Ever since yesterday, the forum uses your Twitch username and avatar picture. Go to your Twitch account settings and change the avatar there. (You need to be logged-in on Twitch for this obviously).
You could try your luck with component files and git, but from my personal experience, it is better to just upload the mapfile with the newest changes somewhere like Google Drive, and your teammates download that version, and then they work on it and upload the newest version as well.
It's cumbersome, but it prevents all of the technical issues that can come up when working with component files.
In either case, communication is key. Any technical issues can be overcome if you talk to your teammates often.
Do you want to create a new unit or structure with a new model, but don't know how to create a wireframe image for it? Never fear, for here is a tutorial on how to do just that!
Those of you who don't want to spend money on Photoshop, you're in luck! This tutorial uses Paint.net instead.
Video Tutorial
Note: This video has no commentary (my voice sucks). It's meant to be watched after reading the written tutorial, so you can understand each step better.
1. Prepare The Model In The Cutscene Editor
First-up, open the editor and go to the model you wish to create a wireframe image for it. Click on “View In Cutscene Editor” to load the model inside the cutscene editor.
Angle
The wireframe should make it clear at first glance what type of unit the player is using. Therefore, you should use either the idle stand animation or attack animation.
For today’s tutorial, we’ll create a new wireframe for the marine unit while he’s standing still (Blizzard uses his attack animation as a wireframe).
Once you’ve got the pose you wish to use for the wireframe, you have to adjust the camera angle as well as the background color.
Using “Front” camera view, then rotate the model by 45° to the right, is a good starting point. Then hold CTRL and the Left Mouse Button to rotate the model.
Lighting
Change the lighting used by the texture set of the map to “Default Lighting”. This way the lighting in the cutscene editor will change as well, as it uses the map texture’s lighting as well.
Once that’s done, select the Default Light entry and change the angle from which the light comes from (Key category).
For a wireframe, a clear contrast and clearly-recognizable shapes are more important than the level of detail. Therefore, make sure that the light will make most of the unit bright, will still having a touch of shadow to make it look more realistic.
Last but not least, change the team color to white for the best possible contrast.
2. Take A Screenshot Of Your Model
Create a screenshot of your unit model inside the cinematic editor and paste it in your image program of choice. You might have to try out different zoom levels until you find something that is the right size.
Btw, you can also create a unit icon image at this point.
Image Sizes
Wireframes are 140 by 140 in size. Unit icons are 76 by 76 in size.
For unit icons, there must be a border of at least 5 pixels, so your screenshotted model shouldn’t be larger than 71 pixels.
Remove and/or recolor a few pixels if necessary to make the image look smooth from up close, and make the background image transparent.
Next, turn the image from color to black and white (also known as grayscale). If the image looks dark in some parts and has some deep black spots, change the gamma levels to make it brighter.
Remember, the wireframe will be colored to green, yellow, red etc., so the brighter the image is, the more clearly-recognizable the colors will be in-game.
Save this image as “Marine – Base”. In case something goes wrong, you can use this image as a backup.
3. Creating Outlines
The last thing to do is to create an outline for the unit. Other programs like Photoshop have their own way of doing this, but I’ve found a good alternative with Paint.net and the “Outline Object” plug-in made by pyrochild.
In Paint.net, go to “Effects → Object → Outline Object”.
For the default outline every wireframe has, set the width to 1 and softness to 254. Also, change the color to white (255, 255, 255).
Now you have a finished wireframe image. Save this one as “wireframe-marine-new”.
4. (Optional) Create Shield Wireframe Images
If your unit or structure uses shields, then you can create outlines for shields as well. Be warned, however, that it requires a bit more effort.
Step 1
First-off, open the “Base” image we created earlier.
For the shields, we’re gonna need a silhouette of your unit. Create a new layer that will become the background. Fill it with a color and put it under the layer of your unit wireframe image.
Merge the layers, use the magic wand tool and invert selection. Now fill the wireframe image with another color, preferably something other than black.
Make the background color transparent and save this image as “Marine – Silhouette”.
Now use the outline tool again. Set the width to 3 and the softness to 240. Color is white as always.
Use the magic wand to select the silhouette and delete it. Now save that image as “wireframe-marine-new-shield01”. (I'll refer to these images as "shield01" and the like from now on out).
Repeat this process, but change the width to 6 and 9 respectively.
Step 2
What you have to do next is to edit the "shield02" and "shield03" images so that they overlap well with shield01 as well as each other.
Open “shield01”, add a new layer and fill it with a color. Put the layer below the white outline. Merge the layers, then use the magic wand and select the background.
Be sure to set the threshold to 0%, as we want to select everything from "shield01", including the pixels with very low opacity.
Invert the selection and fill out the outline with another color. Make the background transparent and save this image as “Marine - Shield01 Silhouette”. Close this image now.
Step 3
Next, open “shield02” and import (or copy&paste) the “Marine - Shield01 Silhouette” image from before. Use the magic wand to select the silhouette, then change the layer to shield02, and press delete.
The “shield02” outline should now have its inner part removed, so it doesn’t overlap with the base wireframe image or “shield01”. However, there still are some spots which don’t overlap properly with “shield01”.
Remove the silhouette and add the original “shield01”. You will see the spots which aren't 100% white between "shield01" and "shield02". Those are the spots that need to be filled with white on the “shield02” layer.
Use the pencil tool to add the white pixels. Once that’s done, remove the “shield01” layer as well as the background, and save “shield02” once more.
Repeat step 2 and 3 the for “shield03”.
Step 4
One last thing is to change the opacity of “shield02” and “shield03”. Open these two images, double-click on their layer and change the opacity to 155(60%) for “shield02” and 77(30%) for “shield03".
5. Import Images
All that is left to do is to convert the images (I use Aorta for this), import them into the map or mod, and add the wireframes to your unit.
This is it, now you’ve got a new set of wireframes for your own unit!
No, the game only has minerals, vespene, terrazine and custom resource. You can toy around with dialogs, variables and triggers if you absolutely need a fifth one, but there's no way to add a new one.
I also think that Starcraft 1 was as 90's edgy as it gets (Not to mention the music, Terran 1 is one of the music tracks of the 90's period), but the refusal to continue this direction and instead go for a more mainstream, not quite rated Mature storyline ruined things in the end.
I think that World of Warcraft has changed them forever. Blizzard no longer is a small, geeky and wild company, but a big influence for people all over the world. They couldn't pull-off another cynical storyline in any of their franchises even if they wanted to (except for Diablo I suppose).
What's more, it's hard to write a sequel story for a game that was more or less finished. Duran and the hybrid were the only unexplored plot elements from SC1, so it became the overarching plot for SC2.
A new start was needed, and by that I mean a considerable time gap.
Look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens and how it taking place 30 years after Return of the Jedi allowed for some form of nostalgia, yet still gave new characters (and thus new plots) a chance to develop.
Compare this to Starcraft II, which took place a mere four years after the first game. Too much conflict between old and new.
Last but not least, Blizzard has never been good at telling a very detailed story. They've always been a gameplay-first company.
In most of their games you have some mission briefings and some dialogue during missions, and that's about it. But Wings of Liberty had a proper storymode (Hyperion).
Don't get me wrong, I like the chatter with all the NPCs, but it made players think that the story had to be taken more seriously. The story is considered more integral to the game experience.
Compare this to Starcraft 1 in which you could just skip all the briefings and start the mission immediately. You could pay attention to the story, but it wasn't forced upon the players.
Players had to spend more time thinking about the plot, which is good if the plot is good, and bad if it isn't. It either paid off big time for people who like the story, or further increases the frustration with the bad writing.
The game selects the language/locale of the installed game language. So if you have English installed, then the game will only display English text when playing.
That means that you can't test another language and check it for errors in a live game. You have to check the text manually in the editor, or ask for help from other players who have a different language of Starcraft II installed.
The mapname is another issue entirely. Unless you press on the "use for all locales" button, the system will translate your mapname for all other languages. So if you want a consistent name across all languages, make sure to check that.
0.944203944203944
Alternatively, just click on "File" -> "Open", select the "Blizzard" category and log-in here instead.
As long as you log-in with your account somewhere in the editor, it should work.
1.5464613088162
Ever since yesterday, the forum uses your Twitch username and avatar picture. Go to your Twitch account settings and change the avatar there. (You need to be logged-in on Twitch for this obviously).
0.946985761890336
I like it!
0.954258088508739
You could try your luck with component files and git, but from my personal experience, it is better to just upload the mapfile with the newest changes somewhere like Google Drive, and your teammates download that version, and then they work on it and upload the newest version as well.
It's cumbersome, but it prevents all of the technical issues that can come up when working with component files.
In either case, communication is key. Any technical issues can be overcome if you talk to your teammates often.
0.96081143384048
Convert the screenshots to the .dds format with Aorta.
1.27454545384786
Introduction
Do you want to create a new unit or structure with a new model, but don't know how to create a wireframe image for it? Never fear, for here is a tutorial on how to do just that!
Those of you who don't want to spend money on Photoshop, you're in luck! This tutorial uses Paint.net instead.
Video Tutorial
Note: This video has no commentary (my voice sucks). It's meant to be watched after reading the written tutorial, so you can understand each step better.
1. Prepare The Model In The Cutscene Editor
First-up, open the editor and go to the model you wish to create a wireframe image for it. Click on “View In Cutscene Editor” to load the model inside the cutscene editor.
Angle
The wireframe should make it clear at first glance what type of unit the player is using. Therefore, you should use either the idle stand animation or attack animation.
For today’s tutorial, we’ll create a new wireframe for the marine unit while he’s standing still (Blizzard uses his attack animation as a wireframe).
Once you’ve got the pose you wish to use for the wireframe, you have to adjust the camera angle as well as the background color.
Using “Front” camera view, then rotate the model by 45° to the right, is a good starting point. Then hold CTRL and the Left Mouse Button to rotate the model.
Lighting
Change the lighting used by the texture set of the map to “Default Lighting”. This way the lighting in the cutscene editor will change as well, as it uses the map texture’s lighting as well.
Once that’s done, select the Default Light entry and change the angle from which the light comes from (Key category).
For a wireframe, a clear contrast and clearly-recognizable shapes are more important than the level of detail. Therefore, make sure that the light will make most of the unit bright, will still having a touch of shadow to make it look more realistic.
Last but not least, change the team color to white for the best possible contrast.
2. Take A Screenshot Of Your Model
Create a screenshot of your unit model inside the cinematic editor and paste it in your image program of choice. You might have to try out different zoom levels until you find something that is the right size.
Btw, you can also create a unit icon image at this point.
Image Sizes
Wireframes are 140 by 140 in size. Unit icons are 76 by 76 in size.
For unit icons, there must be a border of at least 5 pixels, so your screenshotted model shouldn’t be larger than 71 pixels.
Remove and/or recolor a few pixels if necessary to make the image look smooth from up close, and make the background image transparent.
Next, turn the image from color to black and white (also known as grayscale). If the image looks dark in some parts and has some deep black spots, change the gamma levels to make it brighter.
Remember, the wireframe will be colored to green, yellow, red etc., so the brighter the image is, the more clearly-recognizable the colors will be in-game.
Save this image as “Marine – Base”. In case something goes wrong, you can use this image as a backup.
3. Creating Outlines
The last thing to do is to create an outline for the unit. Other programs like Photoshop have their own way of doing this, but I’ve found a good alternative with Paint.net and the “Outline Object” plug-in made by pyrochild.
In Paint.net, go to “Effects → Object → Outline Object”.
For the default outline every wireframe has, set the width to 1 and softness to 254. Also, change the color to white (255, 255, 255).
Now you have a finished wireframe image. Save this one as “wireframe-marine-new”.
4. (Optional) Create Shield Wireframe Images
If your unit or structure uses shields, then you can create outlines for shields as well. Be warned, however, that it requires a bit more effort.
Step 1
First-off, open the “Base” image we created earlier.
For the shields, we’re gonna need a silhouette of your unit. Create a new layer that will become the background. Fill it with a color and put it under the layer of your unit wireframe image.
Merge the layers, use the magic wand tool and invert selection. Now fill the wireframe image with another color, preferably something other than black.
Make the background color transparent and save this image as “Marine – Silhouette”.
Now use the outline tool again. Set the width to 3 and the softness to 240. Color is white as always.
Use the magic wand to select the silhouette and delete it. Now save that image as “wireframe-marine-new-shield01”. (I'll refer to these images as "shield01" and the like from now on out).
Repeat this process, but change the width to 6 and 9 respectively.
Step 2
What you have to do next is to edit the "shield02" and "shield03" images so that they overlap well with shield01 as well as each other.
Open “shield01”, add a new layer and fill it with a color. Put the layer below the white outline. Merge the layers, then use the magic wand and select the background.
Be sure to set the threshold to 0%, as we want to select everything from "shield01", including the pixels with very low opacity.
Invert the selection and fill out the outline with another color. Make the background transparent and save this image as “Marine - Shield01 Silhouette”. Close this image now.
Step 3
Next, open “shield02” and import (or copy&paste) the “Marine - Shield01 Silhouette” image from before. Use the magic wand to select the silhouette, then change the layer to shield02, and press delete.
The “shield02” outline should now have its inner part removed, so it doesn’t overlap with the base wireframe image or “shield01”. However, there still are some spots which don’t overlap properly with “shield01”.
Remove the silhouette and add the original “shield01”. You will see the spots which aren't 100% white between "shield01" and "shield02". Those are the spots that need to be filled with white on the “shield02” layer.
Use the pencil tool to add the white pixels. Once that’s done, remove the “shield01” layer as well as the background, and save “shield02” once more.
Repeat step 2 and 3 the for “shield03”.
Step 4
One last thing is to change the opacity of “shield02” and “shield03”. Open these two images, double-click on their layer and change the opacity to 155(60%) for “shield02” and 77(30%) for “shield03".
5. Import Images
All that is left to do is to convert the images (I use Aorta for this), import them into the map or mod, and add the wireframes to your unit.
This is it, now you’ve got a new set of wireframes for your own unit!
0.966343411294923
0.96236012207528
A very well-written piece!
I also think that Starcraft 1 was as 90's edgy as it gets (Not to mention the music, Terran 1 is one of the music tracks of the 90's period), but the refusal to continue this direction and instead go for a more mainstream, not quite rated Mature storyline ruined things in the end.
I think that World of Warcraft has changed them forever. Blizzard no longer is a small, geeky and wild company, but a big influence for people all over the world. They couldn't pull-off another cynical storyline in any of their franchises even if they wanted to (except for Diablo I suppose).
What's more, it's hard to write a sequel story for a game that was more or less finished. Duran and the hybrid were the only unexplored plot elements from SC1, so it became the overarching plot for SC2.
A new start was needed, and by that I mean a considerable time gap.
Look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens and how it taking place 30 years after Return of the Jedi allowed for some form of nostalgia, yet still gave new characters (and thus new plots) a chance to develop.
Compare this to Starcraft II, which took place a mere four years after the first game. Too much conflict between old and new.
Last but not least, Blizzard has never been good at telling a very detailed story. They've always been a gameplay-first company.
In most of their games you have some mission briefings and some dialogue during missions, and that's about it. But Wings of Liberty had a proper storymode (Hyperion).
Don't get me wrong, I like the chatter with all the NPCs, but it made players think that the story had to be taken more seriously. The story is considered more integral to the game experience.
Compare this to Starcraft 1 in which you could just skip all the briefings and start the mission immediately. You could pay attention to the story, but it wasn't forced upon the players.
Players had to spend more time thinking about the plot, which is good if the plot is good, and bad if it isn't. It either paid off big time for people who like the story, or further increases the frustration with the bad writing.
0.96218487394958
The game selects the language/locale of the installed game language. So if you have English installed, then the game will only display English text when playing.
That means that you can't test another language and check it for errors in a live game. You have to check the text manually in the editor, or ask for help from other players who have a different language of Starcraft II installed.
The mapname is another issue entirely. Unless you press on the "use for all locales" button, the system will translate your mapname for all other languages. So if you want a consistent name across all languages, make sure to check that.