SC2Mapster

Foreword

Warning: this was my 1st tutorial from a looong time ago, so it's not quite as well done as the newer ones. In addition, the editor has changed a lot since then. Everything involved in this tutorial mostly the same, but they're may be a few minor differences. I will probably re-do this one soon.

part 1- this tutorial

part 2- http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/6090-data-moving-from-world-editor-to-galaxy-editor-part/#p2

part 3- http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/6610-data-moving-from-wc3-editor-to-sc2-editor-part-3-abilties/

part 4- http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/7199-data-moving-from-wc3-editor-to-sc2-editor-part-4-upgrades/

part 5- http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/8014-data-moving-from-wc3-editor-to-sc2-editor-part-5-custom/

Difficulty: As long as you can move a mouse, use a keyboard, have a computer, and own sc2...You can do this. :D

This tutorial covers: Making a new unit, giving him a new model, and a powerfull new gun. I might add more to this tutorial if anybody needs the info, so if you need help or have a question, feel free to post it here and ask!

Lets get started

To start, we need to open the galaxy editor. (Obviously) It is located in the same place as starcraft 2. So for PC users, it would be in program files >>> starcraft 2. Open that up, and then click File >>New Map. You will see a lot of options, but none of them are super important for now. Just hit Ok. Now, what we are going to do is make a marauder called Bob. So press F7 (again, this is for PC users, I dont know about macs) to open the data editor. This is where you can edit almost everything that happens in starcraft 2. There is a drop down menu in the top left corner. Make sure it says units. If it does not, click on it and select 'units' from the drop down tab. In the search box, type 'marauder', then right click the marauder unit and hit 'duplicate'.

A menu will pop up with all the different things that go into the marauder unit. Unlike in the warcraft editor, a unit is made up of lots of different parts thatmust be linked together. For example, the marauder unit has the model 'marauder'. In the world editor you would just change this data field in the unit editor, but in starcraft 2, you have to assign the model to an actor, and then link the actor to the unit. Don't worry, I'll explain all of this later. Just know that copying and pasting the unit WILL NOT work, you need to right click and hit duplicate. Now, if you wanted to copy the marauder, normally you would want to check all of the boxes under ' actors' and 'sounds' and hit Ok. But we are going to change the actor/model later, so just hit ok.

The new unit will be called marauder Copy, so right click it and hit modify. Under 'name' enter Bob. Then hit the suggest button and hit ok. The reason we hit the suggest button is fairly simple. The internal editor has names for the units, but we dont see this names. When we hit suggest, it renames this internal name to match the new name we just gave the unit. Now, the new unit might have dissapeard because you still have 'marauder' in the search box. Just search for 'bob' and click on it.

note-before you continue you need to make sure your editor is set up the same as mine so you dont get confused. Just find the 6 brownish buttons in the top left, and make sure they are all pressed down except for the first one. These just configure which data fields are displayed.

Lets make the unit more awesome!

Now its time to buff up Bob. Type 'life' in the search box in the top right corner. This searches through the units date fields, and its just faster than scrolling through all of them. We want Bob to be powerful, so lets set life maximum to 3000, life armor to 3, and life starting to 3000. This part is basically the same as the world editor. However, in the world editor, when we wanted to change the units model, we just changed 'art- model' to the new model. Unfortunately, its not quite so simple anymore. Go to the 'actors' data type by clicking on the drop down tab at the top left and hitting actors. Nothing will show up because bob is still in the search field. Delete that and type in 'marauder'. You will find the marauder actor under the units folder. Right click it and hit duplicate. You wont need to check anything this time, just hit ok.

Once again, right click the copy, rename it Bob, hit suggest, and ok. Like, before you will need to type Bob in the search box to find the new actor. Once you click on bob again, you will see a box at the top right corner of the data fields thats says 'Unit Name' 'Marauder'. Doubble click marauder and change it to Bob. You have now linked the actor 'Bob' to the unit 'Bob'. One important thin to know is that when you do this, the editor tries to set up the actor with the model 'Bob'. Obviously, there is not a mode named Bob. So we will need to change the Art- Model field to 'marauder'. Thats it! You have a marauder named Bob that can be placed in the map, In fact, lets try it out now. Go to the terrain editor (F5 for PC's). Hit U to go to the units tab just like you did back in the world editor. In the search field, type Bob, and your unit will appear. Click on his icon and place him into the map just like you would have done in the world editor. While your at it, why don't you add about 50 zerglings in for player 2 and see what happens? control + F9 tests out the map!

Bob should be stronger. Lets give him a cool weapon

The way units attack has been altered for starcraft 2. Instead of setting up attack damage and speed in the units data, you set that all up in a weapon, and then link the weapon and unit together. This allows for a lot more flexibility. For example, you can quickly and easily swap out weapons with triggers in an RPG type game. ANYWAYS....Lets modify the marauder's gun. So go back to the data editor and open the weapons data from the drop down menu. Search for 'marauder' and the weapon called 'marauder- punisher gernades' will come up. Click on it. I'll point out some key areas of the weapon so you can alter them as you see fit. period- by time between shots. Set this to 0.3 range- the range of the weapon. just fyi, 6 is the marauder's range. Its not Warcraft with those huge ranges. target filters- perhaps one of the most important, here is where you set up what can and can not be shot at. It lists alot of different things, and you just have to right click on them and change it to either 'allowed','required',or 'excluded'. Bascily, when you target a unit, it must pass these tests. For example, if ground was required, the unit HAS to be ground, even if air is allowed. but if biological is excluded, and the unit is ground-bilogical, it still fails the test and cannot be shot at. icon- what the weapon icon is on the units in-game info pannel

effect- very important. This what happens when you hit the target. Normally this is damage. For the marauder this effect is marauder-punisher garnades- launch missile. This is because when the marauder shoots, you can actually see the grenade fly at the enemy and blow up, where as units the the reaper have no projectile, so they just damage the target instantly. So head down to the effect data types by using the drop down menu on the left. Search for " Marauder - Punisher Grenades (Damage)". This is an effect that does damage. Select it, and change "damage (amount)" to 1000. Nobody will mess with bob anymore. Try out the modified weapon in game. Watch those zerglings explode!

Final Worlds

These are the basics to creating your own units in the starcraft editor. I'm going wright a quick overview Instead of just having a model like in wc3, sc2 Units are linked to actors, which are linked to models. Actors control what animations play. For example, the actor says "when my unit attacks, play the attack 01 animation". Weapons are linked to damage effects. I didnt go over this next part in the tutorial, but its good to know anyway: Behaviors are things that units have that are passive. As in, you dont have to activate them. Like the reapers jumping ability, or the hardened shields of the immortal. Effects do tons and tons of things, and one of those things is damage. But they are mostly used in abilities.

random fact for this tutorial- Did you know that 1 in 5,000 north Atlantic lobsters are born bright blue. Dont even say you already knew that. I know you're lying.

This was my first tutorial, let me know if I can fix anything or improve it!

You should have seen it before I put the spaces and titles in..lol...And yes, that was an issue I did see, but I'm new to the site and I cant figure out how to make the text look all nice like http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/tutorials/5096-data-creating-new-units-easy/#p15 I wanted to add some pics to break it up a bit, but Im not sure how to add them into the actual post, and not just the bottom. Can anybody inform me on how to do that?

@OutsiderXE: Go No problem, I enjoy helping out mappers!

@Cerosia: Go

I'll look into that (if its free, of course). Thanks for letting me know!

This is part 2: http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/tutorials/6090-moving-from-wc3-editor-to-sc2-editor-part-2-trigger/#p2

Note, I did a way better job with part 2. You dont have to have read this to read part 2. (Because its part 2 of the tutorial series, not the tutorial itself)

@IcemanJ256: Go

Sorry, I didnt see your post. Hmm.. This could be one of several problems. If the actor is set up correctly, then you would need to go into the javelin missile actor and change the model. The galaxy editor stupidly changes the model name to whatever the name of the actor is, so it can get confused sometimes. But the problem might be that the actor was not duplicated, or was duplicated but not linked correctly. To figure out what the problem is, I would check the object explorer to see if the actor is even linked up. I attached a picture of how to activate the object explorer. Once it is open, you can see all of the actors that are linked to the thor. Make sure that all the actors in the normal thor are also in the copied thor. If you still cant find the problem, send me a PM with some more details.

You would need to create an effect of type "set". Then inside of this effect, add the suicide effect and the damage effect you wanted. Then, in the search effect, you would just go to areas+ and set the effect to the set you just made. No behaviors are necessary, unless you wanted to do something like slow down the target that gets hits. Im not sure if this would work properly with moving projectiles, but it will work for a stationary caster. For pojectiles, my guess would be that you need to create a persistent effect that moves outward from the caster and uses the search effect periodicity, but..well, it gets confusing and I'm not even too sure on that. But yes, my next tutorial will be about abilities, which will include behaviors and effects.

Oh and also- has anybody here looked at part 2 (about the new trigger editor?). I think its a bit more well written and stuff than this one.

That is a well known problem, and I don't know if its possible to fix that. You would need to use triggers to do it probably, I'm not sure. Sorry =[

Ummm....Im not sure, I have never tried. But you might be able to do it with triggers.

I checked out the map. If you just want to prevent factories from building a thor, go to the factory unit in the data editor. Go to the command card and click on the train thor button. Then click the red X to get rid of it. :D

The directory? Umm.....First of all, the ODIN and Thors are 2 different units. By default, only thors can be trained. So all you have to do is click on the factory in the data editor and delete the thor button of its command card.