First of all, hello everybody. I bought SC2 having heard about it's extraordinary editing abilities, and while I am by no means disappointed, I find myself a little over my head at times - ok, way over my head most of the time :P.
I followed the WASD movement tutorials, tried streamlining them a little bit, and it occurred to me that it might be possible to transfer the basics of the system to data, leaving a much simpler trigger based skeleton.
My thoughts are these, and while I'm sure I'm missing some important facets, I hope this is enough to get anyone with experience on the track of what I want to do:
- I saw a video of a spell which sets an enemy on fire in the very cool spell contest. The burning unit runs around randomly. Is it possible to take away the randomness, say making it run in a particular direction? I saw something about target offsets in the persistent effect, and while I don't know what they do exactly, it looked promising if it isn't strictly rectilinear.
- I saw another video of 'magic missile' in the same contest (very nifty by the way). The effect appeared to be generated for as long as the button was pressed. Again, still floundering my way around the data editor, but this is another step in the right direction.
- If the random movement from the first point isn't a rotated coordinate system that coincides with the unit's facing, then what about another video I saw about the uberlisk, which appeared to have attached units that rotated with the main unit. If these units could be made attached to the unit at an offset (and invisible), could their locations be retrieved as the target for effect-generated move orders? Obviously this would take some careful rotation so the unit doesn't end up chasing its tail or running back and forth.
Ultimately what I'm looking for is this: When the player presses W, the unit runs forward in the direction its facing, and stops when it is not pressed. When A is pressed, the unit runs towards its initial left, then runs straight, with similar effects happening with S and D, as well as any combination of two adjacent directional keys (W and D, S and D, etc), with opposite keys canceling and overriding each other in turn (i.e. You are holding W and then press S, you start moving backward for as long as you hold S. If you let go of and repress W, you start moving forward even though you are still holding both keys).
Hopefully this is enough to get my intent across, even if it isn't ultimately possible.
Thanks for reading, and I appreciate anyone's thoughts!
I don't know much, but you may be able to make an ability to do this, with the hotkeys being w, a, s, and d. Again, I don't know how you would achieve this, but it's a thought
If you do manage to do this you'd have solved one of the hardest problems that exists now. Trigger based WASD movement causes a lot of latency at the moment on Battle.net and implementing it using Data should offset the load onto the client.
I gave this some thought back in the beta. This can solve the net-traffic issues of the current implementation, however you would have problems for example if someone pressed W+D moving North East. Another issue would be that abilities are cast on key-ups I think(I am at work), so holding W to move forward as one would expect would not be possible. If anyone wants to give this a shot, send me a PM as it would be a fun problem to tackle.
The Random movement behavior is a copy of the critter behavior that makes it move around in a random way. It's a type all it's own, and you can only leash a unit, not dictate which direction it can move.
ok, so I think I know, in layman's terms, how I want this to work, the problem is I have no idea how to get the editor to do this. If people could keep me pointed in the right direction as I flounder around, I'd really appreciate it.
Ok, here goes my explanation:
1. For each player, create a "keyboard" unit (possibly the camera object?) that will receive all commands of that player. The unit is not modeled and never uncontrolled.
2. All other modeled units (just one, in the game type I'm imagining) are slaved to this Keyboard.
3. Each modeled unit has a set of eight "anchor" points attached (compass rose style) to a central
"marionette" which is in turn attached to the main hero and slaved to the Keyboard. The marionette is free to rotate independent of the hero, and always faces the camera.
4. There is an additional "target" point which by default is located at the marionette and follows it, but whose position can be adjusted.
5. When a wasd key is pressed (not lifted, pressed. I think something in the game is able to activate things on key downs, or else abilities wouldn't highlight when hotkeyed...) the keyboard tells the target point to move forward, backward, left or right to one of the anchor points, and then tells the hero to move towards the target point.
If anyone has ideas on how to make any part of this, has questions about my explanation, has alternatives to parts that won't work, or even just has other ideas about how to execute this, any input would be greatly appreciated.
Another issue would be that abilities are cast on key-ups I think(I am at work), so holding W to move forward as one would expect would not be possible.
That's not true! I have a spell that is used as long as I hold down the button.
First of all, hello everybody. I bought SC2 having heard about it's extraordinary editing abilities, and while I am by no means disappointed, I find myself a little over my head at times - ok, way over my head most of the time :P.
I followed the WASD movement tutorials, tried streamlining them a little bit, and it occurred to me that it might be possible to transfer the basics of the system to data, leaving a much simpler trigger based skeleton.
My thoughts are these, and while I'm sure I'm missing some important facets, I hope this is enough to get anyone with experience on the track of what I want to do:
- I saw a video of a spell which sets an enemy on fire in the very cool spell contest. The burning unit runs around randomly. Is it possible to take away the randomness, say making it run in a particular direction? I saw something about target offsets in the persistent effect, and while I don't know what they do exactly, it looked promising if it isn't strictly rectilinear.
- I saw another video of 'magic missile' in the same contest (very nifty by the way). The effect appeared to be generated for as long as the button was pressed. Again, still floundering my way around the data editor, but this is another step in the right direction.
- If the random movement from the first point isn't a rotated coordinate system that coincides with the unit's facing, then what about another video I saw about the uberlisk, which appeared to have attached units that rotated with the main unit. If these units could be made attached to the unit at an offset (and invisible), could their locations be retrieved as the target for effect-generated move orders? Obviously this would take some careful rotation so the unit doesn't end up chasing its tail or running back and forth.
Ultimately what I'm looking for is this: When the player presses W, the unit runs forward in the direction its facing, and stops when it is not pressed. When A is pressed, the unit runs towards its initial left, then runs straight, with similar effects happening with S and D, as well as any combination of two adjacent directional keys (W and D, S and D, etc), with opposite keys canceling and overriding each other in turn (i.e. You are holding W and then press S, you start moving backward for as long as you hold S. If you let go of and repress W, you start moving forward even though you are still holding both keys).
Hopefully this is enough to get my intent across, even if it isn't ultimately possible.
Thanks for reading, and I appreciate anyone's thoughts!
@Bernini104: Go
I don't know much, but you may be able to make an ability to do this, with the hotkeys being w, a, s, and d. Again, I don't know how you would achieve this, but it's a thought
If you do manage to do this you'd have solved one of the hardest problems that exists now. Trigger based WASD movement causes a lot of latency at the moment on Battle.net and implementing it using Data should offset the load onto the client.
I gave this some thought back in the beta. This can solve the net-traffic issues of the current implementation, however you would have problems for example if someone pressed W+D moving North East. Another issue would be that abilities are cast on key-ups I think(I am at work), so holding W to move forward as one would expect would not be possible. If anyone wants to give this a shot, send me a PM as it would be a fun problem to tackle.
@Bernini104: Go
The Random movement behavior is a copy of the critter behavior that makes it move around in a random way. It's a type all it's own, and you can only leash a unit, not dictate which direction it can move.
ok, so I think I know, in layman's terms, how I want this to work, the problem is I have no idea how to get the editor to do this. If people could keep me pointed in the right direction as I flounder around, I'd really appreciate it.
Ok, here goes my explanation:
1. For each player, create a "keyboard" unit (possibly the camera object?) that will receive all commands of that player. The unit is not modeled and never uncontrolled.
2. All other modeled units (just one, in the game type I'm imagining) are slaved to this Keyboard.
3. Each modeled unit has a set of eight "anchor" points attached (compass rose style) to a central "marionette" which is in turn attached to the main hero and slaved to the Keyboard. The marionette is free to rotate independent of the hero, and always faces the camera.
4. There is an additional "target" point which by default is located at the marionette and follows it, but whose position can be adjusted.
5. When a wasd key is pressed (not lifted, pressed. I think something in the game is able to activate things on key downs, or else abilities wouldn't highlight when hotkeyed...) the keyboard tells the target point to move forward, backward, left or right to one of the anchor points, and then tells the hero to move towards the target point.
If anyone has ideas on how to make any part of this, has questions about my explanation, has alternatives to parts that won't work, or even just has other ideas about how to execute this, any input would be greatly appreciated.
That's not true! I have a spell that is used as long as I hold down the button.
I have a theoreticallly working system in my head. Gonna see if it works.. I'll be back!