[G] Mapmaking for Beginners Part.1

Mereel

Germany895 Posts

December 22 2011 22:15 GMT

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 States2403 Posts

December 22 2011 22:31 GMT

Great guide. I can see a lot of work into it too. I hope new mapmakers learn from it!!

Superouman

France2195 Posts

December 22 2011 22:45 GMT

Don't use metalopolis and crap station as reflected symetry, you know they are not

Mereel

Germany895 Posts

December 22 2011 22:47 GMT

well they are in the general idea of course.

ClysmiC

United States2192 Posts

December 23 2011 02:11 GMT

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

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

Thanks for this! It will definitely help me out.

FoxyMayhem

624 Posts

December 23 2011 08:51 GMT

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

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.