Right, I get that. My confusion lies in how the mapmaking part of it will affect this in any way.

Look I know you can overlap names on stuff with modded map content, maybe even change sounds that are played by the unit/building, ofc stats as well, What I'm reffering to are graphical changes as well.
I need a map to display buildings with other graphics and possibly other death explosions.
The Race itself is pretty much done, what I need are more passive buildings like infested huts and Domes while the regular huts and domes could be converted into Doodads to save unit slots and GRP slots.

By pre placing buildings that don't belong to the tech tree nor the map itself (campaign buildings), note that not any campaign buildings only such campaign buildings which are not supposed to be on the "mission", by making the map display them with other graphics, muting and overlap the names. (The Graphics replacers being a part of the map which will make a certain campaign building, lets say Ion Canons to be displayed like infested huts).
(A mod creating the infested Terrasns without having the entire tech tree content in the md would suck as it would be bound to a map)
in this mod the Entire Infested terran tech tree is integrated into the mod itself, uninfested huts and Domes will become Doodads and serve as good decorations, Infested buildings on the other hand are supposed to be something you can destroy and to not use more unit slots and more graphics in the mod itself the map will display two buildings differently. (I wonder if the wireframe could be shown different too)

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 6 2012, 7:56 pm by Raygoza.

You need to make those graphics yourself and put them into your exe. The sounds as well need to be put into your exe. I think you can change the units' sounds in datEdit, but I'm not entirely sure.

Right, so all of that has to be done in the mod itself. Basically for what you're attempting, just forget the mapmaking portion of it entirely as it will have no affect on what you need to do in terms of actual modding.

Just got thinking, is it possible to make a unit display Doodad graphics?
If it is possible is it possible making a building/unit display them by modding map content to avoid having these changes in the mod itself?
this way Domes and huts infested or not could be in Doodads and be used as decoration till a map has a setting which makes some buildings display Doodad graphics instead. (is this possible?)
Only having Doodads changes in the mod itself to give the map something good to display instead.

No. Mods affect the game, not a specific map. Any changed graphics you want to see on a map have to be done in the mod.

Are you saiying that I cannot have a map making changes in game play except stats?
I think it's possible somehow, do you happen to know how or where I can find out how?

I think it's possible to make a map change the death animations of certain units/buildings, overlapping the original names i know is possible, changing the stats i do know is possible as well, what I neeed to know is if a map could make other unit/buildings to be displayed with other graophics already existing in the mod or having those graphics in the map?
Are any of those two last things possible?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 6 2012, 8:23 pm by Raygoza.

You can't add new images into a single map, as all graphics are stored in YOUR starcraft MPQ files. If you want custom graphics, you have to mod YOUR MPQ files. So basically, all graphical changes will only be seen by YOU, unless people download your mod. Maps only load images from the MPQ files.

I get the feeling that everyone else here is understanding what you want to do, but you're not really getting what we're telling you.

Correct. And even that is limited as you can't even change every stat.

No, it isn't.

No, it isn't.

No. Again, all graphic changes have to be done in a mod.

if all graphics are done in a mod, could a map make it able to display a unit/building with graphics from an other unit/building?
Or is it possible to make it display a doodad graphic?
Again all the graphics being inside the mod, I wonder if a map could make something display other graphics that already exist in the mod or Doodad graphics.
I believe I am very clear now.

No, that isn't the case; any changes and implementations need to be integrated into the mod, not the map.

Think of it like this: The map holds some information that the game interprets. The game holds a ton of information and knows how to interpret everything, such as what images/sprites to show for a certain unit type. If you want to display different graphics than what the game knows what to render, you have to either:

1) Overwrite the section of the MPQ the game looks for to get the image
2) Overwrite the code pointing to where the game looks for that image

Notice that neither of these involves the map. These changes will apply across all maps (i.e., it is map agnostic).

Going back to this briefly:
Yes, you can theoretically put parts of your mod into a map and point the mod to that information. There's two and a half problems with this:

1) You gain absolutely nothing by doing this: you still have to write the same amount of modifications, and it would be much easier to just contain it all in the mod itself.
2) By doing this, you're making the game unplayable for all maps that do not have that mod data. It's very likely that you'll end up with an unstable mod that crashes on all other maps.
3) This is an architectural disaster (read up on Separation of Concerns, Coupling and Cohesion if you care about architecture).

In short: you should absolutely not be considering putting mod data into a map. Completely disregard mapmaking for the scenario you're describing, because it's not practical and only worsens the potential outcome of your project.

So as for my answer to this:
I'm going to say no. The technical answer is yes, it is possible as long as you still have the mod wired up to interpret and use the data, but you can consider the answer to be pragmatically "no." Do this in your mod, not the map.

In this case i'm actually talking about a campaign map for the mod, what do you mean with unstable, all the main information is present in the mod let's say complete but with some things missing like passive buildings which there isn't quite enough space to add into the mod.
What I wanted was a map that would reuse a non standard building and make all buildings of that kind to be displayed differently in severeal ways, the out come I would like would be Graphical, wireframal, muted if it plays sounds (Don't think this part is needed because enemy buildings don't seem to play sounds when you select them), statical and it's amount of hitpoints.
It would not be a part of the mod, in the map as I said earlier the main things are done, the mod is playable.
Now in my example of this mod in particular The huts and domes will be made into Doodads. (Think you told me that the map cannot make a building in particular to display a Doodad Graphic instead by being triggered by the map)
The infested huts and domes actually being a part of the mod itself because they should be destroyable. (Think you told me that the a map cannot make a building display other GRPs even if they already exist in the mod by triggers in the map and therefor have to be their very own buildings with own grapics in the mod)

I get the impression of you meaning that it is technically possible to have these infested huts and domes in a map by making some non standard buildings to show other GRPs instead (considering the GRPs alrealy existing in the mod itself) also it seems like you're saying that making a building display Doodad graphics wouldn't work.
Seems like you mean that it would require too much work trying to get around this problem instead of having it in the mod itself and that this would be way above my skills to succeed.

In that scenario, you should go with one of two options:

Easier option: Have a separate mod for each campaign map.
Harder option: Have the mod detect which map it is (maybe reading in the map title or something) and use switch statements or if/else statements to have the mod treat those maps differently.

I don't even know how you'd go about doing the harder option, personally; I hope you're familiar with some programming language like C++.

Having a separate mod for each map would be so tedious. Having to close starcraft and run a new exe for every map would definitely be a turn-off for people wanting to play the campaign. You could use plugins to detect which map is being played, but I have no clue how to do that. ;o

Let's assume we do the harder way in which the game detects which maps will have which switch statements and or run the mod normally on any other maps using plugins, which programming language is used?

StarCraft was made with C++, so that'd be your best (and virtually only) option.

Anyway for those switch statements, are Doodad graphics possible to use or GRPs only?

Responding to an old thread !

http://www.staredit.net/topic/3869/ to edit the space parallax layer.

In here is a terrain editor, though it is extremely tedious to edit terrain as you have to extract, edit, and upload every row of tiles that you want to change, and you have to be extremely thorough.

As mentioned before, the only way to edit terrain "animations" is color cycling (which just rotates a few colors in SC's 256-color palette). http://www.staredit.net/topic/2921/

Also, "map mods".
Only supports strictly MPQ mods (no firegraft, no plugins).

Useful links:
http://www.modcrafters.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Modding_Programs
http://www.modcrafters.com/wiki/index.php?title=Plugins <-- pretty extreme
http://www.modcrafters.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Seiji hasn't been talking to anyone for a very long time and no one knows what's going to happen with he's mod and everything else.
No one seems to have gotten any reply from him either even though it seems like he's on moddb once in a while, but right now he's account hasn't been logged on since June 30. (though he hasn't been replying to anything for several months before then either)

In any way thank you very much for the links and help you've given, by the way, I don't find this thread being dead, just unanswered and I keep looking out for replies still, I don't wnat anyone to answer and not get replied by me in my own thread.