What, exactly, are the limits of these modding tools? I'm thinking about making a small mod for a campaign or two, and I was wondering what I could do to enhance it, like renaming the organization for a specific player color (like teal Terran is Kel-Morian Combine, etc.)

Race names and colors (I believe) are randomly assigned. You could however edit the maps so you make them with non-random start location and just assigning whatever color you wish for X race.

u can virtually change anything...

the colors, the name of factions (i.e. kel-morian combine to MM rangers), the text between official campaigns, the picture between campaigns...

that's just regarding ur campaign mod...

go download Eternal Duel: Earth vs Mars in our database, and play it, and that's an excellent example of pushing starcraft to the limit @_@

I think that the upper limits of modding are still being determined. Like mapping, you can do some fucking awesome shit, and people are working day and night to puzzle out how to do even more awesome shit.

Two of the only things I know of that don't work well in modding are mobile bunkers and mining carriers.

There is no upper limit to modding. It's called modding for a reason.

If you wanted to, you could reverse engineer all of starcraft, alter the engine to support a 4th race, connect to different clients by default rather than B.net, communicate with an outside server, or support more than 8 players.

Yes it's hard, but it's still possible.

Dear Syphon:
While true, there's a point where you might as well say you can always code your own game. However true it may be, it doesn't help the poster, as it ignores the intent of the question asked. He wants to know what is feasible with the tools we have, not what is possible if given enough time and education on programming.




Dear Dracolich:
There are a lot of nuances to modding that are often only discovered while testing and trying to accomplish something new. For instance, the Firebat and Zealot are hardcoded to display double damage. They don't use the Factor field like other units do because their damage is iscript-based. New upgrades and changing what units benefit from upgrades is not possible at present, though thanks to some EXE edits a number of upgrades can now have different values changed (like how much armor the Ultralisk upgrade gives, or the range increase for the Marine).

Reams could be written on what isn't feasible, and more reams could be written on creative ways around those limitations. You'd be better off asking more specific questions about what you'd like to do, instead of asking for generalities.

Instead, here's a list of what can generally be done:

TBL Editing: Change any name or text in the game.

BIN Editing: Move the position of various menu and GUI objects. Some aspects of the HUD are stuck together, though.

DAT Editing: Change file references and statistic of units and weapons.

GRP Editing: Change any graphic in the game, from units, buildings, doodads, anything.

SMK Editing: New portraits, animated menu items, or even cinematics if you're so inclined.

Tile Editing: Complex, but can completely change the tilesets, both graphically and data-wise (such as what is walkable or not).

Iscript Editing: One of the most powerful editing abilities, all animations can be changed. Many unique things can be done here with creative and often elaborate use of opcodes. How a unit moves, dies, attacks, idles, etc is all controllable here.

Grafting: Also known as memory patching, this is the widest frontier of possibilities. At its most basic level, it allows buttons and requirements to be edited. Give spells to different units, have structures create different units, change what a building needs before it can be built, etc. In the past year or so, FireGraft has also included new EXE Edits, which allow previously hardcoded things to be editable. For those experienced with programming, FireGraft can also employ custom Plugins that can further edit Starcraft in extraordinary ways. There are also some new things on the horizon for FireGraft, though I cannot talk about them at this time.

So, turning Danimoth into Aldaris (Arbiter), with his own, new soundset would be easy?

I haven't yet decided if I'll make my Protoss campaign into a mod (if I decide to add Aldaris in, as a hero, then I might), but I'd like to explore all my options.

That's really easy. Use TblPad to change Danimoth's name to Aldaris, and DatEdit to change the portrait and quotes.

Meh, I made most of a soundset for Aldaris, got bored, and decided to post it here: http://www.zshare.net/download/53826656aad5bd22/.

Hopefully, someone can do something with this. Some of it isn't as good as it could be (but is beyond my skill), but it's still pretty good.