Quote from name:Lylirra
Q. (Aratar) - I can't seem to stop a tank's turret from doing its idle turning animation. I've tried removing the "fidget" property from the tank's owner and from the unit itself (Set Unit State). I also tried clearing its animations and stopping baseline animations... it's still spinning its turret! 
Same goes for Missle Turrets or Auto-Turrets.
A. You can control the idle animation for turrets by modifying the Fidget field for the Turrets data type. This is separate from the Fidget field for the Unit data type.
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Q. (Aratar) - Is there any way to use data objects (like images, sounds) from a mod in a map that has that mod set as dependency? I can see the objects in the editor, but once I run my map, the objects aren't there (images don't display, sounds don't play)
A. We're currently researching this issue. Maps should be able to use assets that have been imported into a custom mod dependency.
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Q. (Aratar) - How do I make portraits move their lips in transmissions? The "talk" animation just makes them shake their heads. Is it possible to make the lips move in sync with the subtitles?
A. You can set up facial animations in Sound data with the Facial Animation and Facial Group fields. These refer to animations available from a .fxa file which is specified in Model data with the Facial Controller field. The easiest way to pick facial animations is to open the Previewer, add a portrait model, and right-click the portrait model tree view item to Add Facial Layer. Then you can right click the facial layer to view which facial animations are available. Once the data is set up, your portrait will play the facial animation when you send a transmission using that model and sound.
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Q. (Aratar) - When I make a UI dialog and then put a portrait inside it, the portrait is underneath the whole dialog frame... how do i make the portrait render on top of it? The "Set Portrait Channel" function seems to be the answer, but it's not doing anything
A. You should be able to fix this by calling the Set Portrait Render Type trigger to render the portrait in the LDR pass. The game UI is rendered in two passes. HDR is rendered first which generally includes all 3D elements (world, console, portraits). LDR is then rendered on top of that, which contains all of the 2D controls like the dialogs you can create through triggers. Changing the portrait to LDR will allow it to render on top of the dialogs but you will lose certain effects only available in HDR
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Q. (Aratar) - Some doodads have different textures based on the tileset that used. Is it possible to switch their textures somehow? Example: Rock doodads - I'd like to use their Char texture on the Mar Sara tileset (along with using the normal mar sara rock textures)
A. To swap an Actor's textures to a specific tileset you can send the Texture Group Apply message in response to the Actor Creation event.
What’s happening here is that Rocks have their Model data entry configured to automatically change their textures in response to the application and removal of various “texture props”. This behavior is turned on by having at least one item the Texture Declarations field. Each tileset has a prop associated with it such that any model with textures declared will automatically use the correct textures for that tileset.
Whenever a Model Actor sets its model (during initialization or a model swap), it internally sets the tileset prop with what the map specifies. But you can override the prop with the Texture Group Apply message to customize individual models however you want. Tileset props overwrite each other, so if the map sets the tileset prop to “aiur” and you specify “char”, then aiur gets replaced with char.
The texture props for any given texture are based off a combination of any texture prop names found in the texture file's name and any additional data configured in the Model or Texture catalogs. You can link a texture file to any set of texture props by adding TextureDeclares for the model or by adding entries to the Texture catalog.
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Q. (Visual) - What are map sections and how are they used?
A. In order to make it easier for multiple developers to work on a single map simultaneously, various map data may be assigned to a named "section", and data for given section may merged in from a separate map file without changing the rest of the map. Only certain components of the map data may use sections: Placed Objects (units, points, cameras), Regions, and Triggers.
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Q. (Klishu) - I'm having a problem regarding beams. As far as I can tell, the bounding volume of a beam is around the beam's launch point. So, if I have a long beam, the beam disappears when the camera pans away from the beam's launch point. I suppose this is because the bounding volume of the beam moves out of the view frustum. I've tried changing the Visual Radius of the beam's model but I still cannot get the beam to remain visible. Is there any way I can prevent the game from culling the beam when it considers it out of view?
A. There's no solve for this currently. The setting used to prevent the culling is in the asset itself and not readily available to modders. Moreover, while the concept of a fixed sized bounding volume works fine for models, it isn’t ideal for beams that could be fired across an arbitrary range. We’re aware of the issue and hope to have a solution for this problem in the future.
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Q. (Malu) - So, copying doodads from one map to another or simply making a exact clone of a area is a pain since you have to enter all the height offsets manually for every single doodad you copy, is this intended or simply a bug?
A. This is a bug that we hope to address in a future patch.
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Q. (Duke) - Flag "Use line of sight" (unit parameter in data editor) limits unit`s sight radius to very small number that is not enough for my map. With this flag unchecked sight radius becomes right to it value but unit can see over cliffs this way =(. I need to see cliffs correctly but have sight radius more than it limited. Will this problem be fixed?
A. Units using line of sight are limited to a small sight radius in order to optimize the vision system and it's unlikely that we will remove this limitation.
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Q. (Duke) - Is there a way to rotate turret actor of unit? I know there is an action "set angle of actor" or something like this, but i can get only actor of type Unit from unit, but not the turret actor. It will be very good if someone tell me the way my tank always focusing his turret on target, even if i use action "make unit face angle" - because now this action breaks turret rotation and it focus target again only when unit stops rotating.
A. The only way to point a turret at an arbitrary location is to create an invisible dummy unit and a dummy weapon that doesn’t do any damage for that turret. You can then attack the dummy unit with the dummy weapon and move the dummy unit to simulate whatever turret motion you want.
This isn't ideal, obviously. We'd like to explore more game-side turret behaviors and include the ability to have actor-only turrets that look cool, but don’t affect gameplay.
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Q. (Andreyker) - How to combine different areas (R) into one?
A. You can combine Regions by selecting the regions and then using the Edit -> Merge Selection command.
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Q. (Andreyker) - Please add no-base resource squares in category "H". If there is a non-standard location of resources - may occur holes. Not so convenient to build.
A. You can view the tiles near resources by enabling the Show Near Resources option of the placement grid. This is located in the Terrain Editor menu: View -> Show Placement Grid (Ctrl+Shift+H) -> Show Near Resources.
Same goes for Missle Turrets or Auto-Turrets. A. You can control the idle animation for turrets by modifying the Fidget field for the Turrets data type. This is separate from the Fidget field for the Unit data type.
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Q. (Aratar) - Is there any way to use data objects (like images, sounds) from a mod in a map that has that mod set as dependency? I can see the objects in the editor, but once I run my map, the objects aren't there (images don't display, sounds don't play)
A. We're currently researching this issue. Maps should be able to use assets that have been imported into a custom mod dependency.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. (Aratar) - How do I make portraits move their lips in transmissions? The "talk" animation just makes them shake their heads. Is it possible to make the lips move in sync with the subtitles?
A. You can set up facial animations in Sound data with the Facial Animation and Facial Group fields. These refer to animations available from a .fxa file which is specified in Model data with the Facial Controller field. The easiest way to pick facial animations is to open the Previewer, add a portrait model, and right-click the portrait model tree view item to Add Facial Layer. Then you can right click the facial layer to view which facial animations are available. Once the data is set up, your portrait will play the facial animation when you send a transmission using that model and sound.
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Q. (Aratar) - When I make a UI dialog and then put a portrait inside it, the portrait is underneath the whole dialog frame... how do i make the portrait render on top of it? The "Set Portrait Channel" function seems to be the answer, but it's not doing anything
A. You should be able to fix this by calling the Set Portrait Render Type trigger to render the portrait in the LDR pass. The game UI is rendered in two passes. HDR is rendered first which generally includes all 3D elements (world, console, portraits). LDR is then rendered on top of that, which contains all of the 2D controls like the dialogs you can create through triggers. Changing the portrait to LDR will allow it to render on top of the dialogs but you will lose certain effects only available in HDR
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Q. (Aratar) - Some doodads have different textures based on the tileset that used. Is it possible to switch their textures somehow? Example: Rock doodads - I'd like to use their Char texture on the Mar Sara tileset (along with using the normal mar sara rock textures)
A. To swap an Actor's textures to a specific tileset you can send the Texture Group Apply message in response to the Actor Creation event.
What’s happening here is that Rocks have their Model data entry configured to automatically change their textures in response to the application and removal of various “texture props”. This behavior is turned on by having at least one item the Texture Declarations field. Each tileset has a prop associated with it such that any model with textures declared will automatically use the correct textures for that tileset.
Whenever a Model Actor sets its model (during initialization or a model swap), it internally sets the tileset prop with what the map specifies. But you can override the prop with the Texture Group Apply message to customize individual models however you want. Tileset props overwrite each other, so if the map sets the tileset prop to “aiur” and you specify “char”, then aiur gets replaced with char.
The texture props for any given texture are based off a combination of any texture prop names found in the texture file's name and any additional data configured in the Model or Texture catalogs. You can link a texture file to any set of texture props by adding TextureDeclares for the model or by adding entries to the Texture catalog.
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Q. (Visual) - What are map sections and how are they used?
A. In order to make it easier for multiple developers to work on a single map simultaneously, various map data may be assigned to a named "section", and data for given section may merged in from a separate map file without changing the rest of the map. Only certain components of the map data may use sections: Placed Objects (units, points, cameras), Regions, and Triggers.
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Q. (Klishu) - I'm having a problem regarding beams. As far as I can tell, the bounding volume of a beam is around the beam's launch point. So, if I have a long beam, the beam disappears when the camera pans away from the beam's launch point. I suppose this is because the bounding volume of the beam moves out of the view frustum. I've tried changing the Visual Radius of the beam's model but I still cannot get the beam to remain visible. Is there any way I can prevent the game from culling the beam when it considers it out of view?
A. There's no solve for this currently. The setting used to prevent the culling is in the asset itself and not readily available to modders. Moreover, while the concept of a fixed sized bounding volume works fine for models, it isn’t ideal for beams that could be fired across an arbitrary range. We’re aware of the issue and hope to have a solution for this problem in the future.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. (Malu) - So, copying doodads from one map to another or simply making a exact clone of a area is a pain since you have to enter all the height offsets manually for every single doodad you copy, is this intended or simply a bug?
A. This is a bug that we hope to address in a future patch.
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Q. (Duke) - Flag "Use line of sight" (unit parameter in data editor) limits unit`s sight radius to very small number that is not enough for my map. With this flag unchecked sight radius becomes right to it value but unit can see over cliffs this way =(. I need to see cliffs correctly but have sight radius more than it limited. Will this problem be fixed?
A. Units using line of sight are limited to a small sight radius in order to optimize the vision system and it's unlikely that we will remove this limitation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. (Duke) - Is there a way to rotate turret actor of unit? I know there is an action "set angle of actor" or something like this, but i can get only actor of type Unit from unit, but not the turret actor. It will be very good if someone tell me the way my tank always focusing his turret on target, even if i use action "make unit face angle" - because now this action breaks turret rotation and it focus target again only when unit stops rotating.
A. The only way to point a turret at an arbitrary location is to create an invisible dummy unit and a dummy weapon that doesn’t do any damage for that turret. You can then attack the dummy unit with the dummy weapon and move the dummy unit to simulate whatever turret motion you want.
This isn't ideal, obviously. We'd like to explore more game-side turret behaviors and include the ability to have actor-only turrets that look cool, but don’t affect gameplay.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. (Andreyker) - How to combine different areas (R) into one?
A. You can combine Regions by selecting the regions and then using the Edit -> Merge Selection command.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. (Andreyker) - Please add no-base resource squares in category "H". If there is a non-standard location of resources - may occur holes. Not so convenient to build.
A. You can view the tiles near resources by enabling the Show Near Resources option of the placement grid. This is located in the Terrain Editor menu: View -> Show Placement Grid (Ctrl+Shift+H) -> Show Near Resources.
Sources:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/627976600#13
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/627976600#14
None.
