.::[Tutorial/FAQ]::.

[Kam_Islash]

MAKING A TOWN BURN

Ok, here is how I discovered how toi make a town be fine on moment, and burning the next.

1) Create the town using the Structure doodads.

2)Make a small region under each building.

3) Create the following trigger.


actions:

Create A special effect at the center of (name of region) using Fire Generator

Repeat this for all of the regions.


Unfortunately, there is no "Pick Every Region and Do" function, so it can get kind of tedious.

///

 

[genki-dama]

there is no pick all regions trigger ?? i never looked - I suggest using varibles(arrays) when doing multiple region stuff - it's much less tedious

 

[tassadar920]

Yes arrays of regions work much better...

Also another thing: Instead of ONLy fire doodads, copy the fire doodad and make a MUCh larger version, then to make really cool stuff, use an offset sysetm to make a wall of fire pass through, as it passes each regino it sets the house on fire.

 

[Garthrs]

Helped me out when I was having trouble. Thanks!!! Now I can add all the cool effects I originally wanted, but couldn't get right...

 

[Dirtie]

PLEASE genki-dama can you give us your explanation of DDScoring!

 

[Stardragon]

This is really strange, I unprotected the map and placed a unit on it and saved, everything ok and so on, but ingame it is not there?
All the units that was on the map from the beginning are there..

EDIT: Of some reason I seem to have duplicates of all doodads, I am not sure if the units/buildings are also duplicated, does anyone know what I've done wrong?




This is just a suggestion, create a little subforum for Unprotecting, it gets pretty messy here, just finding that the unprotecting tutorial had been moved was a hell..

 

[Aileron31527]

Ey I need help on something.

Im new with this Custom game making thing. I'm trying to make a Micro Wars but i need to know an important thing. When a round ends, how do you make another group of units spawn in a certain area so the next round can start?

O andhow do you customize a hero or a unit. (ex. I want a death knight to be Level 5 when it spawns)

 

[HavocAngel]

Help With Trigger DisplayTextToForce

I apologize if someone has allready asked this, but... I got this map off the internet and I was looking for the trigger to display text... i found this one and was wondering how you change what the text says in the trigger....

call DisplayTextToForce( GetPlayersAll(), "TRIGSTR_218" )

the thing is, a tutorial i looked at said that TRIGSTR_218 should come up when that trigger initiates.... but what comes us is "Welcome To Blah Blah Map".... can smyone tell me how to change this?

Thnx,

~HavocAngel~

 

[Dethstalker]

Hey,
I read almost all the tutorials i can find and i cant seem to find a good one...any help....

im also hopeing someone can help me. I'm using UMSWE for frozen throne and i have my map perfect except i played some maps and they have the info button. F9 and they have all the info and commands but i cant figure out how to add the function. When i play my map everything is fine but that button is closed so i cant open it.

Any help i've looked everywhere

 

[Dirtie]

Re: Help With Trigger DisplayTextToForce

Originally posted by HavocAngel
I apologize if someone has allready asked this, but... I got this map off the internet and I was looking for the trigger to display text... i found this one and was wondering how you change what the text says in the trigger....

call DisplayTextToForce( GetPlayersAll(), "TRIGSTR_218" )

the thing is, a tutorial i looked at said that TRIGSTR_218 should come up when that trigger initiates.... but what comes us is "Welcome To Blah Blah Map".... can smyone tell me how to change this?

Thnx,

~HavocAngel~

I'm no expert or anything, but I would guess that TRIGSTR_218 is a variable. Just do a search through the rest of the triggers to find where the variable is defined, and change it to what you want.

 

[Dirtie]

Originally posted by Aileron31527
Ey I need help on something.

Im new with this Custom game making thing. I'm trying to make a Micro Wars but i need to know an important thing. When a round ends, how do you make another group of units spawn in a certain area so the next round can start?

O andhow do you customize a hero or a unit. (ex. I want a death knight to be Level 5 when it spawns)

I won't pretend to be an expert on this, but for your first question: It's all done by triggers, just like most things.

For your second question: If you don't know this then you have a lot of learning to do. Place the Death Knight on the map, use the select tool to select him, press Enter, then change the "Level" value.

Originally posted by Dethstalker
Hey,
I read almost all the tutorials i can find and i cant seem to find a good one...any help....

im also hopeing someone can help me. I'm using UMSWE for frozen throne and i have my map perfect except i played some maps and they have the info button. F9 and they have all the info and commands but i cant figure out how to add the function. When i play my map everything is fine but that button is closed so i cant open it.

Any help i've looked everywhere

As the "info" tab as you call it is really the "quests" tab, then you should just create some quests (using triggers)with all the info you want about the map inside them (upon map initialization), easy.

 

[HavocAngel]

Re: Re: Help With Trigger DisplayTextToForce

Originally posted by Dirtie
I'm no expert or anything, but I would guess that TRIGSTR_218 is a variable. Just do a search through the rest of the triggers to find where the variable is defined, and change it to what you want.

It is not a variable.... i checked... anything else it could be?

 

[daorc]

I found this tutorial and i thought i'd share it with you guy's.

Files you need:
MilkShape 3D - http://www.milkshape3d.com
LithUnwrap - http://files.seriouszone.com/download.php?fileid=198
WC3 Map Utilities - http://www.wc3campaigns.com/files.p...;file=33&s=
YobGuls File Converter - http://www.wc3campaigns.com/files.p...;file=32&s=
Any Paint Program


We are going to be making a pyramid with a floating ball on top unwrapping it, skinning it, and animating it.

First off, open up MilkShape.
Now, make a box, and make sure it's on the ground.
Now in the right toolbox, goto select, and goto near the bottom of the right toolbar, and select "vertex".
Now you should have dots in the 4 corners of your box.
On the top right screen, select the top right dot, and drag it half way to the left, now do the same to the top left dot, but drag it over top of the dot you just moved. Now do the same on the top left screen.
There you go, you got a pyramid!
Now select sphere and make a ball over the pyramid.
Now, select joint, and make a joint in the middle of the ball.
Now goto groups on the right toolbar, the sub-section one, highlight sphere 01, then goto joints and press assign. Now we got a ball that can move!

Animating
Now we will have to animate the ball. This is pretty hard. goto the bottm right of the screen, and click on "Anim". Now select the joint. Press Ctrl + K ( I will refer to that and keyframing). Now there should be 2 numbers to the left of the Anim button. Set the one on the right to 10. Set the one on the left to 5. Now take the joint, and move it up about 3 cm up the moniter. Now keyframe this frame. Make the number on the left to 10. Make the ball a little lower than where you keyframed it first, and keyframe the frame. Now make the number on the left to 1, and click to ">" button above Anim. The ball should move up and down. Now for unwrapping.

Unwrapping with LithUnwrap
Save your pyramid ball combo. Make sure you dont export it, but save as. Now save it anywhere with any name. Now open LithUnwrap. Goto 'File > Model > Open' and open your model. There should be many triangles. Thats ok, so dont worry. Now on the right toolbar, press the + beside groups. the select box 01. All the triangles should disappear, and there should be a box with a "/" through it. Now right click on box 01 under groups, and press select. Now right click on the box to the left and press "Scale > Arbitrary...". Click on X0.5 and press the close button. now move your small square to the top right of the grid. Now to the same with sphere 01, but move it to the bottom right. Now save the file as '<name>.3ds'. Then goto 'File > UV Map > Save...' and save it as 'pyraball.bmp' ( you need to save it as this, or you cant use your skin. Make it "Color" And check off "fill" There, now you are done unwrapping.

Conversion Junk and Skinning
Now open your UV map you just saved it your paint program. Now make colours or some kind of pattern (the square is the box, and the pointed box is the sphere). Save it again. Now open up WC3 Map Utilities. Goto "Plug-ins" and open "(3DS/OBJ) -> MDX Convertor". Now find you "<name>.3ds" file and put it in the first field. Then Goto a folder and save it as "pyraball.mdx". WARNING!!! Don't convert it yet!!!! This is where most people will go "I'm a genius, so I'll just press CONVERT now!" Well, DON'T. Well, you can if you want your model to have a messed up skin. So now goto "Textures > Texture Pathname..." and type in "Textures\pyraball.blp".
NOW you can press convert. And then close it. Now in plug-ins, goto "WarCraft III Viewer". Then click on the button that says "? - .blp" right below the top toolbar. Now find your "pyraball.bmp" you made, and convert it to "pyraball.blp". You are very close to done... Now open YobGuls File Converter and convert "pyraball.mdx" to "pyraball.mdl". Then find "pyraball.mdl" and use it with notepad. There should be a place near the top that says...
Sequences 1 {
Anim "Stand" {
Interval { 0,3333 },
Change it to...
Sequences 1 {
Anim "Stand" {
Interval { 0, 10 },
Now it you haven't already, close YobGuls, and reopen it. Now convert the file back to "pyraball.mdx"

Importing it!!!
Ok, you are done the model!!! Now open a WE and goto "Import Manager". Import "pyraball.mdx" and "pyraball.blp". Change the pathname of the .mdx to "Unit\Other\PyramidBall\pyraball.mdx" and the .blp to "Textures\pyraball.blp". Now goto "Object Editor" and make a custom unit with the model file we imported. Now place it on the map and you should see it... just joking... Save the map and close it, reopen it and it should be there!

 

[daorc]

[Basic Map Makeing Tip's]
Ok, so, when you're making a map, try to complete one section at a time. You do NOT have to complete the whole map's terrain, then it's units, then triggers, then doodads. Doing it all at once calls for crappy maps faster than Michael Jackson calls for 9 year old boys. Anywhoo, one section at a time.

When placing your environment, don't stuff an area full of rocks unless you want to make a dam in a river or something, because otherwise it'll look unnatural.
-Place a few rocks, some cattails, a few river rushes, maybe some flowers along the sides, etc...
-If you are making a river with some rocks, place the rocks along the sides, so they're in sight.
-You could also make small shallow water locations along the sides of the river, but only about three squares of it (smallest terrain placing size).

-When making bridges, try to make sure the land and the bridge are completely intersecting eachother; meaning, move the World Editor camera around to where the bridge touches the land, and make sure there aren't any gaps inbetween the bridge and the ground.
-If there are gaps, it looks odd when your units get on the bridge, because they jump up a few feet once they touch the bridge. Once again, it doesn't look natural.
-If you need to look at any of the items contained so far, just take a look at one of Blizzard's maps. That could help you with a lot of placing issues you may be having.

Now, onto waterfalls:
-When placing waterfalls, make a river like you normally would. Make sure that it has an area that it ends where there's room to lower the terrain and create another waterfall, because the next step is to lower the terrain one level at the edge of where you ended the water.
-Then, in the little area you just made the terrain lowering, start another river.
-Once you're done with that river, go back to where you had lowered the terrain from the first river.
-Go up to Advanced at the top, and go to the bottom of the menu. You should see an option that's checked that says "Enforce Water Height Limits". Uncheck this option.
-Once unchecked, go to the area where the first river and the second river are meeting.
-Go to the Water Tool, and place the water; it's probably best you use a size less than or equal to the size of the rivers you already placed; and place the water where the two rivers connect. It should make a little cliff water area, where the water is going along down the cliff and connecting the two rivers.
-Go back to Advanced, and check "Enforce Water Height Limits" to put the option back on. Make sure there's cliffs along the rivers edges.
-Then, go to the Doodad Palette, go to Water, and choose waterfalls.
-Place one waterfall, then, what I like to do, is copy and paste that same waterfall so it's all the same sizes of waterfalls.
-Then align them all so they all look as if they're under the water, but still going over the side of the cliff. A good example of waterfall placement is the first level of Night Elf on The Frozen Throne. There's a little area where there's a huge area of waterfalls.

Placing units, now:
-When placing buildings, don't make the buildings organized, unless you're making a village of Humans or something. Orc, Undead, and Night Elf, on the otherhand, you shouldn't make organized NO MATTER WHAT!
-For units, all races should have random placements of units. Don't make a group of units all together unless it's the start of the map.
-For critters, just put 10-20 in your map at different locations.
-For creeps, you should organize a little bit. Put the strongest creeps at the back of the group, medium strength creeps in middle, and weakest in front. Make the creeps in the back drop the items. This way, the weaker die first from enemies, and the strongest last longer, allowing the to kill more, and it makes it look as if the weaker protect the stronger.

Terraining Now:
-When terraining, put rock doodads on rock terrains, and go to the Raise tool in the Terrain Palette and raise the rocks higher than the rest of the ground, but not super high.
-For dirt paths, make small scattered areas of rough dirt throughout the trail. Then lower the dirt lower than the rest of the ground, but not super low.
-Once you've done all of that stuff, click on the noise tool, make areas of noise throughout the entire map (best to do one section at a time).
-Then, once all the noise you want is on, go to the Smooth Tool, and smooth it all so it looks like small little bumps in the ground. If you smoothed too much, just go back to the dirt and rocks and lower\raise them again.

 

[Nieffed]

Re: World Editor FAQ

Originally posted by Darimus

Question: What is WE, and how do I use it?

Answer: 99.99% of the people here know the answer but... to avoid the .01% that don't, it is in your warcraft III directory, default: C:\Program Files\Warcraft III then find World Editor.exe and double click it. WE is an acronym (or a few letters made to make typing out long phrases easier) and stands for World Editor
[/B]

Also, there is an advanced editor out there, that i myself use, UMSWE. To learn more about it go here. this website is the pros, and a much more Warcraft efficiant website than the battleforums. this website not only has its own World Editor, but tons of mods and other features, such as a forum, and a store. its been here for about 3 years, and everyone knows everyone, and if u go there, u can learn alot more stuff.
Happy modding,
Nieffed

 

[Nieffed]

I am an expert when it comes to triggers, but i dont have any time to answer all your questions. If u need my help email me at Nieffenegger@hotmail.com and I will be happy to do messanger if u have a hotmail account.
Happy Modding,
Nieffed

 

[Speaker]

Map Making Tips

Tips will be added as time progresses.

Tip 1.
If you have a broken ramp just add doodads to cover it up. I suggest the SHRUB doodad because it makes it look more natural. Doing this will hide the broken ramp, and make the terrain more appealing.
=======================
Tip 2.
I suggest NEVER to have what I call a "Straight Line Of Events" This is where you have multiple Doodads in a Straight Line. Example: 3 Houses in a straight Line one next to the other.
=======================
Tip 3.
Using The Advanced Drop Down on the toolbar can be VERY useful. I recommend Switching up the Game Interface and then the Game Constants.
=======================
Tip 4.
To start terrain I first start out with the main paths. I get the tileset desired and I just make the path with no doodads or no detail what so ever. Once you have the path down, start at the beginning of the path and go little by little down it with as much detail as possible.
=======================
Tip 5.
Using Trees To make a map look more natural is always a great thing to do. If you make a main path, then you/I should usually line the path with trees, than later on delete un-wanted trees and make branching paths with more detailed doodads/terrain.
=======================
Tip 6.
If you want doodads to overlap such as..a cityscape wall, ending with a wall lantern..You would normally not be-able to do this..BUT if you get your desired Doodad and hold down SHIFT while droppng your doodad where you want it..you can overlap. This works very well if used properly and can be used to create a consistant stream of doodads. But if used wrong, it can make a map look sloppy and quite laggy. :rollie
------------------
Everyone is Allowed to Add Tips, So Start tipping =D

 

[Darimus]

Tip 7. Uncheck Brush List in the Window section, to reduce lag.

Tip 8. Add debug messages to triggers if they aren't working

Tip 9. You can find the unit you're looking for... Control F in the Unit Editor is Find.

Tip 10. After you found the unit you want, right click it in the editor and hit Select in Tool Pallete to place it on the map.

 

[Dethstalker]

Tip 11. If You edit a map of any kind and even if you only edit a smal feature save it as a different version so people dont get confused at what version is newer or so on.
=======================
Tip 12. Dont have alot of triggers that move units with the event
Time - Every _.__ seconds of game time
it makes alot of lag when used to often
=======================
Tip 13. When making triggers try to use variables whenever you can to save space. They help alot and sometimes can save alot of space. Example: periodic creation creeps every _.__ seconds

 

[M3_feelin_0wn3d]

Originally posted by Darimus
Tip 7. Uncheck Brush List in the Window section, to reduce lag.

-Tip 8. Add debug messages to triggers if they aren't working-

Tip 9. You can find the unit you're looking for... Control F in the Unit Editor is Find.

Tip 10. After you found the unit you want, right click it in the editor and hit Select in Tool Pallete to place it on the map.

what do you mean with this? i dont get it?

14= If you are making a map where players must select a hero it is better if you put all hero's down in big circles so that player can select with a unit than putting altars down. When making hero at altar it makes A LOT of lag