SC2Mapster

The Galaxy Editor is not out yet however it is still possible to start working on maps. I will show you different projects that have already been started by the Mapster community.

Heroes: Abilities and Attributes by 麦德三世

A chinese guy called 麦德三世 has been actively working on Heroes. He managed to give them abilities and attributes (Str, Agi, Psi ...) based on the level of the hero. He made a modification that adds a Ghost hero for Terran and Temple Knights hero for Protoss. Here are few screenshots he posted.

saltygrapes and Alevice managed to understand how he did it and explained how to get heroes with abilities and attributes on the forums. Now, the only unknown left is how to give an inventory and items to the heroes.

M3 Importer Plugin by NiNtoxicated01

NiNtoxicated01 and witchsong are working hard on the m3 models and already have some results. A M3 Importer Plugin for 3DSMax is in early stage and already able to import animated models. You can learn more (and hopefully help) about the M3 models in the Documentation for static m3 structure and the forum post for details about m3 animations.

Tetris in Starcraft II by chuky500

Not really related to Map making but chuky500 played a Tetris game using Supply Depots. This is really impressive!

The Galaxy Editor is not out yet however it is still possible to start working on maps. I will show you different projects that have already been started by the Mapster community.

Heros, Level and XP by Hati

The IRC has been really active this night. Hati, Alevice, JademusSreg and nicoli_s investigated the XML files to make Hero units. Hati finally found the solution that is demonstrated in this video.

XML Findings by Vjeux

While working on the Tower Defense, I have found many small things that can be useful for your maps

• Vision: In order to give the vision on the full map, you can add many invisible units that have the highest possible vision range
• Status Bar: You can change the size and color of it
• Custom Image: It is possible to add custom images inside text and edit unit image
• XML Inheritance: To make things more generic, you can create a template and have many units depending on it
• Creating unit from scratch: At the moment, it's really easy to edit units but making new ones is quite hard. The minimal requirements are given
• Unit Aggressivity: You can change the behavior of units (aggressive, neutral, passive ...)

Also, yuggren just found out how to give resources on unit kill. This way there is no more need of a really complex setup to give resources to the player.

<KillResource index="Minerals" value="1"/>

Galaxy Editor by StarcraftMapping.de

The Starcraft Mapping.de april fool joke was a screenshot of the Galaxy Editor. This is not the real Galaxy editor but may look like it. They did a great job it looks just fine.

The Galaxy Editor is not out yet however it is still possible to start working on maps. I will show you different projects that have already been started by the Mapster community.

Micro Defense by Labmonkey123

You are bored of the Tower Defense and want to play a custom map where real skill is needed. Labmonkey123 reworked the map in order to make the Pylon sell units. You have to defeat the 16 waves of opponent with minimal loss. There is a surprise for the last wave ;) Give us your feedback on the forums .

SCGhost by Corbo

Starcraft Ghost has been cancelled but is still present in our memories! Corbo is going to make a third person shooter game and played with the CameraData.xml file to create that effect. Here is a preview of his map.

StarCraft II Beta – Patch 7 (version 0.9.0.14621B)

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23094049316&sid=5000

Balance Changes

TERRAN

• Banshee
  • The health has been increased from 130 to 140.
• Missile Turret
  • The damage has been changed from 7+7 armored to 12.
• Thor
  • Anti-Air damage has been decreased from 10+6 light to 8+4 light.
  • Anti-Air attack now deals splash damage in a 0.5 radius.

PROTOSS

• High Templar
  • The Psi Storm radius has been decreased from 2 to 1.5.
• Photon Cannon
  • Life and Shield values have been increased from 125/125 to 150/150.

ZERG

• Broodlord
  • Damage has been decreased from 25 to 20.
• Roach
  • Organic Carapace no longer grants bonus regeneration to unburrowed roaches.
• Spine Crawler
  • Damage has been increased from 20+10 armored to 25+5 armored.
  • Attack period decreased from 2.2 to 1.6.
• Spore Crawler
  • The cost has been decreased from 100 to 75.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue in which players would desync when matched against others with certain CPUs.

The Galaxy Editor is not out yet however it is still possible to start working on maps. I will show you different projects that have already been started by the Mapster community.

Frozen Zerg by RandomUser12

You don’t like the look & feel of the zergs, you want them to be escaped from the Frozen Throne. You will like the Frozen Zerg reskin. It is not only usable in custom maps, you can even use them in ladder games! You just have to extract the files in the Starcraft II folder.

How To – Give resource by Vjeux

In the current API there is no PlayerSetResource() function. However, we found ways to exploit the game mechanics to allow this. This involve transforming units into minerals, giving a worker the ability to drop resource on himself, and tweaking the zerg building ability to spawn units when they die. At the end, we can make a coin drop off monsters!

If you want to see what is possible to do with XML files, this is a pretty good introduction as it involves no less than 4 XML files. Here is a little video that shows the result. When you kill zergling it will spawn larva that are basically coins.

The Galaxy Editor is not out yet however it is still possible to start working on maps. I will show you different projects that have already been started by the Mapster community.

Tutorial – Get Started Mapping by Vjeux

Do you want to start mapping, it is now possible and easy. We have made a complete environment development that let you edit the map files and run the updated map with a single click!

In order to make the learning curve easier Examples of basic code like unit movement, command handling or debugging features have been added to the map. You have no other choice to start mapping!

Teams by Ckknight

You want to create projects with some friends, SC2Mapster now enables support for teams. It gives your own space with a wiki, a forum and member management. Artisan is the first team using this new system. We hope to see great maps coming from them!

XML Documentation by Bifuu

All the XML files have now their structure documented. All the possible fields are there but there isn’t a deep documentation of them yet. If you edited the game files and found something interesting, documenting it is now really easy. You just have to edit the wiki and add your findings!

The Galaxy API Documentation is growing. Here is a quick recap of useful functions.

XML Data Documentation

All the game properties are stored in XML files. They will probably be edited in some kind of Excel sheet. You can get a preview of the various things you will be able to tweak by looking at the following XML documented by Bifuu and Computerpunk.

• AbilData.xml - Holds the data for the abilities and spells Units use in Battle
• AchievementData.xml - Holds all the achievements values
• ModelData.xml - Holds model informations
• RaceData.xml - Holds data for the 3 races of Starcraft sucha s starting units and loading screens
• RequirementData.xml - Holds data on the requirements needed to perform many actions
• RequirementNodeData.xml - Holds additionaly specifics for requirements
• UnitData.xml - Holds the unit properties
• UpgradeData.xml - Holds the data for Unit upgrades
• WeaponData.xml - Holds data used for weapons such as type and damage

M3 Model Format

Are you interested in how the unit models are done? A documentation of the structure is in the work by Witchsong. It is very similar to War3 and WoW models, the notable change is how they handle decimal values. They are using fixed type instead of the common floating point value. This is most probably due to lower the model size.

Thanks to that, it is possible to make a Model Viewer like the one made by OneClick

PreCompiler

Not having useful debug informations is painless, and the galaxy langage is primitive. This is why Remy just came with a solution for these 2 problems: a precompiler. This is a piece of program (currently in beta) that does the following:

• Parse the galaxy files and tell you if there are errors and the type and line of the error
• Add additional syntax elements like new and delete

Player Functions

The Galaxy API allows you to get many useful informations on the players. They are now all blue (red meaning not yet documented).

• PlayerGetPropertyInt, PlayerRace, PlayerDifficulty, PlayerStartLocation, PlayerGetColorIndex, PlayerColorName, PlayerGetAlliance, PlayerGroupAll

If you haven't played the Mapster TD, here is a sample game video

The Galaxy Editor is not out yet however it is still possible to start working on maps. I will show you different projects that have already been started by the Mapster community.

Mapster Tower Defense by Vjeux

The first real Custom Map of Starcraft II is a Tower Defense. If you haven’t played Warcraft III, this is a game where you build towers in order to kill waves of units that are coming to kill your main building. You have to make the best combinaison of towers and at the right spot to defeat them all.

Towers

• Nicoli_s Tower: A really slow tower that can be upgraded later.
• Sixen Tower: A medium tower that has a good DPS.
• Ckknight Tower: The ultimate tower. Pwn’s everyone in sight.

Waves

• Drone: Build fast, you need it!
• Zergling: Hopefully you survive this phase.
• ????: You need upgraded towers
• ????: Will you get there alive?
• ????: Defeat this wave and win the game!

MilkyWay Editor by nicoli_s

Since Galaxy Editor is not out there yet, we worked on a Map Editor that allows you to start modding. It is in early development at the moment but already allows you to tweak the maps.

Features

• Editing Map Info and Player Info (race, position, color)
• Editing Galaxy files
• Editing GameData
• Placing, Editing Units

Coastal Tileset by Corbo

Not only coders are working on the maps, it is possible to work on new tilesets and even play with them on Battle.net! Just copy the files inside your Starcraft II folder and you are done.

The Galaxy API Documentation is growing. Here is a quick recap of useful functions.

TriggerAddEventChatMessage

You want to do an action when the player says a specific string like "-next" or "-difficulty 5". It is possible using the function TriggerAddEventChatMessage. It let you bind a trigger when a specific player chat message contains a certain string.

Basic Type Operations

In order to manipulation basic types (int, fixed and string) there are many functions to convert from one type to another.

• IntToFixed, FixedToInt
• IntToString, StringToInt
• StringToFixed

You also have the possibility to do operations on these types:

• Numbers: MaxF, AbsI, RandomInt
• Strings: StringEqual, StringWord

If you are not pleased with this basic functions, I've written two libs that gives more functions.

• Basic Mathematic Functions: (cos, sin, tan), (DegToRad, RadToDeg), (round, ceil, floor), (mod, isInt), (PointX, PointY)
• Debug Utilities: BoolToString, FixedToString, PointToString, OrderToString, UnitToString, PlayerToString

CatalogFieldValueGet

The Galaxy API allows you to interact with the XML data files with the function CatalogFieldValueGet. In order to do it you have to know the xml file id and the path to access the value. It automatically handles for you all the inheritance through the parent attribute.

In order to get material to use it, or make your own data modifications we have documented the files UnitData.xml and AchievementData.xml

The Galaxy API Documentation is growing. Here is a quick recap of useful functions.

Arrays and Structs

The Galaxy language features arrays and struct in order to group data together. Those two quick guides will tell you the strengths and the weakness of the galaxy implementation.

Wait

In order to make a function that runs every X seconds, you can use Wait inside a while (1). In order not to block the execution of the rest of the script, the pause is being handled with a thread.

StringToText

Your maps are going to get colorful thanks to the StringToText function. You can change the color and the size of the text. It is also possible to add images inside the text.

<iframe src="http://www.livestream.com/embed/xaragoth?layout=2" width="512px" height="512px" style="border:0;outline:0;" frameborder="0" scrolling="none"></iframe>

<cite>Quote by Gorandor:</cite>

I've decided to just do a little workshop via Livestream & Skype with those that might be interested.

This Workshop will teach you the basics on how to create the scenes for SC2 Machinima in the same way I did with The Hunt For Gabriel Tosh. This will only be about setting up scenes, timing animations, doing camerawork & how to record them. Everything in regards to using Vegas or Adobe Premiere has to be learned somewhere else <span class="emote emote-wink" title="Wink">;)</span>

Also this will not be about SC2 Cinematic you can add to your map, since those require you to do a SHITLOAD of animation work with 3D Studio Max and I'm still checking on that stuff myself. But I'm sure you can use this to make some kind of awesome Trailer for your map to promote on youtube. And as soon as I figure out the rest, I'll show you.

<div style="text-align:center;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto"> <object width="480" height="385"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yhIqwhePzY0?fs=1"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yhIqwhePzY0?fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="385" allowfullscreen="true"> </object> </div>

If you want to participate and have the Galaxy Editor & Skype, post on this thread fast. It is going to be limited to around 10 people <span class="emote emote-smile" title="Smile">:)</span>

The Workshop will start around 9PM GMT+1. So basically in 30min. It will be live-streamed <span class="emote emote-smile" title="Smile">:)</span>

Thanks to Tinman from ug-rp.com to stream the event :)
<div style="text-align: center">
<object width="560" height="340" id="lsplayer" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"><param name="movie" value="http://cdn.livestream.com/grid/LSPlayer.swf?channel=sc2mapstertournament&amp;amp;autoPlay=false"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed name="lsplayer" wmode="transparent" src="http://cdn.livestream.com/grid/LSPlayer.swf?channel=sc2mapstertournament&amp;amp;autoPlay=false" width="560" height="340" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object>
</div>

Warcraft Invitational

<div style="text-align: center;"> <object xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab" height="336" id="octoshape_channels" width="549"> <param name="name" value="2010 European Warcraft Invitational"/> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"/> <param name="flashvars" value="provider=http://esl-tv.s3.amazonaws.com/rf10/OctoshapeOphMediaProvider.swf&amp;amp;config=http://esl-tv.s3.amazonaws.com/rf10/config.xml"/> <param name="src" value="http://esl-tv.s3.amazonaws.com/rf10/player_5.2.swf"/> <param name="bgcolor" value="black"/> <embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="black" flashvars="provider=http://esl-tv.s3.amazonaws.com/rf10/OctoshapeOphMediaProvider.swf&amp;amp;config=http://esl-tv.s3.amazonaws.com/rf10/config.xml" height="336" id="2010 European Warcraft Invitational" name="2010 European Warcraft Invitational" src="http://esl-tv.s3.amazonaws.com/rf10/player_5.2.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="549" wmode="transparent"/> </object> </div>