Posted by GardenOfAiur in Blog, Featured, Galaxy Editor, Guides/Modding | 7 Comments
Starcraft 2 Editor : Learning The Basics
Starcraft2Mods has posted a great “Getting Started” guide for those of us that are newbies to the editor platform, and explains in detail the basics of using the Starcraft 2 Editor.
If you’re reading this, chances are you are new to modding in general or modding StarCraft II. Either way, you’ve picked a great place to get started. The first couple of tutorials will get you started with the editor and introduce you to all of the different parts of the editor and show you how to make a rudimentary tower defense game from scrap. So without further ado, lets get started.
Opening the Editor
First things first, you need to open the editor. You simply can’t learn game modding without getting down and dirty with the editor. The first question you might have is “how do I open the editor?” You’ll notice it doesn’t appear in the start menu or in any of the in-game menus. The easiest way to open the editor is to navigate to the folder where StarCraft II is installed and it should be right there next to StarCraft II.exe named StarCraft II Editor.exe. I would highly recommend right clicking and creating a shortcut and placing it on your desktop, especially if you’re going to be doing a lot of modding.
Basic Controls
Once you open up the editor you’ll see a greenish plane with objects on the left hand side. Before you dive in a start placing zerglings all over the map, its probably a good idea to get the controls down. For first time users, it might feel a little weird moving around the map, but after an hour or two it will begin to feel like second nature.
Zooming in and out of the map works like it should, by using the scroll wheel on your mouse. Blizzard has almost outdone themselves with what seems like limitless zooming (you can almost zoom in to the point where a single pixel will consume your whole screen) which should provide for some nice cinematics.
To change the altitude of your view (move closer or farther away from the ground plane) hold alt + right mouse button and move the mouse forward and back.
To move across the map (pan) simply hold the right mouse button down and move the mouse in the direction you want the screen to move. You can also use the arrow keys to move around the map.
To change the camera’s angle you need to hold ctrl + right mouse button and move the mouse.
Zoom: Scroll wheel
Pan: Right mouse button
Move up/down: Alt + right mouse button
Change camera angle: Ctrl + right mouse button
Creating a New Map
After you’ve gotten into the editor, and learned how to move around in the viewport its time to get started on a new map (chances are you don’t want to get started on an epic 256×256 sized map). To create a new map/document, go to the File tab and click on “New Document” A box like the one below will open up.
The first thing in the dialog box is the document type. This controls whether you are making a map or a mod. The key differences between the two are the fact that a map is a single map where as a mod is something that can be applied to multiple maps. As explained in the box to the right, “Maps contain information for setting up and playing a single game” whereas “Mods contain customized data to modify the way the game plays for any map that uses the mod.”
Mods are quite complicated compared to maps so we’re going to leave that alone for the moment and just choose map. From there, you can choose the dependencies the map uses. The dependencies are a set of rules that govern how the map operates. The choices are Melee (Liberty), Campaign (Liberty), and Custom.
Melee and Campaign are pretty straightforward. If you wanted to make a basic melee map, you would use the Melee (Liberty) dependencies. If you wanted to create a campaign like map, you would use Campaign (Liberty) dependencies. For almost everything else, you would use Custom.
When you select custom dependency, it will automatically open up the “Modify” option and a Document Dependencies window will open up looking a lot like the image below.
Dependencies are essentially a set of rules that govern how the game is played. By default, Liberty.SC2Mod and LibertyMulti.SC2Mod are used (these govern how standard multiplayer works and how the campaign works). We’re not going to worry about this for the moment and we’re going to move on to setting up the base map.
Underneath dependencies are the dimensions for the map, ranging from 32 to 256 in increments of 8 with the playable size ranging from 12 x 4 to 236 x 228. Below the dimensions is the texture set to be used on the map as well as the initial texture that covers the map. While its a good idea to have this thought out ahead of time, it is possible to use any texture once you have started working on your map, so you are by no means locked into a certain texture set once you hit “OK.”
Very last is the height adjustments. The base height is set to a default of 8 and random height is set to “off” by default. As you may have guessed, adding random height will introduce random height across the map based on the strength and variability settings.
After you’ve selected the desired settings, hit “OK” and you’re ready to get started.
Stay tuned for more tutorials coming soon.
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We’ve revamped the original article as wel as the website and added somenew pictures. Check out the new page here:
http://starcraft2mods.com/blog/tutorials/getting-started/
There’s a lot more on the way!
Wow what the hel is this, basics of map. the dependencies are very important! and are the BASE of the map you should explain it in here! everything else you explained is straight forward if they cant figure it out they shouldn’t b map making.
How Do You Set the Location of a Players Screen to a Point on the Map?
Thanks
~ EP
Thanks, learning how to pan around helped a lot!
hey, couldn’t help but comment when I saw your blog. Good blog post, thanks for sharing.
Hey,
can somebody help me?
The problem is that I have set game type to ‘costum’, I locked ‘game speed’ (faster) and I set all player colors to ‘white’.
Now when the game starts, the game type of the map is still ’1 vs 1 melee’, game speed is not locked and players just have diffirent colors (units I edited white color are now red, blue, teal and purple)
Any help pls?
Marloes
Yo marloes,
Hey I run into alliance and color problems to, and the awnsers are in the triggers, in fact to awnser to almost everything is in there, but it’s tough to get the hang of it. Start with clicking on the triggers button which looks like a gear and is at the top of the editor to the rightish. It’ll open another window with two columns, on the left are all the triggers that are already in the map, and on the right are all the stuff in the trigger.
To fix annoying little problems like color, alliances, can be fixed in Map Initialization, which is automatically on and everything in this trigger is activated as soon as you start playing it. There are three parts to triggers, but the awnser to your problem is in the last one: actions. At the top right of that window are all the three parts I just mentioned, at the bottom is the action(s) So to make a new one, go to the topish area of the window and click the thing that looks like a action snapper like in the movies. Now itll make another window to put in the action you wanna do.
There is a handy little search box near the top of that new action window, in there type set player color to change the color of individual players, set alliance to change the alliance between two characters, and my personal favorite add upgrade, anyways this window is the goo of the editor.
so once you pick what you wana do, at the bottom right of the trigger editor is the fill in box and there you just plug in what you want.
I suspect you are pretty new, so I want to show you how to make the protoss look evil like in the second minicampaign mission of zeratul. In the action window do add upgrade like i said was my favorite. Itll say
Add one (upgrade) to (player)
Or something, in the upgrade slot search dark protoss, and for player stick it on a protoss player.
Now when you start most of that player’s unit’s will look dark and evil.
But before you test it you need to go in player properties and change all the users except you into computers temporarily to test it.
Another ultra helpful search in actions is WAIT itll wait that many game seconds before performing the next action. Good luck and dont worry about whispering me in game Ill test yours if you test mine.