I always forget to save when im in the creative process! xD fortunately I found the setting to auto save every 10 minutes.
Also, here's the first part of my co-op (2-5 player, Ideally 5) mission map.
Image 1 is the entire map. I envision it to be a type of campaign consisting of 4 parts. Theres a human army base/settlement on the northwest, a high-elf city southeast, ancient ruins northeast and a diseased death pit boss fight area in the east. Also in the center of the forest there is a small orc camp.
Image 2 is the 5 base units (top) and their max level counterparts (bottom)
I'm not very good with object placement or terrain blending so there's spots where the terrain abruptly changes. Also as I walk through the map it just looks... unnatural. I guess thats because I made it and I know where I put everything. lol.
For the dependency, it depends. Usually only "Void (Mod)" can be fine. If you notice that you want doodads that are taken in picture but does not appear in your list when searching for them it might be because you need "Void (Campaign)". The Nova ops dependency can be interesting as well as it contains quite a couple nice looking doodads. The warcraft 3 mod is not necessairy except if you wish to use stuff from that game, but there is way enough to explore within the sc2 doodads and they are usually looking better than the Wc3 arts.
About bridges, there are some doodads that can do just that and have pathing on them, but it can be tricky to place between 2 cliffs and can sometimes have some issues near the edges where a unit would look like falling far down and then come back up while moving across or entering it. Note as well there is no multi level pathing in sc2. You cannot have a bridge over another bridge for example, or passing under a bridge.
There are different way of creating a bridge.
1. Using doodads.
Pro: Easy to setup, looks great
Con: Changing cliff heigh can be buggy and require painting pathing, a bridge above lowest ground level will not work great, not all doodads has pathing on them (although you can use one of the new doodads that is a plane with pathing so any sort of doodads can look like a bridge even a fallen tree or clouds)
(Picture 1)
2. Using terrain and hide cells.
Pro: Works great whatever the cliff heigh
Con: Trickier to setup, must hide cells and thus must hide the holes that it creates in the wall with other doodads, the doodads used can have footprint that you must remove in the data, it's much harder to make it look good.
(Picture 2)
3. Using terrain and textures.
Pro: Easy to setup, efficient, looks great
Con: You can see the cliff's wall, you can always hide it behind other doodads or try to place something to make it look black... Up to you.
(Picture 3)
After that it depends how much time you want to invest, what you want to do, what you consider great / good looking, and you can trick around by using water, fog, and other stuff like that to hide parts of the terrain that looks bad. (Picture 4)
I wanted to use the Warcraft art and data for an old-timey looking map with older units like swordsman and archers. Would bring back the Age of Empires feel xD
Your tips about bridges has helped me tremendously, I really appreciate it. I will show you my first completed map when i'm done :P I had a bad experience last night where I went through doodads placing like 100 that I wanted to use and then the editor crashed. Now I have to go find them all again today.
Hey there, if a model does not load, it will return the blank model which is the sphere. It could be due to missing dependency. Note as well that terrain objects and doodads are very different things. Terrain objects will have a predefined height, custom collisions and custom hidden terrain cells. For example, in the campaign there was a big icy thing and as you approach it, half of it falls. That's a terrain objects. Or things like windows on the ground which hides the ground. I want to point out though that terrains objects can be very buggy. It tends to screw up the terrain and cause issues more than it adds beauty to the map, personal experience. They can be very interesting but only in specefic situation like flat areas and without using ctrl+Z. Using ctrl+Z to undo a placed terrain object it can screw up the terrain sometime, ideally you have to select it and delete it. I would just avoid using terrain object if I was you.
For the doodads, if you select a doodad or a group of doodads, you can press Enter to open the property box in which you can set different things like scale, pitch, yaw, roll, tint, variations, etc. And in the editor there is no way to see all models under the same doodads all at the same time...except, that was until I create this... https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/all-doodads You can either download them all and place them into folders on your computer or you can also go here: http://www.screference.op74.net/ and have the same list online. I've made all those images. So now it's alot more easier to just scroll and see all the potential useful models without searching for hours and losing inspiration...
To create a bridge, simply use the normal terrain and place with the texture and doodads to make it look like a bridge. It does not work like in SC1 anymore. ;)
Wow you are a genius for that tool! Thank you so much for the reply :D
Those checkered spheres were really annoying me.. I come across them often. I usually put all of the Liberty dependencies, the nova ops, the warcraft 3 art and data. I assumed that included all of the content from start to finish but maybe i am mistaken. What dependency setup would be good for a beginner to use? I'll add that my editor runs very slowly most of the time and I would like to cut down on that if at all possible.
I've seen custom maps where people made very long bridges, the first one that comes to mind is Oh no it's zombies! arctic where there are bridges connecting the different parts of the base and they are very long bridges that do not look like just doodads on terrain. Beneath the bridges are black as far as I can tell, but I will have to go and look to see it better.
Also, yes control Z when doing terain and terrain objects is an absolute nightmare. lol.
I am new to the map editor and new to SC2 in general. I've been working on a custom map and have run into a few things that I would like to ask for some information on. I'll get right into it.
1. In the Terrain Objects and Doodads lists there are many objects that are just little white checkered spheres. Does this mean I am missing dependencies or my files or corrupted or something? The objects read out names of things such as "aiur rocks" or "xel'naga console (destructable)" but they just show up on the map and in the previewer as the little checkered spheres.
2. When attempting to lay a terrain object bridge over a river or canyon, it completely distorts and messes up the texture of the terrain I place it on. Theres spots where you can see clear through the terrain, they never line up evenly with each side of the bridge where it connects to the cliff, and I cant seem to make the bridge any longer than the default length when you click and place. Also, after messing up placement and trying to mess with it, I've found that there is no way to remove the bridge terrain other than reloading the map to a previous saved state.
3. When selecting doodads to place, I've noticed that it gives you different versions of that item. Different size, different direction, different appearance; variations of that item. Is there any way to view all of the different ones and choose which I would like to use? I have been selecting things and just finding a empty spot on the map and placing 20-30 of them until I don't notice any different ones and I feel like it's not intended to be that way. I was attempting to build a power relay where theres like a generator and then cables running that splits off to different buildings but between this little hiccup and not really being able to find anything in the vast lists of objects I've found it difficult to progress passed painting and raising/lowering terrain.
That's all I have for now, I've made 5 maps and really on each one I get to a certain point where I cant figure out how to do what I want to do and get frustated and quit. xD
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Hello everyone :)
I am new to the map editor and new to SC2 in general. I've been working on a custom map and have run into a few things that I would like to ask for some information on. I'll get right into it.
1. In the Terrain Objects and Doodads lists there are many objects that are just little white checkered spheres. Does this mean I am missing dependencies or my files or corrupted or something? The objects read out names of things such as "aiur rocks" or "xel'naga console (destructable)" but they just show up on the map and in the previewer as the little checkered spheres.
2. When attempting to lay a terrain object bridge over a river or canyon, it completely distorts and messes up the texture of the terrain I place it on. Theres spots where you can see clear through the terrain, they never line up evenly with each side of the bridge where it connects to the cliff, and I cant seem to make the bridge any longer than the default length when you click and place. Also, after messing up placement and trying to mess with it, I've found that there is no way to remove the bridge terrain other than reloading the map to a previous saved state.
3. When selecting doodads to place, I've noticed that it gives you different versions of that item. Different size, different direction, different appearance; variations of that item. Is there any way to view all of the different ones and choose which I would like to use? I have been selecting things and just finding a empty spot on the map and placing 20-30 of them until I don't notice any different ones and I feel like it's not intended to be that way. I was attempting to build a power relay where theres like a generator and then cables running that splits off to different buildings but between this little hiccup and not really being able to find anything in the vast lists of objects I've found it difficult to progress passed painting and raising/lowering terrain.
That's all I have for now, I've made 5 maps and really on each one I get to a certain point where I cant figure out how to do what I want to do and get frustated and quit. xD