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[G] Mapmaking for Beginners Part.1

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Mereel Germany895 Posts December 22 2011 22:15 GMT #1 Welcome to ‘Map-making for Beginners’, this tutorial is for everybody who just started map-making or for those who are thinking about getting into it. Experienced map-makers can probably learn a thing or two! Brought to you by: Mereel and The Planetary Workshop. Editor How to start Hotkeys Overview Borders Pathing Player Setup Starting Locations Mineral Placement Foliage Upload General Tips Layout How to start Units Building Placement Cliffs General Tips Mapdesign Rotational Symmetry (4Player) Reflected Symmetry (4Player) Rotational Symmetry (2Player) Reflected Symmetry (2Player) How to Start Diving into a new world At a first glance, the Editor might seem to be very complicated and it might be daunting to start working with it, but looks can be deceiving. Making UMS (Use Map Settings, ie. custom game modes) Maps and working with the Trigger and Data Editor is indeed very complicated but fortunately for Melee Maps none of those things are needed. Coming from a Warcraft 3 backround might certainly help when you are getting started with melee mapping. Most of the options related to melee maps have not changed and often use the same pictures and names. But nothing is wrong with starting completely fresh, everything has a good description and this little Tutorial might certainly help every ‘protossdecalseverywherekid’ to understand the basics. Hotkeys Usefull Hotkeys for Melee Maps V for In-game view. This also toggles the grid on and off D for doodads T for terrain U for units P for starting positions (or points) H for pathing (.) and (,) to cycle through different versions of a doodad (+) and (-) to change the size of a doodad (/) and (*) to rotate units and doodads in 90° Hold Shift to disable doodad and unit pathing blank key to deactivate selection Overview How to create an Overview Picture Open up the ‘Create Overview’ in the Data Tab. Select a High Resolution to get a Quality Picture. In this case 2600*2509 (Based on Edges) Cameraview on 90° to get a Topdown shot. Select ‘Custom Settings’ below, but don’t change anything besides Lighting: Editor. Press ‘Generate Overview’ on the right side. Press ‘OK’ to save the Overview Picture. Keep in mind to have the Lighting Tab open in the Background to get the correct lighting, especially when you use Custom Lighting. Borders Correct Borders Open up ‘Mapborders’ in the Map Tab The Yellow Line shows the Cameraedge and the Blue Line shows the Mapedge Make sure to have some more space at the left and right side of the Map to avoid black borders. Add even more extra space at the Top A standard 1v1 Melee Map size is 136x136 Playable Pathing How to use the Pathing Tool Open up the Pathing Tool in the Layer Tab Draw over the Area you don’t want to be pathable. (Red Area) Pathing Blocker (Red Area) also blocks Building Pathing (Yellow Area). You don’t have to paint both over each other. Player Setup Dont forget it Open up Playerproperties in the Map Tab Set Player 2 to User on the right side. Do the same for Player 3 and 4 when you make a 4 Player Map Starting Locations Placing Open up Points in the Layer Tab Hit the second Button from the left and place it correctly at your Mainbase Switch to Editor view to see the Grid, that helps alot Mineral Placement Proper Mineral Placement A Base normally contains 2 normal Gas Geysers and 8 Mineral Patches. There should be a certain amount of space behind the mineral patches where the player can place turrets, cannons or spore crawlers for defense. The proper space between minerals and gas geysers is exactly one hex. Check your mineral placement through pressing v to see either Ingame view or Editor view (grid activated). When you rotate Mineral Formations there is a high possibility that you have to rework them slightly afterwards. You can easily avoid mistakes when you copy&paste Mineral Formations from Blizzard Maps. Make sure not to place the Mineral Line too close to cliff edges to avoid small abuseable areas (Red). Especially Medivacs + Marines can abuse those. Foliage Make things nice Use Foliage to finish your Map. A nice technique is to use foliage all over the Map on a low density and only left the area free where the Expantions are. (as seen on the Picture) Upload watch and be happy Open up ‘Mapupload’ in the Data Tab Login and follow the Descriptions the Editor gives you. Checking Document Dependence may take a while Hit the markers on ‘Puplic’ and ‘Locked’, then press OK Maximum Map upload slots per Account are 20. Maximum Mapsize is 21MB. If you want to remove Maps, open up ‘Mapmanager’ in the Data Tab and follow the Descriptions. General Tips Little hints and bugs you should know When you tab out of the editor and re-tab in all decor and decal doodads, all effects (LoSB, smoke, fire, etc.) and terran-tarmac doodads are disabled. You can re-activate them when u click Control+N then cancel the new map and they should appear again. Only use 45° ramps on your map. The Editor does not allow 30° ramps like Starcraft Broodwar did. However it supports 90° ramps but it is recommended you don’t use it. Always check the cliff transitions from natural to man-made cliffs, and use the cliff doodads (cliff fillers) to fix them. When you fill areas with the 'texture filling' tool always check the cliffs afterwards. Most of the time it doesn’t work right. (mostly on nature cliffs) Bear in mind that only 3 cliff levels are supported (in Warcraft 3 we had around 10) Never use Campaign Dependence in a Melee Map (i know it has many shiny doodads but also many shiny bugs) You can blend natural and man-made cliffs when you allow cliff merging in Tools > Brush. Control - T, dont press it. Naming your Mapfile is no the same as naming the Map in the Editor. Make sure to name it in the Tab ‘Maps’ - Mapinformation. Only use the Default Lighing Setting that are available. How to Start Step by Step Tutorial Of course every Mapmaker has a different approach to how to start making a Map. This short Intro only shows my point of view. I usually start to search for some inspiration in the Broodwar - Maps TLPD on Teamliquid to get a starting point or maybe a general idea. That could be copying the shape of a main/natural and work from there or using even bigger parts of the map for inspiration. Also drawing something on a piece of paper and try to recreate those ideas in the editor is a common starting point. To get things going in the editor I first change the map borders to be the size that I want them to be. After that I place all the mineral-lines that I need at the right locations (as close as possible). Then I lower the cliff-level around the map based on the yellow camera line to get the actually playable mapsize, reposition the mineral-lines and start working on one of the main-locations. Keep in mind that you only have to make half of the map. Copy, paste, flip and/or rotate to create the other half. Units Which Units effect Map design Sentry (Forcefields) Tanks (Siege mode attack range) Planetary Fortress (Strong base defense) Pylons (Warpin Range) Blinkstalker (Blinking over cliffs) Collosus (Walking over cliffs) Reaper (Jumping over cliffs) Building Placement Proper Building Placement Make sure common Walloffs work! A good natural choke can be blocked by 3 3x3 Buildings and one free 1x1 hex to a unit Different version would be 3 3x3 Buildings without the 1x1 extra hex Another version with 2 3x3 Buildings, one 2x2 Building to leave a 1x1 hex for a Unit Standard Natural Placement is reachable with 1 Creep Tumor Cliffs Stay natural On each Tileset there are 2 Cliffdesigns you can choose from. Manmade and Natural/Organic. If you choose Natural Cliffs make sure to stay ‘natural’. Dont use straight Lines. General Tips Little hints and bugs you should know The natural mineral line should be safe from siege tank fire. Main should have at least one entrance for reapers besides going through the natural. Rotational Symmetry (4Player) TPW Aritifice Reflected Symmetry (4Player) Metalopolis, Shattered Temple Rotational Symmetry (2Player) TPW Odyssey, TPW Iron Curtain Reflected Symmetry (2Player) Scrap Station Thanks for reading and now have fun in the Editor!

monitor United States2393 Posts December 22 2011 22:31 GMT #2 Great guide. I can see a lot of work into it too. I hope new mapmakers learn from it!!

Superouman France2192 Posts December 22 2011 22:45 GMT #3 Don't use metalopolis and crap station as reflected symetry, you know they are not

Mereel Germany895 Posts December 22 2011 22:47 GMT #4 well they are in the general idea of course.

ClysmiC United States2192 Posts December 23 2011 02:11 GMT #5 Awesome guide! I've tried making a few maps, but I don't like the new editor as much as I liked the BW editor.

XenoX101 Australia729 Posts December 23 2011 02:41 GMT #6 Lovely guide, the more mapmakers we get the better maps we'll have . Thanks for writing this.

LanZ 35 Posts December 23 2011 05:53 GMT #7 Thanks for this! It will definitely help me out.

FoxyMayhem 624 Posts December 23 2011 08:51 GMT #8 This is really cool. Lot of work put into it. Nice stuff! I can imagine the next part to be helpful is what you should focus on first. I know that I don't make my cliffs look natural, or worry about aesthetics aside from basic texturing until the layout is done, and this saves me a TON of work. You might want to go over the "Phases of map construction" or whatever. Also, you might want to mention shifted reflected symmetry (Shakuras Plateau, among others), and being aware of how your natural mineral lines allow/disallow cannon rushes (for instance, Tal'Darim's main and natural expo have a TON of space behind them I imagine to prevent such issues as a probe walling itself in with pylons and killing the hatch.)

treekiller United States236 Posts December 23 2011 10:33 GMT #9 Could you explain how to use certain tool? I cant seem to get the ramp feature to work. I put ramps in, but there is a null region at the top that prevents bulding placement, but that units can still walk over.

Barrin United States5002 Posts December 23 2011 13:40 GMT #10 Pylons (Warpin Range) I was wondering how many other people thought of this :D I don't think it was common knowledge, but perhaps now it will be. Great beginner's gude

balconia 17 Posts December 23 2011 21:07 GMT #11 This is great. thank you.

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