Starting over in map making

[Darkshooter1986]

Heya guys! Novice map maker here. Deciding to relearn how to make maps starting from the ground up. Figured i would stick to simple melee maps and gui triggers for the moment then when i am ready, dab into jass coding and more advanced map making. Any suggestions on where to start and what i should learn first?

 

[Retera]

Aww, geez man, you might have picked a rough time for this. I reckon most of the people who would probably be most helpful to you are probably busy trying to fix their own projects this weekend, because a new patch went live on last Wednesday (Aug 17th) that caused some unexpected changes and bugs/crashes in the World Editor that everybody still has to be figuring out right now in order to maintain their own projects.

where to start and what i should learn first?

Honestly I think the most important thing, probably more than anything else, is to determine your goal so that you will know when you get there whether you achieved it or not. For example, is your goal to play a multiplayer custom map with friends on the live Reforged servers? Or, is your goal to get some nostalgia for the Warcraft III game from if you played it years ago?

If you are working toward the nostalgia then you may want to consider playing an old version of Warcraft III such as from your CD (or from the incredibly-hard-to-find legacy download link from Blizzard) instead of the new Reforged game version. Sometimes going back to simpler times can mean simpler modding.
Or, on the flipside, you could go all-out trying to do the new Reforged graphics and then you might want to learn some different stuff and it might be more complicated, but then your map might look pretty in the end using the PBR ("Physics Based Rendering") that is only available on the Reforged graphics.

Other than that, personally I learned how to use these system by doing and not by asking. So my advice would be to set up a habit system, maybe a time each evening when you open World Editor and just play around and make things for 30 minutes or an hour. When I used to do that 18 or 20 years ago, I probably learned more as a result than I would from someone trying to explain it all on the Hive Workshop. But I am not sure, maybe we have some really good tutorials if you look around.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Literally try to do everything you think of and when you are confused, hit a wall, encounter unexpected behavior, etc. look to the forums and ask specific/pointed questions. The more you experiment by simply using the editor, the more you'll learn.

I'll link the two trigger-related tutorials that I find myself referring others to most often:

Things That Leak

For a structured tutorial on the matter, read this. Hello guys! Credit to: Wolverabid, PurplePoot, Silvenon, Paskovich I want to make a list of things that leak and ways to fix them. Dynamic Unit Groups This trigger will instantly destroy dynamically generated unit groups. Trigger...

www.hiveworkshop.com

Visualize: Dynamic Indexing

Contents Introduction MUI Dynamic Indexing Comparison Credits A Introduction Dynamic indexing is a technique used to ensure that your spell or code can be ran multiple times without any MUI issues. At first, it is incredibly daunting to look at. This tutorial aims to show it in a better...

www.hiveworkshop.com

However, if you want to commit to putting your map in Lua mode (can't use JASS) then there are some cool resources to help automatically clean up things like this or make it seem simpler to manage them.

Also be aware that all sorts of crazy custom UI stuff is now possible, so old limits on what you can do there basically don't apply.

 

[Darkshooter1986]

Aww, geez man, you might have picked a rough time for this. I reckon most of the people who would probably be most helpful to you are probably busy trying to fix their own projects this weekend, because a new patch went live on last Wednesday (Aug 17th) that caused some unexpected changes and bugs/crashes in the World Editor that everybody still has to be figuring out right now in order to maintain their own projects.


Honestly I think the most important thing, probably more than anything else, is to determine your goal so that you will know when you get there whether you achieved it or not. For example, is your goal to play a multiplayer custom map with friends on the live Reforged servers? Or, is your goal to get some nostalgia for the Warcraft III game from if you played it years ago?

If you are working toward the nostalgia then you may want to consider playing an old version of Warcraft III such as from your CD (or from the incredibly-hard-to-find legacy download link from Blizzard) instead of the new Reforged game version. Sometimes going back to simpler times can mean simpler modding.
Or, on the flipside, you could go all-out trying to do the new Reforged graphics and then you might want to learn some different stuff and it might be more complicated, but then your map might look pretty in the end using the PBR ("Physics Based Rendering") that is only available on the Reforged graphics.

Other than that, personally I learned how to use these system by doing and not by asking. So my advice would be to set up a habit system, maybe a time each evening when you open World Editor and just play around and make things for 30 minutes or an hour. When I used to do that 18 or 20 years ago, I probably learned more as a result than I would from someone trying to explain it all on the Hive Workshop. But I am not sure, maybe we have some really good tutorials if you look around.

ok will do. im tinkering with the WE atm. thank you for the advice

Literally try to do everything you think of and when you are confused, hit a wall, encounter unexpected behavior, etc. look to the forums and ask specific/pointed questions. The more you experiment by simply using the editor, the more you'll learn.

I'll link the two trigger-related tutorials that I find myself referring others to most often:

Things That Leak

For a structured tutorial on the matter, read this. Hello guys! Credit to: Wolverabid, PurplePoot, Silvenon, Paskovich I want to make a list of things that leak and ways to fix them. Dynamic Unit Groups This trigger will instantly destroy dynamically generated unit groups. Trigger...

www.hiveworkshop.com

Visualize: Dynamic Indexing

Contents Introduction MUI Dynamic Indexing Comparison Credits A Introduction Dynamic indexing is a technique used to ensure that your spell or code can be ran multiple times without any MUI issues. At first, it is incredibly daunting to look at. This tutorial aims to show it in a better...

www.hiveworkshop.com

However, if you want to commit to putting your map in Lua mode (can't use JASS) then there are some cool resources to help automatically clean up things like this or make it seem simpler to manage them.

Also be aware that all sorts of crazy custom UI stuff is now possible, so old limits on what you can do there basically don't apply.

ah ok been a while since i last looked at the website. haven't had a whole lot of time to devote to learning map making. i shall look up lua coding eventually when i grasp the basics of map making. thank you