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Guide to Loading Blizzard Maps in Galaxy Editor

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Bill307 Canada9103 Posts May 07 2010 03:58 GMT #1 Metalopolis opened in the Galaxy Editor, viewing one of its amusing ads. Starting your post with an image is all the rage these days! So you've decided to give StarCraft II Editor.exe a try. The first thing you see is a dialog suggesting that you open an existing map to get a feel for how the Galaxy Editor works. Naturally, your first instinct is to open one of Blizzard's awesome official maps. Unfortunately, you have no idea where they are! That's where this topic comes in. Loading a Blizzard map is no problem, but finding one takes a bit of effort. Step 1: Finding the Folders First of all, you need to find 2 folders on your computer. 1. The Maps folder - By default, this folder is located in your My Documents folder, near your Replays and Screenshots. It should be easy to find. Just look for the following (in Windows): Desktop -> My Documents -> StarCraft II Beta -> Maps 2. The Battle.net folder - By default, this folder is located in your Application Data or AppData folder. It's a bit harder to find. The exact path depends on your operating system. In Windows XP, you can find it here: C: -> Documents and Settings -> user -> Local Settings -> Application Data -> Blizzard Entertainment -> Battle.net Alternatively, if you're using the same operating system as Chuiu, you can find it here: C: -> Users -> yourusername -> AppData -> Local -> Blizzard Entertainment -> Battle.net Step 2: Finding the Maps You may notice that the Blizzard maps are not in the Maps folder above. They are actually in the Battle.net Cache folder, but they are cached among the non-descript subfolders. Fortunately, there is an easy way to find them. First, go to the Maps Cache folder. You'll see a bunch of folders with long names consisting of numbers and letters (us computer nerds call it hexadecimal). Pick one of the folders. For example, when I found Metalopolis, the folder I picked was called: af73051f2153b0e476e6af834cbf4dcd6768fc24b33d9ef62bcc30efe37c8beb.s2ma I don't know if this will be the same for everybody. Next, look at the first 4 characters, in this case "af73". This tells you where the map is located in the Battle.net Cache. E.g. "af73" means I go to the Battle.net Cache, open the folder "af", then open the subfolder "73" inside of it. And voila: I've found the map file! Map files in the Battle.net Cache always have the extension .s2ma, by the way. Step 3: Renaming and Loading the Maps This part is easy. First copy the .s2ma map file you found in the previous step to some other location. Then change its extension to ".SC2Map" (you might want to give it a shorter name as well ). Then open it in the Galaxy Editor. And that's it! Now you can peruse Blizzard's maps from the comfort of the Galaxy Editor! For added effect, I recommend playing some appropriate music in the background. For instance, I was looking around Metalopolis while listening to Mako Reactor from FF7 and it was erie as heck. *shiver* Special thanks to Chuiu for his "Guide to playing custom maps with friends in SC2" which led me to the Battle.net Cache folder.

mrkent United States160 Posts May 07 2010 05:41 GMT #2 now, the question is how to play UMS maps like those on http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/ I really wanna play hungry baneling but IDK how!!

Bill307 Canada9103 Posts May 07 2010 16:46 GMT #3 That's where this topic comes in: Guide to playing custom maps with friends in SC2.

meeple Canada10211 Posts May 07 2010 16:47 GMT #4 Epic... thanks so much Bill

lowlypawn United States241 Posts May 16 2010 02:57 GMT #5 Finally I got it to work! Thanks a ton!

semantics 10040 Posts May 16 2010 03:32 GMT #6 I just did it by searching .s2ma, then i arranged the searched based off file creation date took the top all of the ones that = the latest date and done. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121232

wishbones Canada2600 Posts May 16 2010 03:47 GMT #7 totally forgort aout this one lol i was casting some games past few days,and a spec pinged this one for me. i took the snapshot tho. edit: it says iPistol, and yes its a Pistol attached to his iPod. Lol

Merikh United States918 Posts June 17 2011 16:59 GMT #8 I know this is a bump, but this was the only relevant thread I could find. Please don't exile me :D. The folder on win7 is: C:\ProgramData\Blizzard Entertainment\ I'm still having issues though with loading maps. I get Can't load core file. For example: Anyone know how to do this properly with retail version of starcraft on windows 7? EDIT: I'm an idiot, this isn't the xelnaga map. Crap.

Wihl Sweden472 Posts June 17 2011 17:05 GMT #9 Why not just make a new thread though instead of bumping an unpopular thread from beta? The reason why you cannot open it is because it has been locked by the author.

zhurai United States5660 Posts June 17 2011 18:47 GMT #10 ..... you can link your galaxy editor to blizzard (log in), and then import it? (don't ask me how, I know I did it before by randomly going through and getting lost in the UI. EDIT: I know it's possible to do it through that method though, as I have a map I was editing/fooling around in.... but I can't remember the EXACT steps to do it -_~;

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