Hi,
I have used this open source project for Warcraft 3 files (.w3x):
https://github.com/ladislav-zezula/StormLibIt treats a .w3x as an archive which is made up of other files. Namely there is a war3map.j file, which contains all the triggers for that map.
What is the equivalent for an .scx file? I want a way to programmatically rebuild a .scx file with updated triggers, so I don't have to use the SCMDraft GUI to copy and paste whole new triggers, etc.
The API should look something like below. I know this is 100% possible, because I have this exact setup/API for Warcraft 3 maps (see:
https://github.com/sethmachine/pyw3x) using an external DLL. Can someone point me to what I need to look at to get started?
infile = '/path/to/map.scx'
# extract the triggers data (in human readable format)
with open_archive(infile, 'r') as archive:
archive.extract_triggers('triggers.txt')
# create new triggers or whatever
new_trigs = create_new_trigs()
# update the map's triggers data
with open_archive(infile, 'w') as archive:
archive.write_triggers(new_trigs)
archive.compact()
None.
PyMS and ProTRG developer
Hey sethmachine,
StarCraft maps (.scm and .scx files) are also archives like .w3x files. They are all just MPQ files (or MoPaQ files) with different extensions, so can be opened/edited with any of the various MPQ editing programs/libraries.
The first problem for editing StarCraft maps in the way you are looking for is that most of their "parts" are not stored in separate files in the mpq (only custom sound files are stored separately). Everything else is placed together into one binary scenario.chk file inside the mpq. The second issue is that your triggers are not stored in the chk file as "code", but as a "compiled" version of the triggers (though unless you are using a trigger generator, no information is lost in the compiling, it can be decompiled to its original source). The third and probably most complex/hardest issue is that all of the strings used for the map (scenario text, custom unit/switch/location names, trigger text, sound file paths, etc.), are stored and intermingle in a single section and only referenced from the other sections by an ID, so its very hard to manage the strings.
There are various tools that have been made to do trigger generation using higher level languages (including Python), you can find a bunch of them on the main page in this forum, and i'm pretty sure there are more. Most of them generate SCMDraft triggers that can be pasted into SCMDraft (or .trg files which can be imported into a map or used in mods), but I think there might be a couple that can inject them directly into maps. Also most, if not all, of these tools don't extract triggers from the map. Usually you would keep your "code" outside the map, update the code, regenerate the triggers, and update the map with those new triggers. Here is just a small list of the tools off the top of my head that you could look into (there are plenty of great tools around):
-
LangUMS-
LIT (Lua)
-
ProTRG (Python)
-
TriGen (Python)
-
Oreo Triggers (PHP)
-
MacroTriggersAnother option is to go even lower level. I have written a suite of modding tools in Python called
PyMS, which are built on top of custom libraries to read/edit most of the StarCraft files, including CHK and MPQ files (MPQ editing is a wrapper around ShadowFlare's SFmpq.dll). It may not be super user friendly, but if you know your way around python/programming, it can accomplish everything you are asking and will provide total control over everything. ProTRG could also probably be tweaked to interface with PyMS for even more power. I can also try and give some help/direction if this is the route you would like to take.
There is a lot of information here, I hope it all makes sense and gives you some idea where you want to go. If you have any questions I would be happy to clarify/elaborate.
Have fun!
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 8 2018, 5:44 pm by poiuy_qwert.
