SC2Mapster

Clock Contest

The contest is a great success, there are 18 entries! You can elect multiple entries so don't be afraid to do so :) The winner will be the entry with the highest vote count. Since there are a lot more entries than expected, the votes are going to stay open for 3 days, ie it will end on tuesday night.

Due to technical difficulties, we split up the vote into 2 different polls. Make you vote for both!

Thanks to all who participated: shaotang, Bifuu, SCMapper, Khalan3, Sl1v3r, Listonos, Magesblood, Skizot, Sholdak, Docablo, ThisIsSpoofed, DarkRevenantX, decltype, SirLyrrad, TheSecretArts, Forsoki, Slarti, Squeegez.

The Intersection by JeffQ

This is one really well made map. It features many of the Galaxy Editor aspects: Cinematic, Lightning, UI, ... If you don't know what to play this week-end, I would recommend it!

MMO Ryzom Open Source

This is a quite uncommon move from a MMO company, Winch Gate just released the source code and assets of the MMO Ryzom. As a developper you may be interested in checking out the source code, but as a map maker, you will probably want to use model, textures ... from the game.

• All the textures, models ...: http://media.ryzom.com/
• Source code: http://dev.ryzom.com/projects/ryzom/repository

Edit: Blizzard just did a Press Release: BATTLE.NET AND FACEBOOK INTEGRATION. "The first step in the integration will enable StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™ players to quickly add Blizzard gamers who are friends on Facebook to their Battle.net friend lists, facilitating their social gaming experience on the service."

Toutou Sidescroller

We've seen an awesome 2D sidescroller game video appear on our forums (thanks tordecybombo). It is looks really amazing (and really hardcore)! If you know where to download it and who is the author, please post a comment :)

Big Blue by TheKaymon

If you don't want to wait for the previous map to be available, TheKaymon made a sidescroller called Big Blue. The engine is done and works really well however it still lacks (alpha! alpha!) of content. Thanks Husky for the commentaries.

Mapster Project Minigame by PinWorm45

You don't know what to do and want to participate to a common project with some other mapsters? PinWorm45 is organizing a Mini-Game type map, basically you just submit one game and it will be integrated along with all the others! If you are interested, just read the full description.

UI Leaderboard by Dest1nyCP

Are you making a map and need a leaderboard, check out the custom leaderboard Dest1nyCP made for you. You basically have to copy & paste the triggers and edit it slightly to fit your needs. When Battle.net publishing will be out, doing such libraries will be a lot more easier.

SC2 Release Date: July 27

It's now official, Starcraft II will be released in little less than 3 months. It gives you time to start working on your map projects and try various things to get something great for the release.

At the moment we are not able to play multiplayer maps without using tricks, however Battle.net publishing system should be released before the end of the Beta. Let hope we will have enough time to test the system and report bugs before the game is released.

Pass Defense by WontonST

Ever wanted to kill millions of incoming zergs? It's now possible thanks to WontonST. It's a base defense map that is quite well done and will make you feel powerful! It's actively being developped so it's your chance to make it evolve :)

Loading Screen Contest by ConflictZero

ConflictZero is working on a map called Smash TV and did another loading screen contest. All the entries are really good, but he had to chose one! kinkycactus is the winner, followed by GodKill3r. Thanks for Alex134 and Shakeslol participation!

Edit: Starcraft II will be released on July 27th, it's official! (Source)

Hey all,

As you probably noticed, sc2mapster is going really well and we are really proud of what you all did so far with the Galaxy Editor. We want to build a strong community of mappers and give you all the resources you need. To achieve that goal we just released a new curse portal for Starcraft II: a fully searchable map database.

You may be confused about why two separate websites. Developers and players do not need the same things.

• On one side we want map makers to have an efficient environment full of coder things like map repositories, forums were you can talk about techy stuff and so on. This is the goal of sc2mapster.
• On the other side, players want to see what are the most downloaded maps, and how they are being rated or find a special one. This is going to be on sc2.curse.com.

In order for your map to appear on Curse.com, you just have to mark your map as "Released", nothing more.

I hope this will help you either find or spread maps! Keep up the good work!

HuskyStarcraft Review by Husky

Husky has a youtube channel where he comments various Starcraft II matches. He decided to go over custom maps and chose two of them: Supply Depot Tetris by ArcadeRenegade and Mar Sara Outlaws by johnfloyd. He is really entertaining to listen and I hope you like it.

Documentation by Statcomm

You might have seen the API Docs link at the top of the website. This is a wiki where you can document (and read!) various things about the editor. There are a lot of infos there but all are from the time when there was no Galaxy Editor. Statcomm recently started as project to make a rough presentation of every aspect of the editor.

If you have some free time and want to help documenting parts of the editors you like (it can be just one article!), you can help us on the forums. Thanks!

Space Shooter Sim 3D by WallArcher

Today I would like to feature a space shooter simulator made by WallArcher. You are able to play a Star Fighter and attack the Death Star (hmm ... maybe in few weeks!). This demo is pretty well done and shows one more time the endless possibilities of the Galaxy Editor!

What best to create a good community than working on the same things! Here is the chance to dig into the endless possibilities of the Galaxy Editor.

What to do?

This contest is about clocks! You know those things that give the current time. There are plenty of different ways to do it. The goal of the contest is to pick one and use the best features of the editor to make it live!

It can either be 2D or 3D, using the terrain or units, any special effects you want ... The funniest and the most beautiful realisations will win! Even if you are not a pro at Galaxy Editor come and take your chance, it's open to everyone!

Here are some example of clocks that you may take inspiration from:

Deadlines

You have 6 days to complete this contest, and then during one day a poll will be launched for you to vote and elect the winners!

• End of the submissions: Saturday 8 May - Midnight PDT (Los Angeles) [Sunday 9 May - 9 AM GMT (Paris)]
• End of the votes: 24 hours later

Reward

The main goal of the contest is the fun, however it's better when there's something to win :) We have one beta key and a lot of Curse Premium to give.

• First: 1 Starcraft II Beta Key + 1-year Curse Premium
• Second: 1-year Curse Premium
• Third: 6-month Curse Premium
• Everyone else: 1-month Curse Premium

Good luck and happy mapping!

Twitter Chat

Blizzard just did a new Twitter Chat and answered Galaxy related questions.

Quote:

Q. Currently, FPS UMS maps are viable but prevented by lag. Are there any plans to reduce Battle.net 2.0's minimum latency from 250ms?
A. In the newest patch latency network turns have been reduced to125ms latency. We'd love to see an FPS-like custom map in the beta as soon as publishing is available!

Q. Currently the Map Editor has a small variety of unit/item models for mappers to use. Will there be additions to usable models?
A. Yes. Currently the beta is limited to objects ONLY in the beta, which is a limited number of tilesets and no campaign units or objects. There will be a much larger set of models and assets for mappers to use at launch.

Q: Will be be able to use original units for the map editor before release?
A: No. The beta editor will not include campaign units prior to release.

Q. Getting custom script into maps is currently complex. Are there plans to implement Galaxy scripting directly into the editor?
A. There are currently no plans for Galaxy script editing in the editor itself. However, through the Import Manager it should be pretty easy to add in your scripts as necessary. Are you having trouble doing it that way?

Q: Can you detail how the map publishing feature is going to work?
A: Sure. Map publishing will allow the user to store a few maps or mods associated with their account. You can choose to publish a map privately which will not display the map in the custom game list when you open it up, but you can invite your friends into a game on the map to help you test your map and ideas. Once you decide the map is ready for the rest of the community to play you can publish it publicly and then the map will be available for the rest of the community to see and start playing games with.

Resident Overmind by s3rious

Combine amazing lightning, fantastic ambiance sound, impressive camera movements and superb UI and you get an immersive experience. Just check out the video and see what the editor is capable of when being mastered. If like me you are in love, just try out Resident Overmind by s3rious.

Mac Map Launcher by Motive

The Mac beta started 2 days ago and since the Galaxy Editor is not available on Mac, there was no way to play custom maps yet. Motive released a tool that allows you to play maps both on local and battle.net. It's really easy to use and should help out all the Mac users out there!

Zergger by IggyHopper

To finish this news, a fun map made by IggyHopper. You have to collect all the yellow spots on the map while sneaking into the crowded place. Test Zergger out :)

Map Selection

I've been playing a lot of maps these days and I made a selection of 5 maps that are already playable (meaning with a beginning, and end and more than 10 minutes of content inside!). We are friday and the week-end is coming, you have no reason not to try them :) In order to test them, open the Galaxy Editor (in the Starcraft II install folder), double click the map you just downloaded and press Ctrl+F9 (or File / Test Map).

• Protect the Statue by tyrindor - You have to micro your units to defeat the many incoming waves
• Mar Sara Outlaws by johnfloyd - Third person campaign with rough cinematic and speeches
• Attack of the Xel'naga by Volsky - Campaign like the official one
• Galaxy TD by Paras1tePL - Tower Defense using custom interface for the tower upgrades
• ZigZag TD by KamNinja - Basic Tower Defense
• Discover More ...

Custom UI by LTGH

LTGH from the Hive Workshop just did an incredible thing: change the UI to make it look like World of Warcraft. This is going to give all the 3rd person maps a better immersion feeling.

Terrain Deformation by Hati

No ones really worked yet on the Actors and it's really sad because they are probably the most powerful addition of the Galaxy Editor. Hati gave it a shot and worked on a spell that rises the terrain. He explained how he did it and that really takes 2 seconds to do it. If you want to create amazing things I really encourage you to dig into Actors.

Many of you seen the sc2.curse.com news about the new downloading portal. Due to technical problems the pages were really slow to load and now the developers are in holidays. We should re-launch it during the begining of the next week! Stay tuned.

Physics by Tnt1141

Some triggers, some physics equations and the result is an impressive video made by Tnt1141. It shows a ball rolling all and jumping all around the maps.

Asteroids by gralamin

We've already seen plenty of old 2D games like Tetris and we will probably see more coming. Today I would like to feature Asteroids by gralamin. You control with your keyboard a small space ship and you have to destroy the incoming rocks.

Amidia's Temple TD by Morbent92

Morbent92 worked on a Tower Defense game, you will say ... nothing out of the ordinary. But you are wrong, this one is multiplayer! You can play with your friends up to 4 players and enoy the 20 waves.

Play Multiplayer Maps on Battle.net by Daimakaicho and Coldragon

We can't yet upload maps on battle.net so we can't officially play multiplayer custom maps. However we have found a way to bypass the system long time ago by changing the game cache files. As this is a really annoying process, Daimakaicho and Coldragon made a simple program that does it for you.

Do this process for all the friends you want to play with:

• Create the map "Lost Temple" on Battle.net and everyone join it
• Launch the map patcher
• Select the map you want to play and click "Patch"
• Go back to SC2 and start the game

Battle.net map upload is going to be released before the end of the Beta within a few weeks. This technique is a temporary workaround that should let you start doing multiplayer maps right away!

Contest Result by Tehwildcard

Tehwildcard contest to make a loading screen for his Kitty Run map has ended. GardenOfAiur won it thanks to an amazing loading screen and is being rewarded by a beta key! shaotang and ThisIsSpoofed are granted an honorable mention and we will make our possible to find them beta keys. I would like to thanks agweber for its contribution.

Bob the Zergling by MachinimaMat

The second cinematic is already there! MachinimaMat give us little fun with Bob the Zergling. If you've got more cinematics done, please contact me, I would really like to push the Starcraft II machinimas in front of the scene :)

MPQ Editor by Ladik

Ladik since the release of Starcraft II Beta has been working hard making his MPQ Editor and releases a beta of the version 3. All the Starcraft II maps and MPQ files are not fully editable without bugs. You can even increase the number of files a map can contains. If you are using Ladik MPQ Editor, I strongly suggest you to get the latest version.

Editor Bug & Feedback forum

The game is still in a beta phase, as well as the Editor. This is a really great opportunity for us to shape the future of the editor. I'm pretty sure you all have been facing annoying things and you just say wth Blizzard should have done this that way. Instead of keeping that for your own, just make a thread on our new Editor Bug & Feedback forum. Ideas you will put in there will not be ignored, Blizzard developers will be reading this forum!

Cinematic by monoframe

Blizzards game have always been very machinima friendly, but with the Starcraft II Editor it's going to be hell lot easier to make them. monoframe just made a test cinematic and it looks really amazing! What you see is a direct record of the map, it uses editor lightning possibilities to get such a beautiful result.

Perdition by Qancakes

The Blizzcon video with 3rd person shooter really inspired a lot of mappers. Qancakes exploited the concept to make the map Perdition. This is basically a remake of the Blizzard demo in a really nice terrain in the woods. It appears that the final boss is fun but I haven't made it that far.

Top-Down Fighters by TECGhost (Dustin)

Skill based WASD movement, fast paced action shooter! The confederacy has heard rumors of a new badass zerg type. The "Badass Ultralisk". You have been assigned to asses the threat and deal with it!

Native list by Zoxc

Zoxc did a great work at making a tool that extracts all the galaxy functions from the Starcraft II.exe file. The result is quite amazing: there are 1873 natives! That's a really huge number, they must have spent countless hours just to imagine them, not even talking about the coding process.

• Complete native list
• Native.galaxy - Commented one but not complete

Edit: The beta key contest is still open. You just have to make a loading screen to win :)

Maps

Did you know that Starcraft II was a RTS game and Galaxy Editor its map editor. So ... we should see a lot of RTS maps right? But no! There are plenty of really inventive maps being done out there! I'm going to feature all the craziest ideas that have been achieved so far with the Galaxy Editor.

Steak Racing by irushu and brandon509

Wanna play Mario Kart? Nothing impossible with the Galaxy editor. Thanks irushu and brandon509 for that cool demonstration. This is also a good example of collaborative work using our map repository system :) The video has been made real quick. It doesn't show the jumps and sand being ejected when slowing down.

Operation Terran Shield by Hati

Not everyone wants to make 3D games. It's really easy to make 2D ones with the Editor. I don't know how to describe this game, you've got a cannon and have to shoot at incoming enemies. I'm pretty sure many of you are going to do remakes of Tetris, Bubble game ...

Tutorials

Many great tutorials have been written to help you out mapping. If you want to write one I've started a thread (thanks Mischgasm for the idea :)) that centralize what people want to see.

3rd Person Movement by Kylegar

You have all seen the Blizzcon 3rd person movement and want to reproduce it. Kylegar made a pretty nice tutorial that explains step by step how to achieve the same effect in your map!

Larva Morph into new Zerg Units by varkarrus

If you want to get started using the Data editor, varkarrus made a nice tutorial. It explains how to add new Zerg units.

I cannot feature all the work done in the community, however if you think I have missed something important just send me a PM :) If you want to learn more I suggest you to test all the maps and check out the forums.

Sunken D - First TD by Tomed

The first TD has been released with the Editor! It is actually really rough and hard but it's a great start!

Tutorials

Beginner Video Tutorial by brcosm

brcosm made a nice video tutorial that shows the basics of the Galaxy Editor. It's a must have if you want to discover it with no pain.

Getting Started by Bifuu

Bifuu has been working hard to make several tutorials. The first one explains how to get started, all the manipulations to get with the editor up and running and a basic description of what there is inside.

Creating your first unit by Bifuu

This is the second part. It explains from A to Z how to create your first custom unit!

This is only a small part of what we've been working on, more is coming real soon! Enjoy the editor :)

It's been 24 hours since the Galaxy Editor has been in our hands and a lot of stuff happened on SC2Mapster. Our traffic exploded and we've seen people from all around the globe coming in asking and answering questions, working on maps or tweaking the editor and some just looking at what's possible.

The Galaxy Editor is really powerful and we hope to see many great map done from the community!

Mapster Services

You are making maps and we want to help you! We have set up many tools to make your life easier.

• Maps & Assets - We provide you a nice home for all your projects. You can upload as many versions as you want with changelogs, post a big description and have comments / tickets.
• Teams - Working in team is easier when you get a forum and a wiki at your disposal.
• API Documentation - Before the Galaxy Editor went live we have spent a great amount of time documenting what we knew. A lot of resource in there are useful if you'd like to know better the editor.
• Forums - Do not hesitate to post if you have any question, want to show off your work (even if that's not hosted on mapster, everyone is welcome!)
• Paste - You want to show some code, put it there and you will have a link instead.
• IRC - Come and chat with us. You may find answer to your problem quicker.

How to help

I'm pretty sure plenty of you want to help out but don't know how to do. Here are some useful and easy tasks for you.

• Write down Tutorials. You are spending time understanding how everything work. Sharing that knowledge is going to help everyone out there. Here are sample subjects that are easy to do and would be of great use.
  • Terrain - How to draw roads
  • Terrain - How to edit tilesets
  • Data - How to make heros
  • Trigger - Text Tag - Text that appears on the 3D world
  • Trigger - Boss Bar

Remember that Galaxy Editor is in Beta. This means that Blizzard is actively working on fixing bugs we encounter. If you find something that does not do what it is meant to or worse crash the game, please make a thread on the forums! You will win cookies!

I will post later a recap of what has been discovered so far, have fun map making :)

Alright, the patch 9 is now officially released. You can download it (the normal way) and use the mighty editor!

This day has been pretty amazing, we've seen many people from all around the world coming to check out the Editor preview. We hope you are going to stay and have fun making maps. We, at SC2Mapster, are going to make our very best to make this as easy as possible and build a strong community!

Feel free to visit our forums or on irc! Thanks!