SC2Mapster

Weekly Data Exercise

Nevjmac had no time so I asked him whether I should post, he said yes. Don't worry, its not as stupid as last weeks :p

Weekly Data Exercise #18

Elementals

Elementals are in all kinds of games - creatures made of magic from a certain element. In World of Warcraft elementals aren't too rare, in Oblivion you've got "Atronarchs" which are pretty much the same, and I think you get what I mean by elementals.

So, what to do this week? Make an elemental! Practically a themed unit. Get a model that reminds you of a certain element, make a unit out of it, give it an attack based on that element, and try and give it 2-3 abilities if you can. A passive that fits the element would also be cool.

Challenges:

• Water Elemental - SC2 has no ice or water based assets at the moment afaik (Apart from the waterfall and maybe some other doodads), so I'd like to see what you would come up with. Fire elementals would be easier to make, tint an archon orange and use all the fire assets like hellion flamethrower, fire medium, etc. But we don't have anything directly related to waiter. You can do an Ice Elemental instead if you want, but I think water is more of a challenge ;)
  
• Imported Elemental - See if you can get a WoW model (Or any other model) for your elemental, or even spell effects (if they import/export correctly)
  Learning how to use imported stuff could be useful for your map making! If you want to, even import sounds and icons (Or just make your own Sound data objects using already existing sounds, to see how it works.) Making wireframes would be more of an Art Exercise than a Data exercise, so no need to do that (But if you want to, feel free)
  
• Try not using the archon model or pre-made archon related data objects!

The Almaity will not be held responsible for any cases of madness, insanity, mental illnesses, broken bones, vampirism, pregnancies, stray cats, kittens-killed-by-god, or broken fingernails caused by this WDE, and most definitely doesn't claim to be sane himself. He also doesn't claim to be insane, altough he is talking in third person about himself right now. Participate in this WDE at your own risk.

So an Archon is basically a finished lightning-elemental? xD

I'll probably participate...somewhen...

Definitely gonna do this one, but for now this is something I made before which is kinda an elemental, only 1 ability so I think I'll expand on this guy:

@TheAlmaity: Go

There we go...

Challenge.... ACCEPTED! I'm gonna see what assets are available, and I'm going to try and go 1 step beyond Water Elemental.... ;P

EDIT: Oh damn, I just got a better idea!

This will be more interesting if you forbid the use of the Archon model.

Quote from Vexal: Go

This will be more interesting if you forbid the use of the Archon model.

You are free to use this restriction yourself ;)

This is sort of funny I was already working on a map like this.

Quote from Vexal: Go

This will be more interesting if you forbid the use of the Archon model.

There, added it to the challenges. It's an exercise, if someone doesn't think he can make an elemental without the archon model, then he probably isn't the best at the data editor, and should be able to do the exercise at his own skill level.
But yeah, if you can do without the archon model, don't use it!

@BorgDragon: Go

Really wanna see what you're gonna come up with :)

Well, I have 2 ideas.

The first which I am working on, and the second... well.. the art assets just don't seem to be there. At least not what I would like. So I'm still in the 'Previewer' phase of Elemental #2. :)

I'm in the making of an non-archon-elemental as well, but I still have some problems with the texture-change ^^"

Thanks, but I could do it myself : )
The problem was, that I couldn't change the texture for the lava-critter model, because I used the false substrings ("", "Spec", "Emissive" and "Norm" are needed for the lava-critter instead of "Diffuse", "Specular", "Emissive" and "Normal")

NIcely done kueken. You should seriosly start making a new game already (If you havent started) HLW wasnt that fun IMO :(.

Quote:

maybe walk speed is set wrong?

its not wrong, I changed it. Before, it looked even more awkward ;)

Very nice Kueken! I like it, the abilities were cool.

... but the legs just look really out of place I find.

Which reminds me, I really should finish my first elemental. At this pace I won't be doing elemental #2 even though I think if I could pull it off, that Elemental #2 would be better than my first one.

Quote from BorgDragon: Go

Very nice Kueken! I like it, the abilities were cool.

... but the legs just look really out of place I find.

Well, great that I spent almost a day figuring out how to make arms and legs (trying different approaches and discarding most of them :/) and made the abilities in like 1-2 hours :D

I am not too happy with the legs either :/

think im gonna do a fire elemental ill try without archon but im not sure

Quote from aczchef: Go

think im gonna do a fire elemental ill try without archon but im not sure

It might not look like it, but mine does not use archon-related models as well ;) (just the wireframe and sounds :D)