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[Discussion] Recreating a Warcraft-3/Starcraft-2 like editor

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Level 7
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Hello Everyone...

I have left Warcraft-3 world editor for almost 3 years now and went into serious game development.

I have used World editor for more than 4 years. But at various places, I found World Edtior to be really really limiting and after hitting a wall a few times, I just had to quit my project.

A year or so later, some how I went back into game development. I started with UDK and then move into Unreal Engine 4 when it released.

So currently I am freelancing on a project which is kind of similar to DOTA.
I have written a lot of base classes which made character development in Unreal Engine 4 as easy as development in Warcraft-3 but still give enough unlimited amount of freedom.

I am just asking opinion regarding it here. I was thinking to create an editor similar to worldedtior/ galaxy editor but much more flexible compared to it. Since Unreal Engine 4 is free for non-commercial use now, there would be no problem to use it like world edtior and you can even release a commercial game with it without much issues.

This would be more or less like a side project for me. Along with the edtior I plan to work on an example game where developers can learn advance features of the framework and Unreal Engine 4.

Also Unreal Engine 4 has c++ as its programming language and has a nice visual scripting system called blueprint which is easy to learn and pretty powerful, so if any one doesn't want to program, they can use it.

I don't know if this is the best place to post this but I couldn't find any forum appropriate for this kind of post. So let me know what you all thing regarding this.
 
Level 7
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I totally support your project. Anyway, its a new engine or your modifying UDK?

Would be modifying UE4 but would try to give it features similar to Warcraft3 world edtior and a few things extra..

You wont have limitation with world/galaxy editor yet try to keep things as simple as possible for new learners.

Like we can have a simple DOT spell where they can change the damage effects, damage over time formula, duration with simple variables.
But you want to go advance, you can add stuffs like the DOT damage has a chance the stun the target or it can jump form 1 target to another and any other complex effect without much difficulty.

Until now, I have a good amount of base functionality for character and spells like buffs, debuffs, attack effects etc. But there is quite a long way to go. Like Ue4 has no good system to handle fog of war.

But for some systems like landscape/terrain editing, I will leave default UE4 systems for it.
 
Level 7
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So what the trigger system? or You are going to leave as blueprint?

I have been thinking about that..

Blueprints are really powerful and are object oriented and I don't think can create something similar.

So what I am planning to do is add custom events/Delegates to them which would work similar to Tiggers.

But I plan to add events to blueprints for units like OnSpellCastStart, OnSpellCastFinish etc..

I will add those events to a global blueprint class which would work exactly like trigger. So in-case you don't want to go into object oriented route and work with blueprint class of the units, you can use the global class to make trigger like functionality.

And if I forgot to mention, I am going to release the frame work free for the community. Since UE4 is free now too, every one can use the framework for both non-commercial and commercial use.
 
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So now whats the latest progress? Is it able to create b a sic melee maps?

Not even close I am just waiting for a good community response to see if there are users enough who are intrested.

For now I am working on a fog of war system I have finished a lot of base classes for any kind of spell but the current game I am working on is more of a MOBA so I need to shift all the code and rearrange for this project.

I got no idea how the modding community has moved over the last few years or if something like this is desired. The main focus for me would me to create an RPG frame work first and then go for the melee framework.

Can you ask any current MODDERs regarding their thoughts on this and if they are interested. This frame work would be exponentially powerful than either WorldEditor or GalaxyEditor.
 
Level 12
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There are many features which can not be directly edited by even the NewGen editor.

Once your project is actually working (to some extent) and downloadable, I guarantee you that it will be heavily used and it will rain feature requests..

Don't know, maybe this could help you..
 
Level 7
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There are many features which can not be directly edited by even the NewGen editor.

Once your project is actually working (to some extent) and downloadable, I guarantee you that it will be heavily used and it will rain feature requests..

Don't know, maybe this could help you..

I wont create an editor for warcraft-3 but edit UE4 in a way so that you can do everything you can do with WorldEditor or Galaxy Editor but then much much more.

But there are a lot of things I want to consider like how what features would the modders want in the the custom editor that are already present in the World/Galaxy editors etc.
 
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So what Name are you going to give to the UDK Mod? :D

No idea yet... I have not even created the project yet. All relevant code I have are currently a mess which needs refactoring then copying over

Maybe UE4 World Editor or something...

I have so many questions before I want to proceed. Like what kind of inventory do these guys want... I would be doing a poll or something similar in a few weeks.

The default inventory I can make either similar to what Warcraft-3 currently has but I can give an option to change the number the grid size so by default it would be 3x2 but the it would be easier to change the grid size so level 9 hero can hold 3x3 items or anything similar

Or I can make an inventory system like world of warcraft where there is an equipment slot and a separate slot for bags,

I like this I have many features on my mind which I am still unsure which way to go.
 
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Ardenian

A

Ardenian

If also people without/minor C++ knowledge can use it, like the GUI in Warcraft instead of Jass, this project could become very great and popular. I totally support this.
 
Wow, ok, I am VERY interested in something like this. World-Editor like engine with potential for commercial game? I'm in, especially if the learning curve won't be as significant as learning another game engine like Unity or Amazon's Lumberyard. Hell, even the Galaxy Editor for sc2 is complicated as all hell, so if you can 'simplify' all this to World Editor levels, I'm game.

Going from my own experience on World Editor and what I would want it to have, here's a small list of things that I think would greatly improve it. If you can make the UE4 editor have these functionalities, it would be great:
- An integrated Damage Detection System.
- A projectile system that can be completely configured - launch events, update events, impact events, collision events, etc.
- an engine that hopefully can support much more units than wc3?
- The ability to retrieve preset data from the Object Editor.
- integrated Buff stacking
- Lightning effects that don't give you an aneurysm when there are cliffs involved.
- UI customisation. So this means you won't really have to worry about what hero inventory would look like.
 
Level 3
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I'm interested! I've been working on something fairly similar, but in Unity.

Attached is a screenshot of the data/object editor GUI.

I also have an C# event-based trigger API. I'm also attaching a screenshot of an example trigger. It's still very WIP, but it all works.
 

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Level 3
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Yeah! Although if we do our job right, it's almost all API calls so it would be pretty accessible to anyone who has done some programming even if it isn't C#.

Definitely would love to have a GUI for it in the future, too!
 
Level 7
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If also people without/minor C++ knowledge can use it, like the GUI in Warcraft instead of Jass, this project could become very great and popular. I totally support this.

Yes Unreal engine 4 has a visual scripting language called Blueprints which is object oriented in nature but easy to use compared to GUI in warcraft

Wow, ok, I am VERY interested in something like this. World-Editor like engine with potential for commercial game? I'm in, especially if the learning curve won't be as significant as learning another game engine like Unity or Amazon's Lumberyard. Hell, even the Galaxy Editor for sc2 is complicated as all hell, so if you can 'simplify' all this to World Editor levels, I'm game.

Going from my own experience on World Editor and what I would want it to have, here's a small list of things that I think would greatly improve it. If you can make the UE4 editor have these functionalities, it would be great:
- An integrated Damage Detection System.
- A projectile system that can be completely configured - launch events, update events, impact events, collision events, etc.
- an engine that hopefully can support much more units than wc3?
- The ability to retrieve preset data from the Object Editor.
- integrated Buff stacking
- Lightning effects that don't give you an aneurysm when there are cliffs involved.
- UI customisation. So this means you won't really have to worry about what hero inventory would look like.

Yes I am planning all those thing..

But difficulty level I think might be slightly higher than World Editor.
Regarding projectiles, let me give you an example what I have currently.

There are 2 kinds of base projectiles.
1. homing projectiles
2. non-homing projectiles(target based mostly but not necessarily)

And there is a Location target spell which can fire the non-homing projectile.

For the projectile, you will have events like
1. On Projectile Spawn
2. Tick(an event that takes place each frame of the game)
3. When the projectile hits an unit, it returns the unit after which you can check its type of the unit.
4. When the projectile hits another collision surface like a tree or a wall.

And you can change projectiles velocity and direction at any time.

Also the huge difference is since its object oriented programming, each projectile is a separate instance of a class which can have separate variables so you don't have to do the MUI stuff which you had to do in warcraft3. So that would make things easier.


I'm interested! I've been working on something fairly similar, but in Unity.

Attached is a screenshot of the data/object editor GUI.

I also have an C# event-based trigger API. I'm also attaching a screenshot of an example trigger. It's still very WIP, but it all works.

That looks awesome...
 
Level 7
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An decrease in ease of use is to be expected (aka less user friendly), but I hope it's not gonna be sc2-levels of mind-boggling :p

I don't think it would be that difficult to use.
I am even planning to make some starting tutorials when I go with it.

A friend of mine is currently working on recreating MUGEN editor in Unreal engine 4 so I can possibly learn seeing how his release goes.
 
Level 7
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Hello everyone..

Sorry its been a while since I replied last. I don't come online on Hive like I used to in the past.

I am still working on it but not as a priority. I started my Game Development Studio start-up a few months back so been really busy with it.

Circuits and Shields | The modern player’s MOBA
This is the project I am currently working on which uses those the systems and its going good. Although the currently focus of my systems is to create an RPG rather than an RTS most of the core things will stay the same.

Thanks again for showing interest everyone.. I will try to give an update more frequently.
 

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Deleted member 219079

That site is outright broken on mobile, can't pan around.
 
Level 8
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Contributions and attempts to make similar are good, Blizzard left I think very complicated and very time consuming (to do I think custom modes fun, same I testing I think 1 or 2 years ago, I think that not changed much) the editor of Starcraft 2.


Respect programming languages, platforms, etc. If have this software working well, depending on the that operational systems that runs, I think already is very good. But wish that projects try do similar to World Editor of Warcraft 3, runs in operational systems that Dota 2 running (I think Mac, Linux and Windows).

Please @Arhowk do not stop (if you want). If project is a lot laborious, etc. Leave on second plan , if you enjoy working on it, but very intense, try to go slowly.
 
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Level 19
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Eh, I'm a motivational being. ATM I'm getting settled into school. Who knows what the future holds

Respect programming languages, platforms, etc. If have this software working well, depending on the that operational systems that runs, I think already is very good. But wish that projects try do similar to World Editor of Warcraft 3, runs in operational systems that Dota 2 running (I think Mac, Linux and Windows).

If I understand what you're saying, than yeah i wrote my stuff in Qt which is cross platform (you could even develop on iOS/Android if u wanted to ^^ Qt is sweet)
 
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