How To make Maps!
(this is mainly a newbies guide, I doubt Advanced map makers will learn from it, but are more then welcome to add to it!)
Well, I cant really tell you exactly what to do. as its up to you, and with there being so many different types of maps its quite hard.
The 3 things most important in a map are - Layout, Triggers and Locations.
Now, I'm assuming your making a UMS map (use map settings). As melee is quite easy to do.
For UMS I suggest getting a good staredit patch (as found in my dl section -
I use GUEdit in combination with SCEP2).
Ok, as soon as you have one open it up. You should be faced with a badlands terrain 64x64.
Now before you start, consider the size of your map.
For rpg's the preferred size is 256x256. But if your map only takes half that size, make it smaller!!! For
madness' its 64x64 or 96x96 and for the other maps. Have a look at all the sizes, have a look at how big other maps are and decide on your size.
Always go for bigger in favor of smaller - as you can have room left over, which is better then not enough room!
Now, choose your terrain. Terrain doesn't matter, but for rpg's choose one with lots of doodads and different types of terrain. For
madness' choose a quick and easy one like badlands.
TRIGGERS
OK, by now you should have a rough idea of what you want.
The triggers are the trickiest part and READ THE HELP SECTION in staredit!
That's what its there for!
Anyway, the triggers are fairly simple.
Players: which player you want the action to happen to, mostly used with the
'current player' trigger.
Now there's the Conditions. This is what must happen before your trigger works.
If you want it to happen at the start - choose always or elapsed scenario time is 0 seconds.
There aren't too many conditions but you shouldn't need many more.
Sometimes you might have to think (which is hard for some people!). Like you cant say 'commands ___ at ____', so u use the brings trigger saying 'brings ____ to _____'
more complex conditions will be discussed further.
And the action - this is what will happen. Remember that if you want one thing to happen after another use 'wait'. And I've seen so many misuses of the preserve action trigger. What that means is that it loops the trigger for as long as the condition is met.
If you only want to repeat it a few times. Just copy out all your actions as many times as you want!
Now, if your trigger doesn't work. Always go through it step by step. thinking... this is
whets meant to happen now and so on. Also, remember over triggers.
They might overwrite your new trigger.
The computer isn't dumb it just does what you tell it.
Also, the computer only repeats a trigger every 2 seconds. Not all the time.
Oh, and when I was a new map maker, I thought comment meant that text would
show up. That's the display text trigger. Comment is just to help you find triggers. It will just say that, instead of showing all of your triggers.
SWITCHES
these are the most useful things for map making in starcraft!
They are very simple. What happens, is you can have a condition - like current player brings 5 men to [location]' and the action will be set switch. A switch can be cleared or set. And it
doesn't actually do anything, when its in either mode. It just helps you make things.
Now take the above example and for the action its 'set switch number1'
now, make a new trigger 'condition = switch number 1 is set' action... whatever you want. So when that switch is set, that will happen.
Its useful for continuation of triggers, and RPG's.
LOCATIONS
location, location, location!
Well this is the backbone of any UMS map. it does what it says, it marks a location.
Then you can use triggers to do stuff there. Like create units at the location. When players bring a unit to the location show some speech.
Its what you need for almost every trigger.
And locations are only used with triggers, nothing else.
You may move and resize your location, and u don't have to change the trigger.
Now, that was fairly simple. I will put up a FAQ if I get enough questions!
Thank you.
Awesome
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