a cylinder strapped to the centre of this unit (circle region combined with height restrictions)

However it has the disadvantage that in order to check whether a unit is flagged for ‘highlight’ you MUST have the mouse cursor active (no mouse rotation/lock screen mouse relative) stuff.

As a side note, as always there is an exception to the rule... When using a sniper rifle in FPS mode there is a sufficent excuse/allowance for a UI pause when shooting to allow a nifty hack solution to regaining your cursor (for a tiny period of time) and forcing the cursor to the centre of your crosshair. You must lock the screen, go to non mouse relitive mode, set the field of view to something TINY (.0001), wait for a period of time/until highlighted event fires, and revert to normal FPS viewing conditions... Its acceptable for stationary precision shooting (as it allows model tested shooting rather than cylinder tested shooting!!!) but not for fast paced action as a assault rifle that locked up the screen for .1-.2 seconds every bullet... well thats just not 'spray and pray' now is it...

Quote from zrbecker: Go

When I need no unit, I just do custom script and type null. The presets for any unit and no unit both show up in galaxy script as null, so if you need either of them, you should be able to write null.

Yeah, I saw that myself, though how does it specify the difference between null wanting 'Any Unit' and null wanting 'No Unit' (or !'Any Unit' as you could also call it)...

As well... as I said with the unit problem there are easy workarounds but in some other cases being able to seed your parameter with a list of presets (while retaining the abbility to select from the basic type variables/values/functions) would be very time saving!