HiveWE - World Editor 0.10

HiveWE

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HiveWE is a fully custom 3rd party world editor. It's completely separate from the original editor and is open-source!

Features:
  • Open and view Warcraft III maps.
  • Terrain/Unit/Doodad/Pathing palettes with numerous options.
  • Ergonomic Object Editor
  • Improved Trigger Editor
  • Edit the pathing map directly!
  • Change the tileset to up to 64 tiles.
  • Manage your imports with folders
  • Edit global tile pathing
  • Edit map loading screen information
  • Import heightmaps
  • Jass/Lua support
Limitations
  • There can be some rendering differences compared to the game
  • The unit palette is quite limited
Required for running HiveWE:

HiveWE 0.10 - 2026/05/18

Thanks you @BogdanW3 and Super.Skill for your contributions in this version!

Performance Improvements
  • Map loading is now much faster. My Reforged test map went from 32s to a whopping 4s load time.
  • Map rendering is now also much faster. Frame rates more than doubled. Check out MDX Rendering if you're interested in the technical details.

Added
  • Gameplay constants editor
  • Asset manager
Showing all imported game files and their usage. Useful for deleting unused files or finding out which unit/doodad/ability is using it
  • Map resizing. Thanks @Super.Skill!
  • Improved terrain palette. Thanks @Super.Skill!
- You can now directly add/remove water and change its height.
- Ramp editing is now added and enabled!

Fixed
  • Sometimes TRIGSTR_xxxx would be visible in the object editor
  • Doodad palette height input didn't allow decimals
  • Fixed some unit fields not being properly saved
  • Changing tilesets wouldn't update the terrain palette
  • Newly added tiles couldn't be placed
  • An incorrect doodad variation would sometimes be loaded
  • Display the correct stand animation. Thanks @BogdanW3


HiveWE 0.9 - 2025/12/14

Added

  • Global search menu that you can call anywhere by double pressing shift
    • Allows you to instantly search units, items, doodad, destructibles, abilities upgrades, buffs and common editor actions from anywhere
  • Ability insights directly in the Object Editor.
  • Render all teamcolors instead of always only red
  • The unit palette now checks if it can place the unit or whether there is another unit/doodad there

Fixed
  • Some models vertices/uvs would clip
  • Fixed AABB frustrum culling
  • Ability data fields weren't correctly written
  • Deleting a doodad with a large pathing map wouldn't clear the whole pathing
  • Sometimes the shortcut to switch selection mode wouldn't work
  • Even brush sizes (2, 4, 6, etc) didn't properly center around the cursor
  • Deleting/moving a doodad with large pathing wouldn't update the pathing properly

HiveWE 0.8 - 2025/10/20

Added

  • Toggle to hide click helpers
  • Billboard rendering
  • Revived trigger editor from an earlier build
  • Pathing map import/export

Fixed
  • HD (or other setting) toggle(s) didn't work
  • Water didn't load in HD (but is still non shader based)
  • Fix models clipping if they are too big
HiveWE 0.7

This version has been a long time coming and thus I forgot a lot of what I've changed. The list below should roughly encompass most of the changes.

Added
  • Reforged support
  • Lua support
  • Object Editor
  • Unit Palette
  • Unit/doodad animation support
  • Unit/doodad lighting
  • Reposition units by dragging
  • Reposition doodads by dragging
  • Doodad scaling UI
  • Select units/doodads in Palette/OE buttons
  • Shortcuts for opening palettes (same as regular WE)
  • Load proper tileset blight texture
  • Doodads follow terrain pitch/roll
  • Doodads properly scale and rotate

Changed
  • Improved reset camera shortcut to center on current location
  • Improved transparency rendering
  • Default theme is now Dark
  • Selection circle autosize for doodads/units

Fixed
  • Doodad palette is very buggy all around
  • Trees show incorrect texture
  • Unit fly height is ignored
  • Wrong sequence extents cause incorrect culling
  • Windows will stay open when main window is closed (Thanks insanity_ai)
  • Custom tilesets load in the wrong color format (Thanks TriggerHappy)
  • Object editor crashes in invalid race (Thanks TriggerHappy)
  • Boats don't float on water (Thanks insanity_ai)
  • Unit fly height incorrect above water (Thanks insanity_ai)
  • Water does not occlude objects (Thanks insanity_ai)
  • Stand sequence not properly detected due to case sensitivity (Thanks insanity_ai)
  • FPS does not match vsync (Thanks Triggerhappy)
  • RGBA water textures were treated as RGB (Thanks LazZ)
  • Doodad are sometimes placed too high/low (Thanks insanity_ai)
  • Lava cracks are black/green due to RGB/BGR mismatch (Thanks insanity_ai)
  • MPQ export misses files (Thanks danielsheartbeat)

HiveWE 0.6

Additions
  • Map script generation!
  • Improved Jass highlighting
  • Improved Jass autocomplete
  • Tabs in the trigger editor now configurable
  • Trigger comments shown and editable
  • Rudimentary find window in trigger editor
  • Move camera with arrow keys
  • Shortcuts for opening/saving maps
  • Improved doodad pathing placement
  • Cool application icon
  • Doodad copy and paste
  • Doodad positioning with numpad
  • Improved themes

Changes
  • Camera is now a trackball type instead of TP/FP hybrid
  • Camera drag now proportional to distance
  • Camera now changes with terrain height
  • Doodads height after terrain change now interpolated
  • Doodads now selected with one click instead of two

Fixes
- Clicking on minimap now moves you to the correct location

HiveWE 0.5
Additions
  • Minimap
  • Full undo/redo for terrain/pathing/doodads
  • Show destructibles pathing
  • Visiblity/Solidity flags for doodads
  • Pathing map preview for doodads
  • Cliff lighting
  • A functioning JASS editor (with some limitations)
  • Dark theme
  • Doodad palette functionality
Changes
  • Check for empty warcraft directory path
  • Default doodad palette to Trees/Destructibles
  • Tries to run on the fastest GPU
  • Now also shows RoC (.w3m) maps in the open map dialog
Fixes
  • Can now launch HiveWE while Warcraft is running
  • Deep water for terrain palette has proper height
  • properly applies water pathing

HiveWE 0.4
Additions
  • Warcraft 1.30 support!
  • Full BLP1 support
  • Loads the shadowmap file (implementation waiting)
  • Import a heightmap (PNG, TGA, JPG and many others)
  • Load and edit map information! (loading screen/description)
  • Trigger viewer! View GUI and JASS triggers
  • An option to disabled enforcing water height limits
  • Added an experimental doodad palette
Changes:
  • Now uses the OS temporary folder instead of the "Data/Temporary" folder
  • Greatly increased pathing map contrast
  • Trigger and Import editor window modality changed
  • Now uses a ribbon instead of the old menu
Fixes:
  • Properly set the pathing for water and blight
  • Tilesetter now properly enforces 16 tiles
  • The correct ground texture variation is now chosen
  • Properly scale units and items
  • Properly scale doodads
  • Saving now chooses the right target

HiveWE 0.3
Additions:
  • Warcraft 1.29 support
  • Added a Tile Pathing setter
  • Added a Terrain Palette.
  • Added an Import Manager
  • Now shows the pathing texture on cliffs too
  • Added a first person camera and allow switching between them
  • Added terrain shadows
  • Reset camera using CTRL + Shift + C
Changes:
  • Removed war3Patch.mpq from the hierarchy
  • Added deprecated.mpq (from 1.29) to the hierarchy
  • SLK loading is now roughly 4x as fast (improved map load time)
  • Hides the brush when palette is inactive
  • Some small quality of life improvements
  • Improved RoC compatibility for unit loading
  • Changed terrain rendering to support different ground texture sizes
  • Now remembers your last open/save location
  • Further increased rendering performance for doodads a lot
  • Now remembers your Warcraft 3 directory if you previously located it

Fixes:
  • Fixed tileset/map hierarchy order
  • Fixed loading items placed on the map
  • Fixed a bug with the terrain being off by one (64x64 became 63x63)

HiveWE 0.2
  • Instanced rendering for Doodads and Cliffs provide a massive speed upgrade
  • Added tooltips to all buttons
  • Centered brush on mouse
  • Some code refactoring
  • Added tilesetter
  • Fixed blocky pixels under oblique angles
  • Added terrain saving
  • Allow running multiple instances
  • Fixed tile variation bug
  • Fixed tile texture UV bug
  • Added unit rendering
  • Very rudimentary animation parsing and geoset hiding
  • Improved RoC file format compatibility
HiveWE 0.1
  • Initial release
  • Draws terrain and doodads
  • Editing the pathing map

Technically a Warcraft installation is not required since the editor relies only on the game CASC files. We cannot distribute these due to legal reasons. Just point the editor at the folder containing them when it asks and you should be good to go!

If you encounter any issue with HiveWE then do ask for help! You can post here, reach me on the Hiveworkshop Discord eejin#4240 or message me on GitHub.

Many thanks to Ghostwolf for without him I wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as far. Also thanks to the rest of the Hiveworkshop community for supporting the creation of this editor.

Backup your map before using HiveWE
Previews
Contents

HiveWE 0.10 (Binary)

Reviews
Retera
This is a state of the art open source World Editor that draws on all of the community's knowledge of how to make Warcraft III maps. This current build is great for drawing terrain and doodads -- and new features are clearly under active development...
Yeah, I guess I could try that one.
I tried to send you a payment with glimmerfall.com online portal, I guess maybe the money is gone now. [See attachment]

Edit: For those interested, glimmerfall.com payment portal was down until just now, due to some server issue
 

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Last edited:
@eejin Since I have not been helping you code, is there a link to donate you money?
Nawww man no need to donate :). Thank you for the offer. If you still feel like donating then I'm sure Ralle could use it for the Hiveworkshop its hosting cost.

If one could recreate the WorldEdit pathing logic one could then compile a pathing difference image. This could be exported, the map edited in normal WorldEdit and imported again back in HiveWE so as to restore all pathing modifications while still keeping some pathing changes which were made in WorldEdit.

The pathing difference map could be considered a normal pathing map but where each node has an alpha flag, with transparent pixels being ignored and only opaque pixels modifying the pathing map.
Though interesting it might be more beneficial in the long run to focus on things like terrain editing. Once I got terrain texture/height editing and doodad placing I can just backup the war3map.w3e and pathing map and reload those once done in the original WE.
 
There might be any problem if you start adding other files unrelated to Wc3 or World Editor for your use?
 
Aww, c'mon guys, I was messing around probably almost as much as Kyrbi0, to get the joke all you have to do is go to glimmerfall.com to check out the payment portal.

As for being back on topic, has anybody worked out a way to store data in a wc3 map that is read and preserved by the editor, even if not used? Several options exist, definitely. I seem to recall TESH used to store "// TESH.scrollposition" in a comment in triggers that had been converted to JASS. That way, the normal editor preserved the comment and JNGP/WEX would have access to a stored scroll position value they could hide from the user. I thought I read something about WEX or a newer TESH doing this differently, though. In the worst case, it should always work to add an imported file to the war3map.imp file, perhaps call "HiveWE.ini" or whatever format you wanted, really, and as long as it's a registered file in the war3map.imp file then the standard World Editor should keep it inside the archive when saving. Perhaps if you were going to do this with a lot of files, you could name them "HiveWEConfig/<filename>".
So, you CAN use arbitrary extra information, to my knowledge -- as long as you're okay with standard WE users seeing the extra HiveWE files when they look in the import manager.
 
The reason to go to the immeasurable effort of rewriting the world editor is that the original one is not open source. Any good community optimizer would be open source, so I'm not sure I see your point. In one case the community does not control the code, in the other case, it does. Let's not worry about whether the code the community writes is compatible with other code the community writes, since in such a case both projects have publicly mutable code.
 
This is overall not bad! I see great potential in HiveWE once it improves! :thumbs_up:

Areas of Improvement:
-Remember the Warcraft 3 Directory, I have to manually locate it every time

-Make the Camera able to rotate around

-Is this normal or I'm doing something wrong?
asdasdas-png.294735

anyway I'm aware you already know this but there are major problems with doodads in the map:
we-preview-png.294737

hivewe-preview-png.294736

any idea what those red things are? lol


anyway I tried pathing a copy of my map with HiveWE and it worked fine when I opened it in the normal WE, the only problem was that I couldn't do an accurate pathing because of Doodads being "miss-shaped" and also the weird red things of doom.

If you want I would gladly sent you a copy of the map if it helps you solve any of those issues.

as I said before this has a lot of potential, hope to see a lot of improvements :thumbs_up:
 
The red things are the tc portrait plane geosets. They are part of the model actually but normally only visible via the model's portrait.
WE solves this by making all the models cycle though their stand animations but i guess hivewe just renders the doodads mesh without animations so it doesn't have an easy time of hiding the problem geosets. Perhaps if one were able to replace 'replaceable id 2' texture locally for hivewe you wouldnt see the problem.
 
This is overall not bad! I see great potential in HiveWE once it improves! :thumbs_up:

Thank you for the feedback. I am or intend to work on most of the features you have suggested. Expect to see them in some coming version! As for the errors in the console, does it do it every time? And can you confirm whether the named .mpq file exists in the Data/Temporary folder?
 
Thank you for the feedback. I am or intend to work on most of the features you have suggested. Expect to see them in some coming version! As for the errors in the console, does it do it every time? And can you confirm whether the named .mpq file exists in the Data/Temporary folder?
Any idea when you will be adding trigger support?
 
Any chance we could see a custom object editor in 0.3? OE lag is one major issue plaguing a lot of older big mapmakers and it would be great if they could get a simple lag free solution.
 
Hey guys great news, after a long wait HiveWE 0.3 is out!
HiveWE 0.3
Additions:
- Warcraft 1.29 support
- Added a Tile Pathing setter
- Added a Terrain Palette.
- Added an Import Manager
- Now shows the pathing texture on cliffs too
- Added a first person camera and allow switching between them
- Added terrain shadows
- Reset camera using CTRL + Shift + C

Changes:
- Removed war3Patch.mpq from the hierarchy
- Added deprecated.mpq (from 1.29) to the hierarchy
- SLK loading is now roughly 4x as fast (improved map load time)
- Hides the brush when palette is inactive
- Some small quality of life improvements
- Improved RoC compatibility for unit loading
- Changed terrain rendering to support different ground texture sizes
- Now remembers your last open/save location
- Further increased rendering performance for doodads a lot
- Now remembers your Warcraft 3 directory if you previously located it

Fixes:

- Fixed tileset/map hierarchy order
- Fixed loading items placed on the map
- Fixed a bug with the terrain being off by one (64x64 became 63x63)

See the main post or news post on the frontpage for screenshots and more info! (News post pending)
 
Hey guys great news, after a long wait HiveWE 0.3 is out!
HiveWE 0.3
Additions:
- Warcraft 1.29 support
- Added a Tile Pathing setter
- Added a Terrain Palette.
- Added an Import Manager
- Now shows the pathing texture on cliffs too
- Added a first person camera and allow switching between them
- Added terrain shadows
- Reset camera using CTRL + Shift + C

Changes:
- Removed war3Patch.mpq from the hierarchy
- Added deprecated.mpq (from 1.29) to the hierarchy
- SLK loading is now roughly 4x as fast (improved map load time)
- Hides the brush when palette is inactive
- Some small quality of life improvements
- Improved RoC compatibility for unit loading
- Changed terrain rendering to support different ground texture sizes
- Now remembers your last open/save location
- Further increased rendering performance for doodads a lot
- Now remembers your Warcraft 3 directory if you previously located it

Fixes:

- Fixed tileset/map hierarchy order
- Fixed loading items placed on the map
- Fixed a bug with the terrain being off by one (64x64 became 63x63)

See the main post or news post on the frontpage for screenshots and more info! (News post pending)

Great news! Is this eventually going to evolve into a replacement of standard editor?
 
Unfortunately does not work for me, I click on the HiveWe, and the command prompt opens up, but then it closes, and nothing happens after that.
 
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