Log 1
Hi guys
Now that I'm over the downheartness caused by my failure to reach the top 10 in the RTC contest with "Losing Memories", and my little editor vacation has ended; I'll return to spend my free time on my campaign.
I've decided to keep a log of what I'm doing and thinking while developing it. I believe that this will help me to stay focused and motivated, and it might be useful for those who are working on similar projects, to get ideas and learn from my mistakes. I'm also hoping to draw the attention of someone interested in helping me with the crafting.
My original plan is to bump this post once every one or two weeks, starting right now.
I'll begin writing about the campaign itself. The ultimate goal for it is to create a reboot of SC2, taking the best of SC1 (the immersive storytelling) and SC2 (the gameplay and the mechanic variation between missions).
I'm aware that it's too pretentious. That's why I've started with a single mission (Bottleneck, here's the link of its testing thread) to see where it goes. Now that I'm a little more confident, I'm focusing on the first 4 maps with their banking and linking.
If that's too much work, I'll decide to stop when they're done. If not, I'll continue with other episodes, periodically reevaluating if continuing is worth it or not.
What do I have so far?
- Lots of loose ideas,
- a basic structure of the story (a ~6000 words script),
- a functional map and two more in early stage of development,
- an early mod with several useful functions,
- a task list programmed until the end of june, and
- Finally, after more than half a year without finding one, a campaign name to replace the placeholder "SC2Bis": "Starcraft: Episodes from Brood War II" (the one you see in the title). I've made the banner you're seeing at the top and an icon for the launcher too:
How do I want this to work?
The player will play an active role as a character of the campaign. He will be a young Dominion Lieutenant in the Terran episodes, a Brood Queen in the Zerg episodes, and Artanis or Zeratul in the Protoss episodes.
There will be small RPG sections between missions, where the story will develop, and a SC1 style briefing before the start of each mission. I hope to come up with fresh mechanics for most of them.
Where am I going to start?
Now that I'm focusing back on this after the RTC contest, I would like to apply some things I've learned recently in the campaign mod. Specifically, I'll focus on two:
An achievement system: I was handling achievements in a very archaic way, I'll switch to user types. They're way more efficient.
A budget system: Several achievements will unlock techs. After every mission, there will be an amount of credits as reward. If the tech wasn't unlocked via achievements, it will be available to be purchased in the RPG sections.
There will be hidden techs too. For example, the secret of the first mission will unlock warpigs.
Once finishing with those, I'll continue with the introductory map, which is supposed to set the mood before the campaign starts.
Well, that's all. I hope I didn't bore you... Next logs should come with more eye candy.
0.963054187192118
If you modified the (Space) - Valkyrie unit, it has a Strafe weapon which makes it attack like an interceptor (fly around in an area and attack the target while it does so).
Try making a new weapon of type Legacy and set the effects, filters, etc. as desired and replace the default one on the unit.
0.962593516209476
1.) Set the Stats: Facing field on the structures to 225.
2.) Increase the value of the Art: Selection Radius field of the model of the Greater Nydus Worm.
3.) That can be changed in the the Art: Scale Minimum and Art: Scale Maximum fields under the model of the unit or the Art: Scale^ field on the actor of the unit.
4.) If you want a unit to have an outline when it's behind certain units, check the Outline Emitter flag under the Art: Model Flags + field on the actor for the unit. Hover over the Outline Emitter and Outline Occluder flags for a better description of what they do.
0.961583236321304
1.) Duplicate Barracks - Train ability.
2.) Under the Ability: Info^ + field, double-click the next open train slot.
3.) Scroll down and find the Info^ - Unit^ field and add a value using one of the custom units you would like to be trained. Be sure to set the train time in the Info^ - Time^ field.
4.) Repeat steps 2 and 3 as necessary for each unit you would like to be able to train.
5.) Find your new barracks unit under the Unit tab. Under the Ability: Abilities + field, replace the Barracks - Train ability with the train ability you just created.
6.) Select the desired spot for the button you will be using in-game to create the unit under the Ability: Command Card + field. Click "Add Button..." (the green plus or right-click > "Add Button...") and select your desired button, be it a custom button you made or a default one.
7.) Set the Command Type to Ability, the Ability to the train ability, and Ability Command to the unit you would like to be trained.
8.) Repeat steps 6 and 7 as necessary for each unit you would like to be able to train.
If you want to keep the default units (e.g. marines, marauders, etc.), ensure that the buttons that are already there have the Ability and Ability Command fields set accordingly.
1.31244487494488
For the animation speed:
0.961636828644501
You can also just hide the game world.
0.960544217687075
Site Operation (Explicit Rotation) is a type of actor, not a specific site operation. You have to make one that rotates the flame actor according whatever angle you want.
Also, I don't think you need a weapon; you can just create the flame at the start of an effect or behavior.
1.93561146259202
You could submit it for the Monthly Community Test, but that hasn't seen much activity as it stands unfortunately.
The biggest hurdle is that it's a multiplayer map, and it's hard to find a lobby for these kinds of games. It's also difficult for people on this site to coordinate a game due to different schedules and timezones. You could work around this by adding an AI to simulate multiplayer allies/enemies so people can test the map on their own time.
People might also be more attracted to the project if you provide screenshots (and/or gameplay videos, if possible) and a more detailed description of the map, what makes it unique, why you should play it, etc.
1.31040883306183
Probably Map Feedback, or Project Workplace if you have an idea of what you're going to do.
0.958041958041958
Finished the next cinematic! It's a lot shorter (just over 4 minutes). I personally like it a lot more than the opening cinematic, as it has better action scenes (and at this point you're already going to be spending the first 16 minutes of the campaign just watching cinematics!).
0.977777777777778
The problem is that the black parts have not been rendered as transparent/deleted and then saved to .dds format, so the black parts are overlaying the button UI.
I made an icon you can download here. I was unsure if you wanted the emissive layer on (the blue cracks and stuff), so I just left it off since typically I do so when I make my own icons.
For future reference, I would make requests like this in the Requests section of the Artist Tavern forum.