New to WC3 Editor, need some guidance

[d3c31v35]

Hey all,

I am looking to get into the WC3 editor and try my hand at making an RPG, but I don't know anything about the editor, so I come to you for assistance.

Are there any General WC3 Editor guides you would recommend? Video or text are fine.

So far I have a map, with different areas and mobs, some "boss monsters", and a "dungeon" setup. ( I use quotes as these are concepts, the bosses don't have any skills, and the dungeon is a basic map without any fancy triggers or functions. ) I would like to learn as much as I can and slowly advance this project while honing my skills to then be able to make this little project into something more fleshed out and functional.

Also, if you could recommend where to start learning about:
Creating custom Enemies/Heroes
A custom save/load system using clickable buttons rather than manually inputting strings of code.
A click-through hero selector, rather than the wisp system.

Thanks in advance,
-Omi

 

[Remixer]

Hello! Welcome to the creative world of the editor - it can be very overwhelming in the beginning and even later on.

Hive has a tutorial section offering various tutorials on specific themes or areas of expertise, so I'd recommend checking that out. Also note that often times creators tend to focus on one area of creation. In Warcraft 3's case you will find that it's extremely rare for someone to master multiple focus-areas of the editor or content creation:
Terrainers are someone who focus on creating the physical environment in the maps visible to the player.
Coders are the ones who write down they code (event calls that correspond to triggered actions) in the map.
Object Managers are people who are wizards in knowing the object editor and its quirks (it has a lot of them).
Needless to say, all these specifications can be further split down to even smaller detail, for example coders often work only in one coding language (JASS or LUA) or the general triggers (GUI).

That being said, if you are trying to create something relatively large on your own, I'd recommend first writing down concepts: write a concept for a hero: what she does, what does she look like, does she have any special effects that should follow her or happen on specific times? What are her abilities, what do they look like and how do they synergize with each other and her playstyle?

By doing this, you will get a quite broad set of things that you'd then want to create in the World Editor. For this instance you'd need a little bit of knowledge of the object editor, and most likely some triggering as well (assuming you'd want to create customized spells) - but not necessarily. You can start off from the easiest bits and work towards the hardest.

And whenever you run into issues or obstacles you cannot figure out, there are plenty of people here that can help you.

 

[Pyrogasm]

• In your WE preferences uncheck the box that says "Fixed Random Seed" (that's fixed RNG for testing purposes usually) and change the default name/author of your maps for posterity!
  
  
• Consider switching your editor language to Lua (instead of JASS). Depends what resources from here you may want to use, since they must exist in a matching JASS/Lua version for your map. If using JASS, go to the trigger editor and click JassHelper > Enable JassHelper / Enable vJASS since that setting is defaulted off for all new maps and you want it on.
  
  
• Any unit can have its flying height set by a trigger even if it doesn't have flying movement type. In order to do this the unit just needs to have the Crow Form ability (druid of the talon) added to it and then removed from the unit. Once, ever, per unit. Then you can use flying height manipulation on any unit you may want to for visual purposes.
  
  
• The most important spellmaking tutorial on the site, in my opinion (it has other applications, too): Visualize: Dynamic Indexing
  
  
• If not using Lua for automatic garbage-collection, wc3 is prone to memory leaks from user code. You will need to know how to fix these, else your maps might suffer significant problems the game duration becomes high. The best resource to just know what to do, which links to a detailed tutorial about what a memory leak in wc3 is: Things That Leak
  
  
• This is the best method to 'passively' transform a unit into another unit (comes up more often than I expected it would so I link this now): Hero passive transformation
  
  
• How to make a passive ability with a cooldown (can be a good exercise to familiarize yourself with the editor, otherwise a neat unique trick): Passive ability with cooldown - Best method!
  
  
• A dummy unit configured as Uncle describes here can cast instantly anywhere it can see without turning to face the target within a single line of code, which means you can use it to cast a spell on all units in a group as long as it has no cooldown: [Solved] - AOE attack speed modifier buff
  
  
• When the melee AI will cast different spells and what the conditions are: Base abilities for custom spells cast by melee-game AI units
  
  
• In-depth look at every ability in the game, their quirks, and most of the knowable properties they have: Warcraft 3 Ability Insight Document

Do not be shy to ask specific questions as you come to them. Sometimes you'll get a quick response here and sometimes it may take a while, but many people are willing to help.

 

[Chaosium]

Best advice I can give is to start small and mess around with different aspects of the editor to see what you can achieve. We all want to make the next best ORPG/mega campaign, but it takes time, knowledge and effort, so aim for smaller goals

One good way to learn is to see how Blizzard did X thing in the official maps, especially in terms of triggers, which is probably the most dauting aspect at first

 

[d3c31v35]

Hive has a tutorial section

I have been combing over this section heavily. There is ALOT to go through but there is so much useful info.

That being said, if you are trying to create something relatively large on your own, I'd recommend first writing down concepts: write a concept.

I have sat down with 2 friends and we have brainstormed the entire game from start to finish. But I am locked in starting small. Currently working on the starting town at the moment. Have the town mapped out along with buildings, NPC units, and terrain to give it life. My main things to learn at the moment are: hHow to make the "Units" for Player 12 "Allies", able to sell items to players that are in the game. As well, a system that checks if the players have the currency (Eventually custom currency) to buy the items.

I need to learn how to add a UI button to the top of the player UI that allows them to click it and open the "New/Load" UI for creating/loading a character.

I need to learn to create custom Classes, Enemies, and Bosses. The poster below gave me some good links to start with on that front.

And whenever you run into issues or obstacles you cannot figure out, there are plenty of people here that can help you.

This is super appreciated! Thanks everyone and I look forward to learning from you all, and in the future, teaching others.

 

[d3c31v35]

• In your WE preferences uncheck the box that says "Fixed Random Seed" (that's fixed RNG for testing purposes usually) and change the default name/author of your maps for posterity!

Gone ahead and done that.

• Consider switching your editor language to Lua (instead of JASS). Depends what resources from here you may want to use, since they must exist in a matching JASS/Lua version for your map. If using JASS, go to the trigger editor and click JassHelper > Enable JassHelper / Enable vJASS since that setting is defaulted off for all new maps and you want it on.

I don't know too much about either and their pro/cons. I have used LUA back in my Text Adventure days (MUDs).

• Any unit can have its flying height set by a trigger even if it doesn't have flying movement type. In order to do this the unit just needs to have the Crow Form ability (druid of the talon) added to it and then removed from the unit. Once, ever, per unit. Then you can use flying height manipulation on any unit you may want to for visual purposes.

Will keep this in my pocket.

• The most important spellmaking tutorial on the site, in my opinion (it has other applications, too): Visualize: Dynamic Indexing
  
  
• If not using Lua for automatic garbage-collection, wc3 is prone to memory leaks from user code. You will need to know how to fix these, else your maps might suffer significant problems the game duration becomes high. The best resource to just know what to do, which links to a detailed tutorial about what a memory leak in wc3 is: Things That Leak

Will check out both of those guides. Have seen game that have an automatic "item on floor cleanup", if thats what you mean by "garbage".

• This is the best method to 'passively' transform a unit into another unit (comes up more often than I expected it would so I link this now): Hero passive transformation
  
  
• How to make a passive ability with a cooldown (can be a good exercise to familiarize yourself with the editor, otherwise a neat unique trick): Passive ability with cooldown - Best method!
  
  
• A dummy unit configured as Uncle describes here can cast instantly anywhere it can see without turning to face the target within a single line of code, which means you can use it to cast a spell on all units in a group as long as it has no cooldown: [Solved] - AOE attack speed modifier buff
  
  
• When the melee AI will cast different spells and what the conditions are: Base abilities for custom spells cast by melee-game AI units
  
  
• In-depth look at every ability in the game, their quirks, and most of the knowable properties they have: Warcraft 3 Ability Insight Document

Do not be shy to ask specific questions as you come to them. Sometimes you'll get a quick response here and sometimes it may take a while, but many people are willing to help.

Will look into these guides as well. A lot of useful info. Much appreciated.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Happy to help! Since you are at least tangentially familiar, would use Lua for your maps and only consider JASS if you start looking at a bunch of code/system/spell resources you might want to import.

Generalize your thought about garbage to include "any object like a unit, special effect, player group, item, point, etc. and the correct process to get rid of it when it's no longer needed" and that's basically it. Lua has some tricks to make this waaaay easier than the default GUI actions will faciliate; the structured tutorial linked to in the Things that Leak reference does a good job explaining. While this is a pervasive trigger problem you will have to learn to automatically do all the time, when starting out it may be better not to worry about memory leaks and just get better at making triggers without trying to prevent/fix/solve them. Just know that you will eventually need the skill.

This is probably way too much for now but in pursuit of UI manipulation these are important:

Warcraft 3 Reforged UI Designer (RUID)

Warcraft III Reforged UI Designer (v2.6.1) Discord Link Github Repository Link A tool made to create User Interface designs and systems for Warcraft 3 Maps without code. The application terminates the need for coding in favor of creating draggable graphical elements to express the design. Its...

www.hiveworkshop.com

The Big UI-Frame Tutorial

www.hiveworkshop.com

Tasyen is likely the most knowledgeable about UI here, so I ping them with an @ when I have a UI question and somtimes put their username in search results.

 

[d3c31v35]

@Pyrogasm Oh man! I just watched the "Showcase" video on the RUID. IT LOOKS SO CLEAN. The trade system is nice! The UI at the bottom being a few buttons allowing for all that screen space is so so so clean! Thank you for linking it!

Oh quick question. Watched a video for making a TD Map. It said to delete the "Melee Initialization". Do I do that in an RPG game or is that strictly for something like a TD Map?

 

[Pyrogasm]

Oh quick question. Watched a video for making a TD Map. It said to delete the "Melee Initialization". Do I do that in an RPG game or is that strictly for something like a TD Map?

Melee initialization is what spawns the starting workers based on chosen race and start point, plus does some other setup. If your map doesn’t need those things then you’ll want to delete the trigger.

There’s not much wrong you can do by getting rid of existing things. You’ll just need to decide if existing or imported code/triggers in your map are necessary for what you want to achieve.

 

[d3c31v35]

@Pyrogasm Should I keep posting in here or start a new thread?