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So you put together this awesome map with 3 naturals and two backdoors and 20 watchtowers and all the rush distances are measured out... now how do you go about releasing this pig for the community to enjoy? Just follow this handy checklist:
- Melee Status
Before you do anything else, go to "Map -> Map Status" and see if it is "Melee" status. If not, the dialog will tell you why.
- Player Settings
You'd be surprised how often this slips by while folks are crafting beautifully-textured smiley faces on their maps. Go to "Map -> Player Properties..." and check this dialog carefully. By default Player 0 is "Neutral" and Player 15 is "Hostile," which is what you want for a melee map. Then make sure Player 1-# are set to "User" where # is the number of spawns on your map.
- Team Settings and Disabling 1v1 Spawns
If your map is for teams (2v2, 3v3) or if it is supposed to work like Shakuras Plateau where you want certain spawn pairs to be disabled in 1v1, you need to visit "Map -> Team Placement..." and use basic mode for setting up team games and advanced mode for disabling spawns in 1v1. Open Shakuras Plateau in the editor for an example of configuring 1v1 spawns.
- Game Variants
Go to "Map -> Game Variants..." and check the box for "Use Default Variants" and melee game-typey stuff will appear. If you can't seem to get refs or observers in your map, this is probably unchecked.
- Unpathable cliffs
Did you use strips of high ground around the edges of your map, or maybe put some tiny unpathable cliffs here and there? Did you either use pathing blockers (doodads) or the pathing fill point or the paint pathing layer to make them unpathable? If you have a pathable cliff above the main and you didn't mean to, your map might be arrested for abuse.
- Unusual Pathing/Cliff Pathing
This is a subtle issue. Sometimes you want a doodad that doesn't have a footprint to be in the play area so you paint some pathing on it, or do cute stuff with pathing blockers here and there. If you have anything like this on your map, place a big group of marines and a big group of reapers on the map and fire it up in test mode. Then walk giant blobs of units all next to and around and past the tricky pathing areas to see if anything unusual behavior occurs. Do the same with the reapers, sometimes when you monkey with pathing near a cliff the cliff-walking units can get into places you didn't think they could.
- Generate Lighting Map
You want to generate this so your map will have better lighting in the SC2 engine, but you wait until the terrain layout is set, otherwise you have to regenerated. Go to "Data -> Generate Lighting Map..." to kick it off.
- Generate Foilage
Did you forget to plant bushes? Go to the terrain control dialog, click the tree icon and click "Generate Foliage" to make cute plants appear. I usually erase the foliage layer completely then just paint exactly where I want it.
- Publish "Public"
When you go to publish a map the default for "Release" is "Private" which means people cannot find your map by name when the search for it. Switch to public when it's go time.
- Test Games!
Last of all you can easily double-check everything else you've done by playing games online with other people. Creating games, joining them, having people search for the map, having observers in a game will all tell you your map is configured for release. There are many chat channels where you can recruit some nice people to give you a hand, like 'MotM' for instance.
Please post other items for this checklist so our maps will shine.
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Dimfish requested that I record the obs issue I am struggling with.
When I publish a map, Players 1-14 are set to 'user' to allow for spectator and referee modes. However, this displays the map as a 14-player on the map list.
The prime issue is that 9 out of 10 times, a random person who's placed in watcher mode will have either spectator or referee title. As a host, I am unable to remove the referee or change to spectator, and I am also unable to promote people to referee as well. To make a referee a spectator I am forced to kick the person and re-invite them to the lobby.
This is the most frustrating aspect of the map-making deal, and I am trying everything I can to fix this so it displays as a 2-player man and Referee/Spectator modes are selectable by the HOST.
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Don't set them to user. Set them to none. Obs is a BNet function not associated with the player settings.
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This will still allow Ref/Spectator mode to be selected by the host only right?
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Yeah you're player properties (for a 2P map) should look like this:
![[image loading]](http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/5456/playerpropertiesdialog.png)
I would assume that the problems you're having with setting additional users as ref's/spectators, etc. stem from not having the player properties set up right.
Oh and, for the record, nice thread dimfish 
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Thanks funcmode. But why did you set player 15 control to 'none' instead of the default of 'hostile'? I don't even know if that makes a difference, but it seems to be fine in the maps I've published. Anyone know what "player 15" does in hostile mode except control the hostile Ultra on MorroW's crazy beta map?
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IronMan, I think I found the bug in your map! Check out the "game variants" item I added to the OP and see if it fixes your problem.
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On February 02 2011 16:34 dimfish wrote:
Thanks funcmode. But why did you set player 15 control to 'none' instead of the default of 'hostile'? I don't even know if that makes a difference, but it seems to be fine in the maps I've published. Anyone know what "player 15" does in hostile mode except control the hostile Ultra on MorroW's crazy beta map?
You know, I don't really know. I vaguely remember way back before release you had to set the 15th slot to none instead of hostile for it to give you the "All Melee requirements have been met" message, but I might be making that up. Regardless, like you said I don't think it makes a difference now unless you plan on actually having hostile units on the map, in which case you'll obviously need it set to hostile.
I meant to mention game variants in my first post but I guess it totally slipped my mind, as that and player properties pretty much go hand-in-hand.
Speaking of game variants - I remember a while back, you could generate the defaults but then change the actual default setting (i.e. 4P map, generate defaults, set 1v1 as [Default]), but now it seems you can't do that any more. So if you make a 4P map it forces the default setting to be 2v2. Did anyone else notice this, or does it just happen to me?
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I was thinking about it.. and well.. what shouldn't you check just before releasing? I donno about the rest of you guys but as far as layout and texturing goes, I check parts and then check other parts, change parts, end up changing other parts because I changed parts, and then change more parts because I changed parts, and then check everything again and maybe change something etc etc etc etc. Quite frankly I check everything. I guess what I'm saying is that line that designates whether you think you're ready to release or not is sorta different for everyone (and some things can be on different sides of that line for a lot of people).
So IMO it can be pretty confusing as to what exactly should go on this list.
Well, you're already working on what we should include, so I guess what I'm asking is what should we exclude?
Terrain? Textures? Doodads? Fog? Lightning? Water? Height Levels (i.e. "noise)? I could go on of course.
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The art stuff isn't as important imo. This guide is to get it to a playable state I believe. A few things on here are perhaps not as essential.
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On February 04 2011 01:38 iGrok wrote:
The art stuff isn't as important imo. This guide is to get it to a playable state I believe. A few things on here are perhaps not as essential.
Exactly, this isn't a guide to making a great map, this is a guide to the things that should be correct/set/checked for a map meant to be played by the community at large. Player and variant settings are crucial, and other stuff that can break a map (pathing bugs or expos with really bad resource placement) are going to completely turn players off.
Other stuff is a matter of style, right? Some people do light texturing, some people go crazy. Personally I never use weather effects on purpose because I find them more distracting than the look they add. But you probably want the game engine to cache the light map, don't ya!?
So here's a good rule: if its something you should do before releasing any melee map whatsoever, let's put it on the list.
So following my own rule, I think generating foliage is debatable. Although, when you meant to do it it's such a hidden function its really easy to forget.
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RE-generating foilage is important, if you have changed terrain elevation (or cliff levels).
If you do not regenerate, foilage might "levitate" above ground in the map, which doesn't look too good.
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On February 04 2011 02:15 NullCurrent wrote:
RE-generating foilage is important, if you have changed terrain elevation (or cliff levels).
If you do not regenerate, foilage might "levitate" above ground in the map, which doesn't look too good.
That's true, I've had plants sitting on concrete where I changed textures after generating foliage, a similar problem. Okay, let's leave this as a step you should just do quick before releasing a map to make sure distracting graphical bugs don't bother players.
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EPT
