A whole Heap of Questions (>10)

[BlueBerryWizard]

See original post here.

1. We're trying to make procedurally generated terrain for our map but so far we've only found out how to modify the terrain height; we still haven't figured out how to modify the terrain textures ingame. How do you do that? Also, is there any limit on how many terrain textures we can have in our map all at once & can we create roads ingame?

2. How do you modify the tint of just the clothing on a unit, the tint of just the skin, and the tint of just the hair separate from each other? Can various clothing, hairstyles, etc. be attached to a unit & what are the limitations of doing that? (For example, would the sleeve on a shirt not bend with the arm when a human is moving?)

3. Are you aware of any modeling resources where I may be able to acquire animal, plant, vehicle, and building part models with animations & also weapons, farming tools, etc. attachment models? Are there any Starcraft II modeling places at all yet o.o...

4. How do you utilize built-in physics for jumping, knockback, sliding down slopes in the terrain, projectiles, etc.?

5. What's the Starcraft II equivalent of this Jass function from Warcraft III, "native GroupEnumUnitsInRange takes group whichGroup, real x, real y, real radius, boolexpr filter returns nothing"?

6. In the Battle.net menus, how can I remove/disable that background graphic with the planet & the ship that flies around it... it lags the chat really bad which I find extremely annoying 'cause I type as fast as I talk (I don't talk exceptionally slow, btw) & it messes things up...

7. How do you disable camera panning when the mouse gets too close to the edge of the screen? Right now camera panning is messing up the cam I'm using by causing the focus to be off-centre of the unit it's following.

8. I’ve tried modifying the cursor in the data editor- all to no effect. It just won’t change. How do you get the cursor to change to a new one? Is it possible to add particle emitters to the cursor in SCII too?

9. Is there a functions list in .galaxy? I really hate having to use GUI to look up functions for use in scripting.

10. “UI - Player Any Player presses T key Down with shift Allow, control Allow, alt Allow” “UI - Player Any Player presses T key Up with shift Allow, control Allow, alt Allow”
I have events like these registered for keys WASD, Q, E, T, Space Bar, and Right-click with more to come…
It says in the GUI editor “Only register for this event when you absolutely need it, as it will generate network traffic from all players for every button they press. This event fires when a player presses the specified key. Use "Key Pressed" to get the key that was pressed. Use "Alt Key Pressed", "Control Key Pressed", and "Shift Key Pressed" to find out what modifier keys were pressed.”
Should I just use “UI - Player Any Player presses Any key Down with shift Allow, control Allow, alt Allow” and then look up which key was pressed & do actions based on the key pressed? Which is more efficient? The parts I underlined seem to contradict each other so I really don't know which one's better to use.

11. Bonus question for hiveworkshop ! At what point should I publish my development plan for my map? I've got the entire thing planned out, since I've been working on it for over 2 years (originally on Warcraft III, see FSB 1 in my signature) but I think it would be wise to wait until I've made a certain amount of progress on essential components of the map before I reveal it & request the help of hive members developing it. Nobody wants to help out with a map that they don’t think will get done, after all.

 

[Dr Super Good]

1. You can use a sort of splat thing to add textures to terrain.

2. Impossible.

3. SC2 modeling is near non existant so currently not possible. You can however port WC3 and use WoW models (although that is probably illegal).

4. Look at how Maar does his knockback nova. As physcs is client side and mostly graphical you can not have that greater physics but jump should be possible as maar (the hybrid boss from second protoss mission) has shown.

5. Look at the galaxy native list. The scripting language is galaxy.

6. Get a better computer. Also try lowering your graphic settings to increase frame rate. Make sure driver forced AA is turned off as that has been known to cause unexplainable slowness in the main menu (In the beta I used to get 2 FPS no mater what level of AA I forced on but 60 with AA off).

7. There are actions and natives which let you turn off interface commands like panning, selecting and ordering.

8. Try under constant and race catalogues. I doubt you can add particles cause the cursor is often rendered independiently from the game engine (notice it does not suffer from lag).

9. Yes, a natives list just like WC3 had. Extracted from the core MPQ. Many people have dumped the contense online already.

10. If you are using lots of keys one event is better than many. Otherwise it does not mater. It just means that the more keys pressed the more network traffic and so the more lag generated. Incase you think wrong, I mean the more latency between keypress and response (aka lag).

11. Do not publish it at all to this site if you are planning to enter a Blizzard contest as doing so will void your entry, however other rules might prevent you entering already so do not give this too much thought. However the most logical time and best time to reveal to this site is when the project is so far along that failure is unlikly. Nothing irritates people more than cool projects never being finshed (its very sad in a way).

 

[BlueBerryWizard]

1. You can use a sort of splat thing to add textures to terrain.

2. Impossible.

3. SC2 modeling is near non existant so currently not possible. You can however port WC3 and use WoW models (although that is probably illegal).

4. Look at how Maar does his knockback nova. As physcs is client side and mostly graphical you can not have that greater physics but jump should be possible as maar (the hybrid boss from second protoss mission) has shown.

5. Look at the galaxy native list. The scripting language is galaxy.

6. Get a better computer. Also try lowering your graphic settings to increase frame rate. Make sure driver forced AA is turned off as that has been known to cause unexplainable slowness in the main menu (In the beta I used to get 2 FPS no mater what level of AA I forced on but 60 with AA off).

7. There are actions and natives which let you turn off interface commands like panning, selecting and ordering.

8. Try under constant and race catalogues. I doubt you can add particles cause the cursor is often rendered independiently from the game engine (notice it does not suffer from lag).

9. Yes, a natives list just like WC3 had. Extracted from the core MPQ. Many people have dumped the contense online already.

10. If you are using lots of keys one event is better than many. Otherwise it does not mater. It just means that the more keys pressed the more network traffic and so the more lag generated. Incase you think wrong, I mean the more latency between keypress and response (aka lag).

11. Do not publish it at all to this site if you are planning to enter a Blizzard contest as doing so will void your entry, however other rules might prevent you entering already so do not give this too much thought. However the most logical time and best time to reveal to this site is when the project is so far along that failure is unlikly. Nothing irritates people more than cool projects never being finshed (its very sad in a way).

@A1 Any lag issues if we're using that method extensively?
@A2 Are you absolutely sure? What if you like assemble the unit out of actors or whatever so that the clothes, hair, and body are 3 separate things ? Also, can you use multiple textures on a model & just tint one specific texture at a time?
@A3 I can haz critter models from WoW?
@A4 I haven't played the campaign or melee and I even participated in the Beta. I have no intentions to play either 'cause I'd rather be working on & playing custom maps. So I am not familiar with these references you made to a SCII mission but oh well it sounds like I'ma have to script the physics in.
@A5 Could you snapshot it, I can't find where it's located in the editor D:!
@A6 I don't need to get a whole new computer, just a better graphics card. I have the graphics settings on low already, 'cause I hate how when you make it higher it makes everything look like it's made out of shiny plastic (Although I wish I could have the shadows for the units, trees, & buildings instead of Warcraft III-like circle shadows...). Lag is only noticeable in poorly made custom maps & the menus. The graphics card I have is supposed to be really good but meh it's a lie >_>.
@A9 Could you link me to one of those?
@A10 Don't you mean the more key events registered the more network traffic is generated when a key is pressed..?

I have another question:

12. When do you expect we'll have an editor like Newgen created for Starcraft II?

 

[mrzwach]

1. Due to the difference in SC2 terrain textures and WC3's, that is no longer possible. You can use decals (a doodad) to do this somewhat, but for a large scale map that would probably be laggy and such.

2. This could potentially be achieved through replaceable textures. Look at the Mohican ATV unit, if you double click it, you can change what texture is displayed. Potentially you could have different textures for hair, skin, etc.

 

[BlueBerryWizard]

1. Due to the difference in SC2 terrain textures and WC3's, that is no longer possible. You can use decals (a doodad) to do this somewhat, but for a large scale map that would probably be laggy and such.

2. This could potentially be achieved through replaceable textures. Look at the Mohican ATV unit, if you double click it, you can change what texture is displayed. Potentially you could have different textures for hair, skin, etc.

@A1
What about using floating text that contains an image or any other function that might exist that lets you create images on the terrain? I guess this wouldn't be compatible with terrain that has differences in height but it should work for flat terrain, amirite?
@A2
O.O I'd probably exceed my map filesize in a very short amount of time if I have to create textures for the full range of possible hair, clothing, and skin colours!

Edit: Maybe if I can use team colour for the textures I might be able to make this viable? Could you modify which team colour is used for each texture though ?

 

[Dr Super Good]

You should be able to attach extra content to maps like imports through mods but apparently people are having trouble doing that at the moment.

I have attached the complete SC2 non AI native list to the FAQ.