Mapping Programs (Topic)

I had an idea today that others, including myself could post some ideas that would help them create maps, debug maps, or just plain give extra insight into map making. I thought that it would be cool to post some ideas for programs that could do this.

Here are my ideas:

Location Viewer - Shows location size (pixels as well) and name.
Trigger Fire - Shows which triggers are being activated without having to rig your map to find out yourself
String Stacker - Stacks strings for units names/in game text/mission briefing/mission objectives (if it can)
Buildability - Shows you if the terrain is buildable or not. (sort of like how Scmdraft 2 does it)

I designate FaRTy1billion to make them.

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aka idmontie

Quote from

Brontobyte

Trigger Fire - Shows which triggers are being activated without having to rig your map to find out yourself

Hmm... You could make a list of trigger conditions and have a plugin check these and write to a file when ever they are true (based off of shadowflares pluign).

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I was making AutoStacker.
There is also various methods that look different...

TinyMap2 - Latest in map compression! ( 7/09/14 - New build! )
EUD Action Enabler - Lightweight EUD/EPD support! (ChaosLauncher/MPQDraft support!)
EUDDB - topic - Help out by adding your EUDs! Or Submit reference files in the References tab!
MapSketch - New image->map generator!
EUDTrig - topic - Quickly and easily convert offsets to EUDs! (extended players supported)
SC2 Map Texture Mask Importer/Exporter - Edit texture placement in an image editor!
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Wait, so this would be a program you inject into SC like a hack, or an external program?

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Quote from

Falkoner

Wait, so this would be a program you inject into SC like a hack, or an external program?

I would rather it be a external program/plug-in rather then a hack because hacks mess up EUD triggers when testing.

These methods would be purely for testing purposes only.

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You mean this stuff would be shown in-game?

So it's like a form of debugger. That's actually an interesting idea. The trigger one would be especially useful, it could save a LOT of trouble.

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Quote from name:razorsnail

You mean this stuff would be shown in-game?

So it's like a form of debugger. That's actually an interesting idea. The trigger one would be especially useful, it could save a LOT of trouble.

Thats the idea!

Yes, in game.

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Yeah, it could tell you what triggers are going off, So if you crash mid game from a trigger you know which one!

Also a Feature to keep logs would be awesome.

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Quote from Axii

Yeah, it could tell you what triggers are going off, So if you crash mid game from a trigger you know which one!

Also a Feature to keep logs would be awesome.

FaRTy, are you jotting this information down.

Yes, all of this would be really swell!

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I don't really see the point to the Location Viewer, String Stacker, or the buildable terrain ideas for ingame purposes.

The trigger Firing one does somewhat sound nice, but I really think adding a display text for the triggers you want checked (or if it's a trigger owned by like say a computer player, a create/kill unit action in an area viewable for you ingame) suffices perfectly. I mean, in most cases I believe you would only be wanting to see if one or two "back bone" triggers would be working, as if these said triggers are functioning flawlessly, then the proceeding ones which rely on the execution of said triggers are bound to work. IMO the amount of effort and time needed to modify certain triggers so that you can see in game whether they work or not is so small or negligible to where there wouldn't be much of a need of a trigger firing program

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Quote from franch122

Location Viewer program is exists...

but it includes subunit crash HACK

url

Not allowed to post hacks. But yeah the Location Viewer does exist, it's pretty cool. One annoying point about it is that it doesn't really clearly define the beginning and end of all locations when a bunch are tightly grouped together. I've been confused thinking a location was a lot bigger/smaller than it was before using it. Although when map testing I doubt this would really be a problem.

Quote from name:NerdyTerdy

Quote from franch122

Location Viewer program is exists...

but it includes subunit crash HACK

url

Not allowed to post hacks. But yeah the Location Viewer does exist, it's pretty cool. One annoying point about it is that it doesn't really clearly define the beginning and end of all locations when a bunch are tightly grouped together. I've been confused thinking a location was a lot bigger/smaller than it was before using it. Although when map testing I doubt this would really be a problem.

Yeah, and they are different colors and what not. I played FRAGS just to see what it would look like and it was amazing! There is like a # sign of locations each 1+ pixel bigger then the other centered over the Zerg Scourge. It would also be nice if it would tell you the name of the location.

I don't see why it would be combined with a hack... Especially a stupid one like crashing with a Protoss Reaver.

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I honestly would like to see something that would show the amount of Death has suffered. I have too much trouble with creating a system using Death Counters and then having it mess up.

Things to include:

-Selectable unit via custom name/actual name
-Multiple selections
-In game viewer
-Real time status
-View counts of other players as well, via some F key

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Aug 31 2008, 11:40 pm by Tera.

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Quote from

MillenniumArmy

I don't really see the point to the Location Viewer, String Stacker, or the buildable terrain ideas for ingame purposes.

Location Viewer - It would help people see where a location is if they are having trouble centering it, or are confused because the location is not being centered where it should be. (In game obviously)

String Stacker - Stack unit names, display text, or what have you. (Editor only obviously)

Buildable Terrain - For all of those custom terrain people out there. I played maps that featured custom terrain before and you couldn't walk through it. I don't really see a purpose for this besides the fact to make sure that the terrain featured can be walked on, or what ever. (In game obviously)

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I'd like to see an enhanced terrain program with a few additional features:
-Auto-replace: Change all tiles of a certain type to tiles of another type. That way, if you realize that a tile that you were using for a certain purpose just won't do, you won't have to worry about whether or not you've gotten every single square. Knowing which tiles you've changed and which you haven't can be a pain with similar-looking tiles, like regular and walkable null (which both look the same), even with SCMD2 in debug mode.
-Blend calculator: scans the side pixels of a given tile, and then scans the adjoining edge of all other tiles to automatically find tiles that would blend with the selected tile.
-Terrain properties: sort of like an extension of "Buildable Terrain": click on a tile on the map or in the palette and it will tell you all the properties of that tile. The information isn't that hard to get, but just being able to click the tile and know its elevation, buildability, etc. at a glance could save time and trouble.
-AI tracking: Select a unit and click two places on your terrain, and it'd show you how the AI pathing algorithm would move the unit from the first point if ordered to the second. This feature would be really useful for avoiding situations where the pathing system gets units into trouble because they don't go the way you'd expect them to. With it, you could make maps with terrain that units always move over in intuitive ways, without getting stuck or wandering into enemy territory when they don't have to.

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I gotta admit, I think this may be more trouble than it is worth, most of these are really not that difficult to test yourself, and while the trigger firing one sounds useful, when you have over 500 triggers, imagine searching through a big list of what's firing..

None.

aka idmontie

The only way I would be able to make a trigger fire program would be that it is a plugin and it either draws text on the screen or keeps a log. I don't see any other way.

Of course, I'm not farty

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Quote from

Falkoner

I gotta admit, I think this may be more trouble than it is worth, most of these are really not that difficult to test yourself, and while the trigger firing one sounds useful, when you have over 500 triggers, imagine searching through a big list of what's firing..

It displays the trigger comment (if there is on) of which trigger is being fired.

None.

Quote from

Brontobyte

Quote from

Falkoner

I gotta admit, I think this may be more trouble than it is worth, most of these are really not that difficult to test yourself, and while the trigger firing one sounds useful, when you have over 500 triggers, imagine searching through a big list of what's firing..

It displays the trigger comment (if there is on) of which trigger is being fired.

Triggers fire inbetween game updates. So that wouldn't probably work well. It could display a list of the triggers that have been fired in the last trigger check, but a whole lot of triggers could fire at once, and with hyper triggers that would happen several times per second. It wouldn't be hard to make an util which logs the data into a log text file, but the text file would fastly grow too big.

EDIT: It could however log the last time at which each trigger fired. That could be useful.

?????

Quote from

Clokr_

Quote from

Brontobyte

Quote from

Falkoner

I gotta admit, I think this may be more trouble than it is worth, most of these are really not that difficult to test yourself, and while the trigger firing one sounds useful, when you have over 500 triggers, imagine searching through a big list of what's firing..

It displays the trigger comment (if there is on) of which trigger is being fired.

Triggers fire inbetween game updates. So that wouldn't probably work well. It could display a list of the triggers that have been fired in the last trigger check, but a whole lot of triggers could fire at once, and with hyper triggers that would happen several times per second. It wouldn't be hard to make an util which logs the data into a log text file, but the text file would fastly grow too big.

EDIT: It could however log the last time at which each trigger fired. That could be useful.

You could maybe have it do specific searches for triggers instead of all of them at once.
If the game crashes it look through all of the triggers and figures out which one was fired last, or a bunch that were fired last that could have contributed to the crash, and also via waits. If a trigger has waits in it and other triggers run before the first one (with waits) is complete and the one with waits is the one that crashes, it should also show this. :???:

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