It seems there was a pretty significant update at some point: You can now create multiple texture objects for the same texture file, even using different slots, and it will work properly (thanks Bommes for notifying me).
In this testmap, I use the Zhakul Das Obelisk Emissive texture to swap out 4 textures of the Thor, the body diffuse and emissive as well as the cannon diffuse and emissive, without reimporting the texture or anything.
Looks concerning to me. Essentially because of the fact, that banks are not save, regardless of encryption or signature, anyone who has the skills to circumvent those will be able to introduce balance changes to your map, to his liking.
There are generic programs on other sites, that can create a valid signature for your bank, and the map script is freely available for everyone, cracking a locked map doesn't take more than a minute, making any encryption basically worthless.
from what i understand once an upgrade is applied you cant remove it.
what you can do is apply a second upgrade that nullifies the first.
That depends on the upgrade's configuration. If an upgrade sets a specific field to another value, it won't be reverted by removing it. If it adds something to that field instead, it will be reversed.
For example, if you have an upgrade, that sets the marine weapon damage to 7 and you remove that upgrade via trigger, marines still cause 7 damage. If you have an upgrade that adds 1 damage to the marine weapon, removing the upgrade will revert the damage of the marine to 6.
If you are using triggers anyways, you may also just use Catalog triggers to change the fields directly to whatever you need instead of using upgrades to do so. Catalog triggers can modify exactly the same fields Upgrades can, and they are a lot more flexible to use.
I do not know of a way besides adding a huge list of spawn effects to a set effect and make it pick a random one. Triggers can probably handle this a lot easier.
You can see all the textures a model uses in the Cutscene editor. When you add a new model to be shown, it will appear in the list in the bottom left window of the screen. In this window, you can right-click the model and click Show Model Data, which brings up several folders, including Animations and Materials, the latter holding all used textures for the model, usually in several sub-folders.
For a usual unit model, you can also right-click the model itself on the terrain, however for non-clickable models like many spell animations, this is not possible, so you select it from the list instead.
There is no native support for reversing an animation. You can simulate it by pausing the animation and set its completion percentage periodically, which is probably best done via trigger.
You can track, which assets certain spells are using, by following the object links in data. The Guardian Shield actor uses a model called Guardian Shield linking to an asset called SentryShieldBubble.m3, located in Assets\Effects\Protoss\SentryShieldBubble\. It is an .m3 model file, not a .dds, since that are images only.
In case you need the Textures used by the model (which would be .dds files again), you can look them up by viewing the model in the Cutscene Editor. The Sentry Shield Bubble uses various textures, like HexGrid1_blue2.dds or ScanLines5_blue.dds, however these have nothing to do with the animations and won't help you in any way to play an animation in reverse.
My data chain lightnings use a very similar method, however they always jump properly, even for multiple casts, and they use a relatively low amount of data objects as well (1 action, 1 beam, 6 effects, 1 behavior, 1 validator), independent of jump count.
The jumps run on separate actor scopes, because the scope is created by the inital effect. Their multiple casts are only limited, because I use a behavior on the caster to keep track of jump count. For infinite jumps, they work perfectly even for multiple casts.
It should be possible to combine our methods to get a working chain lightning, either by creating your action actors on the scope of the initial effect via trigger somehow, however, I don't have experience in handling action actors via trigger, or by transfer jump count tracking to triggers somehow (or find a MUI way of tracking jumps in data)
I think those show up when your model doesn't have the shield attachment bone. If that's the case it can be fixed by giving the model such bone, or maybe by declaring the bone in the model data tab, but I never tried that.
This is done by selecting the model in question in the data editor. Open the Attachment Properties field and add a new entry. Set the ID to the attachment point the shield should use, usually you want to use something like Center or Target. Set the Shield Radius to something appropriate, it will affect the visual size of the shield bubble. Set the Squib Type to Shield. You can leave the rest at default.
This has to be done for every non-protoss model that can be used for a unit that uses a shield (some protoss models as well, the Preservers for example).
Also, for this to work, the unit needs to have an initial shield. If it starts with 0 shield and gains it at a later point (maybe with an item or ability), it will malfunction. If you need this kind of functionality, give the unit some initial shield and remove it via trigger of with a behavior, when the unit enters the field.
Textures still have the slot field, usually on the top or bottom (depending how you sorted). Make sure your view options are configured properly,mainly Table View should be enabled.
I have the feeling trying to do these kinds of modifications coming strait from terraining might be too far over my head. Is there any chance someone will do an updated tutorial for texture customization?
Granted, its not the easiest thing to do, but its not that hard either, once you get the hang of it. And you have to start somewhere, the data editor is a complex tool, there are very few tasks that are trivial to do. Even just creating a working unit causes headaches to beginners.
Okay for the start, but the end is still on the cursor's position. I'll continue to search a bit.
You can use a static model instead, like the laser splat used by Raynor's Railgun Snipe. I don't know, if the HotS visuals support this, though. Maybe you can make them use a specific size, but I wouldn't know how.
Quote:
And the caster still moves to have the target point visible before casting.
This can be changed in the ability flags, I believe.
I think this tutorial is obsolete. Nothing looks the same and nothing happens when I press ctr shift v. There is no previewer in the data menu.
The previewer got replaced by the Cutscene Editor (Shift + F7). To find the materials here, search and add your model, then right-click it and select Show Model Data, which should be similar to the previewer screen shown in the tutorial.
You are correct, many features described in the tutorial are outdated or look different now, but the basic principle did not change, and the method still works.
Yeah, unfortunately, that is not possible. If it is a really huge array and you would have to input lots of stuff, you can add the values to a string and make a loop read it: (pseudocode)
PS: An integer-type variable array of 50, is that too fat? Local or global?
What do you mean? An integer array with size 50? Totally fine. You can start worrying, if you reach 100k
Quote:
Should I avoid using variables to define constants?
Not sure what you mean? All constants are variables. And if you are talking about using literals instead of constants, in general constants should be preferred. Most compilers replace them with the literal value anyway, so it makes no difference at runtime, but its usually a lot more readable.
Quote:
Which brings me to another question: Can you make variable arrays constant? (Different values in the arrays)
Not sure what you are asking. You cannot change array size dynamically, and I don't think you can make a constant array.
0
Pretty straight forward. If 2 units share a collision flag, they collide. If they do not, they don't affect each other's pathing.
0
That depends on what you need. The example map attached to the previous post doesn't use any imported textures.
0
@Zolden: Go
It does.
0
Set the Team Color to white
It seems there was a pretty significant update at some point: You can now create multiple texture objects for the same texture file, even using different slots, and it will work properly (thanks Bommes for notifying me).
In this testmap, I use the Zhakul Das Obelisk Emissive texture to swap out 4 textures of the Thor, the body diffuse and emissive as well as the cannon diffuse and emissive, without reimporting the texture or anything.
0
Looks concerning to me. Essentially because of the fact, that banks are not save, regardless of encryption or signature, anyone who has the skills to circumvent those will be able to introduce balance changes to your map, to his liking.
There are generic programs on other sites, that can create a valid signature for your bank, and the map script is freely available for everyone, cracking a locked map doesn't take more than a minute, making any encryption basically worthless.
0
That depends on the upgrade's configuration. If an upgrade sets a specific field to another value, it won't be reverted by removing it. If it adds something to that field instead, it will be reversed.
For example, if you have an upgrade, that sets the marine weapon damage to 7 and you remove that upgrade via trigger, marines still cause 7 damage. If you have an upgrade that adds 1 damage to the marine weapon, removing the upgrade will revert the damage of the marine to 6.
If you are using triggers anyways, you may also just use Catalog triggers to change the fields directly to whatever you need instead of using upgrades to do so. Catalog triggers can modify exactly the same fields Upgrades can, and they are a lot more flexible to use.
0
I do not know of a way besides adding a huge list of spawn effects to a set effect and make it pick a random one. Triggers can probably handle this a lot easier.
0
Oh, I somehow skipped the Impact part :)
You can see all the textures a model uses in the Cutscene editor. When you add a new model to be shown, it will appear in the list in the bottom left window of the screen. In this window, you can right-click the model and click Show Model Data, which brings up several folders, including Animations and Materials, the latter holding all used textures for the model, usually in several sub-folders.
For a usual unit model, you can also right-click the model itself on the terrain, however for non-clickable models like many spell animations, this is not possible, so you select it from the list instead.
0
There is no native support for reversing an animation. You can simulate it by pausing the animation and set its completion percentage periodically, which is probably best done via trigger.
You can track, which assets certain spells are using, by following the object links in data. The Guardian Shield actor uses a model called Guardian Shield linking to an asset called SentryShieldBubble.m3, located in Assets\Effects\Protoss\SentryShieldBubble\. It is an .m3 model file, not a .dds, since that are images only.
In case you need the Textures used by the model (which would be .dds files again), you can look them up by viewing the model in the Cutscene Editor. The Sentry Shield Bubble uses various textures, like HexGrid1_blue2.dds or ScanLines5_blue.dds, however these have nothing to do with the animations and won't help you in any way to play an animation in reverse.
0
My data chain lightnings use a very similar method, however they always jump properly, even for multiple casts, and they use a relatively low amount of data objects as well (1 action, 1 beam, 6 effects, 1 behavior, 1 validator), independent of jump count.
The jumps run on separate actor scopes, because the scope is created by the inital effect. Their multiple casts are only limited, because I use a behavior on the caster to keep track of jump count. For infinite jumps, they work perfectly even for multiple casts.
It should be possible to combine our methods to get a working chain lightning, either by creating your action actors on the scope of the initial effect via trigger somehow, however, I don't have experience in handling action actors via trigger, or by transfer jump count tracking to triggers somehow (or find a MUI way of tracking jumps in data)
0
This is done by selecting the model in question in the data editor. Open the Attachment Properties field and add a new entry. Set the ID to the attachment point the shield should use, usually you want to use something like Center or Target. Set the Shield Radius to something appropriate, it will affect the visual size of the shield bubble. Set the Squib Type to Shield. You can leave the rest at default.
This has to be done for every non-protoss model that can be used for a unit that uses a shield (some protoss models as well, the Preservers for example).
Also, for this to work, the unit needs to have an initial shield. If it starts with 0 shield and gains it at a later point (maybe with an item or ability), it will malfunction. If you need this kind of functionality, give the unit some initial shield and remove it via trigger of with a behavior, when the unit enters the field.
0
Textures still have the slot field, usually on the top or bottom (depending how you sorted). Make sure your view options are configured properly,mainly Table View should be enabled.
Granted, its not the easiest thing to do, but its not that hard either, once you get the hang of it. And you have to start somewhere, the data editor is a complex tool, there are very few tasks that are trivial to do. Even just creating a working unit causes headaches to beginners.
0
You can use a static model instead, like the laser splat used by Raynor's Railgun Snipe. I don't know, if the HotS visuals support this, though. Maybe you can make them use a specific size, but I wouldn't know how.
This can be changed in the ability flags, I believe.
0
The previewer got replaced by the Cutscene Editor (Shift + F7). To find the materials here, search and add your model, then right-click it and select Show Model Data, which should be similar to the previewer screen shown in the tutorial.
You are correct, many features described in the tutorial are outdated or look different now, but the basic principle did not change, and the method still works.
0
Yeah, unfortunately, that is not possible. If it is a really huge array and you would have to input lots of stuff, you can add the values to a string and make a loop read it: (pseudocode)
Still sucks, but at least you can add new values really fast.
What do you mean? An integer array with size 50? Totally fine. You can start worrying, if you reach 100k
Not sure what you mean? All constants are variables. And if you are talking about using literals instead of constants, in general constants should be preferred. Most compilers replace them with the literal value anyway, so it makes no difference at runtime, but its usually a lot more readable.
Not sure what you are asking. You cannot change array size dynamically, and I don't think you can make a constant array.