Greetings to all mappers, scripters, modders, artists, and others,
I am contemplating the design and development of a standalone SC2 Campaign and am curious as to how closely map makers have been able to replicate the technical wizardry employed in the Wings of Liberty campaign. I'll categorize and separate my areas of interest as best I can, in case anyone wants to help me with my research and experimentation.
Campaign UI (single player)
- Reproducing areas like Joeyray's Tavern on Mar Sara, and the Hyperion Bridge, Cantina, Armory and Laboratory
- Tracking mission / campaign progression, unlocked units & technology, player mission choices
- Access to mission archives (replay unlocked missions and cinematics)
- UI & back end support for mission choices (ie. Ariel & Tosh "Pick an Objective")
- Tracking custom campaign currencies like Credits, Zerg & Protoss Research Points
- Persistent purchasable technology upgrades like the Hyperion's Zerg & Protoss Laboratory Upgrades
- Persistent purchasable unit upgrades like the Hyperion's Base, Infantry, Vehicle, Starship & Dominion Armory Upgrades
Computer Player AI
- Encouraging the AI to build and use units without disrupting the positions of its pre-placed units
- Allowing the human player to specify the mission difficulty, and scaling the AI difficulty/actions accordingly
- Assigning higher AI priority to certain map locations (regions?) or objectives (destroy player x instead of player y)
- Triggering strategic suicide missions / AI routines for non-pre-placed units
File Formats
- What are the preferred / expected file formats for external assets (graphics, models, animations, sounds, etc)
- Are there any known issues / problems when importing external assets into SC2?
Hero Units
- Creating custom hero units that will "pass out" and "revive" instead of dying / being destroyed
- Creating custom abilities / spells that can be accessed by the player from a unit's command card UI
- Granting / Activating custom abilities at a specific point in a mission (like the Tosh/Nova ability introductions)
- Other customizations; custom unit portraits, sound and voice sets, weapon / effect alterations, etc
Modding
- To what extent would this be encouraged for creating a campaign similar in execution/form to Wings of Liberty?
- In general, how could modding SC2 open up new possibilities?
Multiplayer
- How much of the single-player campaign features could theoretically be "ported" to a multiplayer campaign?
- Possibilities for Observer slots (or at least multiple-viewer replay recording)
- Possibilities for custom Lobby settings / a user-made Lobby (ie reproduce Hyperion functionality in a lobby, add voting systems, etc)
- Possibility for independent player-stored values (ie. persistent tech/unit upgrades, hero/faction affiliation, etc)
Story Maps
- Everything about these;
- real time / in-game cinematics
- custom display of pre-rendered video (as in Hyperion view screens or *'s mission-prep flashbacks)
- dialogue / animation sync
Unit / Structure / Terrain / Object Customizations
- Potential for / limitations of importing 3D models, textures and animations into SC2
- Establishing custom unit size, collision detection, etc.
- Assigning appropriate unit variable values (unit class, unit attribute, movement speed, weapon type, etc.)
- Creating custom command card entries, icons and routines for training custom units or building custom structures
- Incorporating new sound sets
- Developing new special effects
I'm not looking for one single person to answer all of my questions and concerns or provide links to everything known to man on this subject, just mostly interested in what the community already knows / has tutorials up for. If you're familiar with a tutorial / tutorial series pertinent to any of the subject areas listed here, feel free to drop a link in this thread with a brief explanation of what can be learned specifically from it. ie.
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Greetings to all mappers, scripters, modders, artists, and others,
I am contemplating the design and development of a standalone SC2 Campaign and am curious as to how closely map makers have been able to replicate the technical wizardry employed in the Wings of Liberty campaign. I'll categorize and separate my areas of interest as best I can, in case anyone wants to help me with my research and experimentation.
Campaign UI (single player)
- Reproducing areas like Joeyray's Tavern on Mar Sara, and the Hyperion Bridge, Cantina, Armory and Laboratory
- Tracking mission / campaign progression, unlocked units & technology, player mission choices
- Access to mission archives (replay unlocked missions and cinematics)
- UI & back end support for mission choices (ie. Ariel & Tosh "Pick an Objective")
- Tracking custom campaign currencies like Credits, Zerg & Protoss Research Points
- Persistent purchasable technology upgrades like the Hyperion's Zerg & Protoss Laboratory Upgrades
- Persistent purchasable unit upgrades like the Hyperion's Base, Infantry, Vehicle, Starship & Dominion Armory Upgrades
Computer Player AI
- Encouraging the AI to build and use units without disrupting the positions of its pre-placed units
- Allowing the human player to specify the mission difficulty, and scaling the AI difficulty/actions accordingly
- Assigning higher AI priority to certain map locations (regions?) or objectives (destroy player x instead of player y)
- Triggering strategic suicide missions / AI routines for non-pre-placed units
File Formats
- What are the preferred / expected file formats for external assets (graphics, models, animations, sounds, etc)
- Are there any known issues / problems when importing external assets into SC2?
Hero Units
- Creating custom hero units that will "pass out" and "revive" instead of dying / being destroyed
- Creating custom abilities / spells that can be accessed by the player from a unit's command card UI
- Granting / Activating custom abilities at a specific point in a mission (like the Tosh/Nova ability introductions)
- Other customizations; custom unit portraits, sound and voice sets, weapon / effect alterations, etc
Modding
- To what extent would this be encouraged for creating a campaign similar in execution/form to Wings of Liberty?
- In general, how could modding SC2 open up new possibilities?
Multiplayer
- How much of the single-player campaign features could theoretically be "ported" to a multiplayer campaign?
- Possibilities for Observer slots (or at least multiple-viewer replay recording)
- Possibilities for custom Lobby settings / a user-made Lobby (ie reproduce Hyperion functionality in a lobby, add voting systems, etc)
- Possibility for independent player-stored values (ie. persistent tech/unit upgrades, hero/faction affiliation, etc)
Story Maps
- Everything about these;
- real time / in-game cinematics
- custom display of pre-rendered video (as in Hyperion view screens or *'s mission-prep flashbacks)
- dialogue / animation sync
Unit / Structure / Terrain / Object Customizations
- Potential for / limitations of importing 3D models, textures and animations into SC2
- Establishing custom unit size, collision detection, etc.
- Assigning appropriate unit variable values (unit class, unit attribute, movement speed, weapon type, etc.)
- Creating custom command card entries, icons and routines for training custom units or building custom structures
- Incorporating new sound sets
- Developing new special effects
I'm not looking for one single person to answer all of my questions and concerns or provide links to everything known to man on this subject, just mostly interested in what the community already knows / has tutorials up for. If you're familiar with a tutorial / tutorial series pertinent to any of the subject areas listed here, feel free to drop a link in this thread with a brief explanation of what can be learned specifically from it. ie.
Thank you for any and all assistance you have to offer.