Hey, I'm making a map!

I have only small previous work that I wasn't able to release because of how bugged the map was before I was able to even release it. This time around I wanted to ask which programs I should use to start off the maps terrain with and what advice you can give overall to prevent corruption. I intend to add as much detail as I can to the map without adding complicated game play or corrupting the map.

The map I'm making is a simple RPG.

SCMDraft ftw. First Post.

Wow... how comes this is still asked?
Obviously, you should use the incredible SCMDraft 2!!!! Just don't protect your final result (it's just a though, you can if you want to...) and don't forget to set the auto-save feature!

Go SCM Draft all the way, it has all the functionality of other editors and more.

StarEdit if you want no corruption.

Combination of SCMDraft and StarForge. Why StarForge? SCMDraft has a habbit of recycling strings, when everything is done and you plan on making duplicate names, open StarForge make it there, and save.
Or you could put a space in the name, but that would offset the centering (your choice really).

How is recycling names bad. Combining SCMDraft and SF would only result in corruption.

I am using ScmDraft2 and StarForge, and there is no corruption. Just use Scm for everything, and StarForge for thins that are more complicated.

I prefer to only use StarForge for sprites, and those I simply create in another map and copy and paste them into my map, since it has often corrupted maps.

Ya, ScmDraft2 has annoying small sprite limit. Starforge have way bigger sprite limit and sprite options.

"More complicated" like what? There's nothing more complicated, and even if there was SCMD2 would be better to handle more complicated tasks, ie creating a sequence of 1000 triggers.

Options>Profile Settings>Advanced Options
You can set the limits to whatever you want.

Of course there's the actual SC limits too.


The only valid reason I see for SF is to create EUD conditions. I actually told SI about this and he said he would "hack" a fix for putting in unit ID's into SCMD2. Once that's done there will be no reason left to use SF.

What?

They both have a max of 499 (starcraft limit too). Starforge just lets you make any sprite in the game via a number, rather than a name.

Well that's what I wanted to say.

Not really.... there's this glitch in scmdraft where whenever you save the scmdraft suddenly steals 95% of all memory, and computer nearly crashes.

Only way to prevent that is by opening another scmdraft, then closing the previous one, then deleting the backup file (huge, 2GB, by the time this happens) in the scmdraft folder.

I actually had this problem recently, but since it's caused by the backup, which you can easily delete or disable, it's not really that big of an issue.

Thanks for the replies guys this is quite a helpful discussion.

Using the regular Starcraft Campaign Editor is the best way to avoid corruption.

I usually use it for everything I can first. Then, if I need to add something it's not capable of (such as square terrain), I save a backup and then switch over to SCMDraft2 or StarForge.

The only exception is if I have a huge amount of repetitive triggers/extended terrain/irregular placement that MUST be done very early in the creation of the map. But I find often these things can wait.

It's always a good idea to use the regular editor for as much as you can, because the regular editor will always be there with Starcraft, and it was made by the Starcraft designers which means compatible Starcraft maps, whereas SCMDraft and SF were made to let you do extra things, and not for compatibility.

The best thing to do is just stick with one editor, SCMD2. If you do there should be no problems.

You'll probably run into more problems going from even the regular editor to SCMD2 than if you were just sticking with SCMD2. By itself, SCMD2 is just as compatible as StarEdit. I can't think of anything in a map that wouldn't have been made compatible. How a map works is no mystery to people like Suicidal Insanity and many of the other programmers.

There are lots of things you can do to a map with SCMDraft2 that will make the map NOT work in Starcraft. The point of StarEdit is to make maps that will not be incompatible with Starcraft. It's hard to do otherwise using StarEdit. The point of SCMDraft2 is to make maps with extended features... some of which happen to make maps incompatible with Starcraft. One obvious example of this is map sizing/resizing. Another example is placing unused units which will crash SC if looked at.

Those features you cited are hardly the ones people make use of when using SCMD2 and if you know what you're doing it's not that easy to make the map incompatible. In fact, many of the really "extended" features any experienced mapper knows to save until the end when they're polishing the map, such as sprite placement. When one is just beginning the map all you really are dealing with is placing units, making locations, creating triggers, renaming things, and setting the things common to all editors. The only difference is that SCMD2 has an enormous amount of features that makes all those things easier, which do not add to possible corruption. For example, snapping units to a grid. In the end you're just placing units, but the grid helps you align them, there's no corruption there.

There are so many things that SCMD2 can do that StarEdit can't in every aspect of map making, which are actually used on a regular basis by mappers, that it would be a complete waste of time going back and forth between the editors. The reality is that you won't corrupt your map if you have some idea of what you're doing and aren't using any other editor.

The list of things features that SCMD2 has over StarEdit would fill up a page.

There's no reason to encourage people to switch between StarEdit and SCMD2 because of a fear of corruption that would never happen. On the off chance that one encountered a corruption it could easily be solved with just a few simple backups now and then which even SCMD2 already does for you. But that's not even the main reason or the most common reason to make backups, as you'll probably already be making them just through the process of mapmaking.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 29 2008, 5:23 am by devilesk.