On February 16 2011 17:55 hp.Shell wrote: This is so badass. I really like the picture "Tips on painting cliff levels" because it has SC2 cliffs and your drawing in one image.
Yep, my image rendered in Ultra quality! Still blurry... hmm Reminds a bit of semi-cel-shading in style though
How many of you have attempted this yet? Any problems? Or is everything working smoothly?
Awesome guide! By the way, maybe I missed it, but I've got a few questions. 1, How big should the project in GIMP/Photoshop be? is 400x400 or something alright/too big? 2, If I want to make a 4player map, is it good to use this "background-sketch" like you just did or will the editor's rotating do and I can start making it directly in editor? Btw, in editor, how to take one "quadrant" and perfectly rotate it? I mean, how do I know how big is one quadrant? Thanks in advance.
1. It does not matter, you only need to be able to put down enough detail to make out what you've drawn.
2. You can rotate and flip on a 4 player map easily in the editor, as long as you don't go for a map tilted 45 degrees, then it will be a bit harder (see a post I made in the Marshlands map thread for more info about making a map tilted 45 degrees).
So this is only needed when you do a layout which can't be copied and pasted with flips and 90 degree rotations.
A quadrant is a fourth of the map, usually split down the center perpendicular to the borders of the map.
I have been looking for a straight up tutorial on how to make a standard StarCraft 2 map. I want to make normal maps before I go make crazy mods, this is just what the doctor ordered, thanks so much man.
I'm terrible with GIMP or Photoshop . And SC2 editor is so bad -_-... why can't they just make all ramps the same size.... 3 player maps are soo hard for me .
Btw, is someone willing to make a GIMP or Photoshop image for me? I got a design on a piece of paper, but getting alot of trouble with GIMP.
I wanted to say I finally got around to doing this and your steps were just about perfect. The only problem I ended up having was that when I imported the .dds files and replaced the old decal doodads, for some reason if I saved it, closed the editor and reopened the map the old decals would be there no matter what. So all I had to do after I imported the doodads was save it and then go place them without having to reopen sc2 editor.
I have to say it worked pretty damn well for my first 3 player map, I noticed my decal doodad scales up to 311% (you said 300% was max) but for some reason I could get to 311% before it stopped messing up.
@ 23 variable in the model/decals and with 311% scale it turns out the map I drew up is 158x140 which if I put it to 300% would be a little smaller.
The best part is now since I worked thru it once, I'm almost confident I would be able to do it by myself easily without having to look at this tutorial again. So yeah, thanks for the great tutorial and let me just say that April MotM 3 player maps only should be a lot of fun.
On February 18 2011 19:27 EunByuL wrote: I'm terrible with GIMP or Photoshop . And SC2 editor is so bad -_-... why can't they just make all ramps the same size.... 3 player maps are soo hard for me .
Btw, is someone willing to make a GIMP or Photoshop image for me? I got a design on a piece of paper, but getting alot of trouble with GIMP.
Scan it and just load it into Photoshop. That's what I did.
Awesome tutorial! Tho, having the same problem as SidianTheBard, just worse, where his fix around dosn't work for me.
What I do is converting my 128x128.jpg files into .dds files with ImageConverter Plus with DXT5 format. After importing them into the editor and moving them to Assets\Textures I save the map and close down the editor to reopen them. Here in comes the problem. The files keeps getting overwritten by the original files for some strange reason. I've been trying to run the editor in adminstrator mode to no luck. Also tryed creating different maps to import on but no luck either.
Edit: After doing a last trick I FINALLY managed to use the actual images in the editor My solution was:
1) First import the images and move them to Assets\textures. After that is done, re-import the images so you will have 2 of each, but one of them being moved. Save and close the editor.
2) Reopen the map and the moved files has been overwritten. Now move the non-moved files to Assets\textures. Done, the decal is now showing the images.
I cant seem to display the 4 quadrant images like everyone else has. Each have the correct spelling and capitalized letters respectively. Each image was compressed successfully as well. When I import the dds files into the map (save and close) and reopen, even if I manage to keep a second set of the same images in the Textures folder, I can't seem to get the map templates to display. They seem to just revert back to the original decal even with proper saves. Is there anyone else able to overcome this problem?
i would suggest visiting: here Mozared and others there have pretty much fleshed it all out and cleared pretty much any bug (other than galaxy rare bugs/ deficiencies) do surf, and then report if it's a bug, these guys will make you save a boatload of time
Thanks again for a great gem of a thread NullCurrent <3mapmakers ' sharing...
Nice tutorial, I suppose it's possible to create 1 doodad as a tighter scale for a 4 player map, have more detail on it, then just import and rotate the doodad image.
Assuming using Photoshop (it's what I use with this) I stole your image of the 120 degree angles + Show Spoiler +
but even after I loaded that up and sliced it up those lines weren't directly in the middle. No big deal as slicing the image in 1/2 vertically and horizontally it worked well.
Short version after you have the 4 sections named properly.
Open SC2 editor, import the 4 files to the correct location.
file save xxx.sc2map, file close, file open xxx.sc2map
data editor, models, search for decals, change scale to 23,23,23. (sometimes I've had to use 21s or 22s...not sure why, maybe a cropping problem in photoshop so i had to shrink this).
file save xxx.sc2map, file close, file open xxx.sc2map
doodad layer, decals, place 4 decals. Switch variable to 15,16,17,23 & you can put the scale in there all the way up to 300 (I think max I've went up to was 314 or so) as well. (You need to remember if the scale gets too big then the doodad just won't show up at all which was a problem for me as well which is why in the model > decals > scale I've had to change it lower.
If the doodads don't show up, close the map, reopen it, and reimport the dds files in the correct spot and then without closing/saving it, try to place the doodads again and see if they show up. (you shouldn't have to mess with the data editor/scale at this point since it'll already be in there.)
Again, couldn't have done any of this without NullCurrents guide, just had some questions how I fixed the problem and how I did it.
Is there a reason why you don't export a top-down map image from the editor when you're done with the first slice and add to your texture, so you can follow the exact terrain for the next 2 slices rather than the sketch?
Certainly gonna try this at some point (however I'll jump motm4) so a lot of thanks.
No matter what I try doing for this, it doesnt work. Sometimes the files just dont get replaced, like upon closing and opening the editor, its just the default textures again. The import preview shows the imported images perfectly, but they still don't work. If I save the map once after reopening, it puts my textures back, but if I try to use them, it causes my entire editor to freeze and I have to hard close it. I have been trying to get this work for the past 3 hours and I am getting super frustrated with it.
I followed the exact instructions listed in the guide, and have tried it on three different maps to make sure that it wasnt working. Anyone have any ideas that might help?
EDIT: Ok, so I have gotten the textures to actually go down by waiting about 15 minutes for the editor to "load" them after I change it to variation 15. The problem is that the editor runs EXTREMELY poorly after that, and it goes back into the frozen mode for another 15 minutes if I try to move the textures, or the camera, at all. I've tried lowering the size of the files to see if they would load faster, but it doesn't appear to make a difference. I also tried turning the editor graphic settings down to low, but to no avail. About ready to give up on it entirely.
i have used a different method previously. and i thought i might share it as well, as i think it can be combined with yours. basically i created a photoshop grid similar to the editor grid. designed a third of the map, rotated it around, and then used the image for measure. it may not be as effective as your method, but it is pretty nice to have a grid to be able to place minerals and such accurately, which helps alot with getting the scale right.
(please ignore the fact that i accidently made the cc's only 4 units big :D)
another method, which i have just tested out now was to design one third of the map in the editor, save out an top image. go to photoshop and trace the cliffs with the pen tool, export paths to ai, import path in max, extrude it up, save it out as a m3 model file, and import it back to the editor :D sounds complicated, but it actually took only like 1-2 minutes to do. similar to the decal method.
EPT
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oDnwI.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://pixelirium.de/sc2/3rd_map.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://pixelirium.de/sc2/3pwork1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://pixelirium.de/sc2/3pwork2.jpg)
