Experiences thus far?

Flare

Stops copies me!
Reaction score
662
Just for the sake of sating my curiosity, how is everyone here finding the editor (please specify which aspects of the editor you're talking about) - anything in particular that has impressed you in terms of functionality/potential usage, or something which has frustated you through needless complication or by not working at all?

So far, for me...

Trigger Editor
The Good
  • I'm really liking the way Blizzard has expanded on various things that existed (in various forms) from WorldEdit - I've only messed around with a few things, but dialogs are suprisingly well fleshed-out, and I can definitely see them becoming useful in just about any type of map.
  • The generic Unit Takes Damage event, woot. Haven't used it myself just yet, but assuming it (and the ability to recognise damage associated with specific Effects) works, me thinks this'll allow for some pretty awesome stuff.

The Bad
  • Seemingly, a number of functions which are Not Authorised (for some peculiar reason), or simply don't function at all - nothing short of a pain in the arse
  • The GUI, while is does make it much easier to pinpoint particular elements that you'd like to edit, it is quite cluttered and I really hate how double-clicking a trigger element assumes that you want to replace it... maybe I'm just too used to Warcraft :S

Data Editor
The Good
  • Awesome possibilities - while it's going to take ages to get used to it, the fact that everything is linked together as it is, it's going to allow for some far more interesting things to be created. Haven't done a whole lot just yet, but being able to associate a, for example, rocket projectile with something completely unrelated such as a biological explosion graphic (like the Baneling) is pretty cool.
  • Actor events, while I'm still investigating them, seem pretty interesting - seems like an interesting way to react to various things, without the use of the Trigger Editor
  • Control-Alt-E: THANK YOU BLIZZARD! Easily one of the most useful things I've seen so far, within the Data Editor - I spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out a sneaky association between my unit's Attack actor, and some unrelated unit. Being able to find out exactly where this mysterious association was located, made it really damn easy to fix the problem. <3

The Bad
  • So god-damn complicated - while the linkage and associations between all the different data types does give you a massive amount of options to choose from, it's so f***ing complicated that it takes so much time to produce a functional end-product...
  • The amount of Actors and Effects required for something that would seem so very simple - I mean, requiring an Action Actor to allow your weapon to associate with its projectile properly? Lame

Overall Impression
The editor has a pretty amazing amount of stuff going for it, but the amount of sh!t to wade through to get to this good stuff is mind-boggling. It's going to get very interesting once I have some more experience with it, but until then, /sigh... it's gonna be a long struggle :p

So... what do you like/dislike about the editor so far and/or your overall impressions

My list shall be updated as I see fit

EDIT: Also, please refrain from posting things such as "Zomg, X is fail/win" - if you like/dislike something and want to post about it, just say that you like it (without resorting to referring to the particular element as "win" or "fail") and what you find so good/bad about that particular element.
 

CaptainYak

New Member
Reaction score
1
Being new to the editor I dont' have that experience from the past ones, but I do have programming experience which helps with the mental processing of it all I guess.

That said, I've found my primary problem lies on the unit customization/creation. There is so much to choose from that I can look all day, and never find what I need. I still don't know what many of the fields are even for on most of the pages.
 

Flare

Stops copies me!
Reaction score
662
Being new to the editor I dont' have that experience from the past ones, but I do have programming experience which helps with the mental processing of it all I guess.

That said, I've found my primary problem lies on the unit customization/creation. There is so much to choose from that I can look all day, and never find what I need. I still don't know what many of the fields are even for on most of the pages.

Ye, that is quite problematic - I was thinking of assembling an hierarchial organizational chart for the sake of having a quick reference to identify what data types are directly associated with another data type (such as units having a direct link to their unit Actor, and their Weapon, and therefore having an indirect link to the objects that control what the weapon does and suchlike... shame that I don't know enough, just yet, to be able to assemble something accurate which provides the required information :D

The properties of each data type, however, are another matter altogether... especially when there are multiple Bases, and I think there are properties which some Base types have and others don't... fun, fun, fun :banghead:
 

Killerbf21

New Member
Reaction score
1
Well.. Where to begin...

Triggers - Are they better or worse then the ones on WorldEdit?

IMHO They could be simpler. I mean come on... In order to make a set of triggers do the fallowing: IF unit has specific item, THEN turn off specific trigger, turn on another trigger, ELSE Do nothing... I have to make a behavior called what ever, attach it to said item, make the trigger find said behavior on the item and see if its on a unit, then do said functions. What happened to Variables? Sure, you can make local ones, but not global (As far as I have seen, if im wrong, please correct me). Objective's and the trigger editor.. I can make them, But I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how to Mark them as Complete in a different trigger other then the one it's in. Again.. Global variables, what happened..?

The Data Editor - The gateway to the greatest map creation's ever?

Hmmm.... Being able to make a unit, give it an actor, "equip" a weapon, give the weapon an effect and an actor, giving the actor's a model, the unit a behavior, setting the damage by effect and adding the effect to the weapon - now having two.. I can go on. It's great. Really. If you can take the time to understand it and how it works, you can remake SC2 and then some. But.. And I stress this, I really don't want to spend 45 minutes to an hour or more creating one unit. It takes so long to make a unit, make ability's for the unit, effects for all of it, etc, etc. Is it only me? Maybe. But I will master this new tool, and bend it to my will. Watch out world, and prepare for the greatest map ever conceived. (In about 2 years >.<)
 

CaptainYak

New Member
Reaction score
1
Just a question, but has anyone had to restart the editor after a while because it starts to get "overloaded" and cant handle looking things up anymore?
 

Severon

New Member
Reaction score
7
You can make global variables you just have to right click outside where you would create a new trigger and go down to new there is a variable option that allows for global
 

Sevion

The DIY Ninja
Reaction score
424
Just a question, but has anyone had to restart the editor after a while because it starts to get "overloaded" and cant handle looking things up anymore?

Yes. It seems the program "leaks"... It really starts to eat up RAM and starts lagging after a while. It seems the same is with the game.

I'm not sure if it's just me though. This is why I prefer coding in Notepad++.
 

Renendaru

(Evol)ution is nothing without love.
Reaction score
309
I use 2GB of RAM and have had no issues with the editor, nor the game itself. I can have both running at the same time with no noticeable delay in actions whatsoever. So yea.
 

Sevion

The DIY Ninja
Reaction score
424
Actually, it's really weird. It only happened one time. Since then I haven't really used the trigger editor. Idk. Maybe it's just me and the trigger editor.
 

Flare

Stops copies me!
Reaction score
662
IMHO They could be simpler. I mean come on... In order to make a set of triggers do the fallowing: IF unit has specific item, THEN turn off specific trigger, turn on another trigger, ELSE Do nothing... I have to make a behavior called what ever, attach it to said item, make the trigger find said behavior on the item and see if its on a unit, then do said functions. What happened to Variables? Sure, you can make local ones, but not global (As far as I have seen, if im wrong, please correct me). Objective's and the trigger editor.. I can make them, But I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how to Mark them as Complete in a different trigger other then the one it's in. Again.. Global variables, what happened..?
Why would you need a trigger for that? o_O
It was my understanding that behaviours would give you the freedom to do stuff without resorting to the Trigger Editor... or are you trying to do stuff that the Data Editor can't do?

Hmmm.... Being able to make a unit, give it an actor, "equip" a weapon, give the weapon an effect and an actor, giving the actor's a model, the unit a behavior, setting the damage by effect and adding the effect to the weapon - now having two.. I can go on. It's great. Really. If you can take the time to understand it and how it works, you can remake SC2 and then some. But.. And I stress this, I really don't want to spend 45 minutes to an hour or more creating one unit. It takes so long to make a unit, make ability's for the unit, effects for all of it, etc, etc. Is it only me? Maybe. But I will master this new tool, and bend it to my will. Watch out world, and prepare for the greatest map ever conceived. (In about 2 years >.<)
It's a matter of experience I think, to be honest - took me a few hours (with a few 'ragequits' because stuff simply didn't work for me and I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what was the problem) to do a weapon with a stun effect (although, it did work out in the end). It's going to take a lot of getting accustomed to, but I imagine it won't take more than a few minutes (ignoring configuration, that's a bit messy :p) to create a unit from scratch.

At any rate, Explain This Link (Ctrl-Alt-E) makes things much more straightforward - just take a look at the data type you want to link to your custom unit, then look at that data type on your 'source' unit (or weapon), and it'll tell you exactly how they are linked (including all intermediate links, if necessary), right down to which Editor Field is forming that link.

Yes, I do love that shortcut... very much... :3
 

The Undaddy

Creating with the power of rage
Reaction score
55
I'll keep it simple

Data Editor

It's immense, it has unrealistic amounts of objects and the fields, compared to warcraft, are no longer self explanatory and I have the feeling I'm reading something from wikipedia when I'm reading the field's explanations.

That being said when/if I learn the aspects of it, it should be much more editable than warcraft, meaning practically anything can be created.

Trigger Editor

I haven't touched the trigger editor but it seems not to different to warcraft, just having more options in regard to the new-and-improved data editor. What I don't like is it cannot be converted to custom text (well that's what I figured out anyway), so - click away.
 

Killerbf21

New Member
Reaction score
1
Why would you need a trigger for that? o_O
It was my understanding that behaviours would give you the freedom to do stuff without resorting to the Trigger Editor... or are you trying to do stuff that the Data Editor can't do?

Well, with an RPG style map im making, I wanted to make it so you can't have two "swords" equipped at the same time, and I don't want to limit the number of Weapon slots in the container because of certain weapons that will take up more then 2 slots, maybe even 3. The easiest way I could think of was doing it by trigger, like in warcraft 3. And that short cut, ctrl-alt-e, love it. Thanks.
 

Sevion

The DIY Ninja
Reaction score
424
The script view... pissed me off so much... I resorted to using GUI... and the GUI pissed me off so much more... that I reverted back to scripts...
 

Severon

New Member
Reaction score
7
My overall experience thus far:
In my opinion I like this new editor. I've started to get us to the interface and understand all the links and things, so its not so confusing or as hard as it use to seem. That being said I did spend alot of time either :banghead: or when I couldn't find a wall it was my hand.

Terrain Editor:
The good:

Though I am terrible with terrain anyway and not much of an artist. I can tell that its hundreds of times better than that of WC3's editor its easier to make textures change sizes.

The bad:

Well here I'm not real sure on what to put since I try to avoid making any changes to my landscape once I get it for fear of my inability to make conherent terrain might asert itself.(Which I usually just cover up placing doodadsXD)

Trigger Editor:
The Good:

Alot better than WE.
The dialogs seems more intutive and overall I haven't had much of a problem with it yet.
Oh and Local Variables!!!

The Bad:

Though I haven't ran into much of these I think Flare does the best in saying
Seemingly, a number of functions which are Not Authorised (for some peculiar reason), or simply don't function at all - nothing short of a pain in the arse
The GUI, while is does make it much easier to pinpoint particular elements that you'd like to edit, it is quite cluttered and I really hate how double-clicking a trigger element assumes that you want to replace it... maybe I'm just too used to Warcraft :S

The Data Editor:
The Good:

Its alot more powerful than Warcraft object editor!!!
Once you start understanding the basics its easier to create cool attacks or special effects without touching the trigger editor. There are alot of things you can do with just behaviors and effects.

The bad:

Before you know you will almost constanstly have a headache from the :banghead: after you know you only get a few of those times:)
Its not the greatest at presenting the data in a way that you can see exactly what is going on at first glance. The Unit has direct links to effects, weapons, actors,behaviors, but those can have links to other effects and if you don't pay attention you can create some undesired effects.
 

N(O.O)B

New Member
Reaction score
27
Well, I used the WC3 Editor loads and mastered most of it, and I'm planning to do the same with the SC2 Editor, though it seems to be a lot more complicated (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

Trigger Editor:
The Good:
- I already used Local Variables in WC3 (in GUI, yes yes), but I love that they made it usable without using Custom Scrips to make/use them, very useful.
- The custom value of units is now an array, awesome! Makes a load of things so much easier to code. Though it's still kind of a bummer that the custom values dissapear on death (so you can't use the custom values in a "Unit Dies" event)
- Buttons everywhere is an awesome feature that opens up a load of possibilities, the old dialog buttons were too limiting.
- Generic Unit Takes Damage event, though, again, there were plenty of codes available for the WC3 editor that allowed you to use this event there too, and so I did. Though it's great to not have to code it.
The Bad:
- No Damage Unit event, though it wasn't very hard to make one myself, so no biggie.

Data Editor:
The Good:
- A lot more versatile than the WC3 Editor, though I will still use triggers for the majority of its functions as that is still even loads more versatile.
- The range on abilities being visible (with the little white teeth) is a great feature that I love.
- Multiple "Command Cards" are awesome, and 5x3 ability positions is so much better than 4x3 ability positions (though you could use spellbooks to do the same in WC3, this is easier)
The Bad:
- Very complicated, took me about 3 hours to fully understand what everything did, and that's from a pretty experienced coder. It could definitely use a "Simple Mode" that's more like the WC3 one where you can simply select a model and set the damage, etc.


Terrain Editor:
The Good:
- It looks awesome, it's really hard to screw it up and make it look bad, which is great for maps in general considering few people knew how to terrain properly in WC3, which lead to the majority of the maps being ugly (and people always blamed the engine, while it's possible to create amazing landscapes in WC3)
- Customizing water is amazing, as well as using multiple kinds of water in the same map. Opens up a lot of possibilities.
The Bad:
- Less cliff levels, and the editor acts funky with cliff level -1 (I think it is) as you can't ramp below there. That's one point the WC3 editor was definitely more free with.
 

Cheekything

TH.net Regular
Reaction score
5
I love it and hate it for the same reasons.

It's compicated and some small things that used to take you 2 seconds (i.e. copying a unit) now take far far far too long.

Even creating a new unit is a challenge which is rather disappointing.

Adding campaign units is also alot of trouble each time i try it removes all the other units for no real reason so I gave up :thdown:.

The good is that I actually like the way it's locked to your account and that it very very pretty.

Overall it'll be nice when a decent community made one comes out so that we can make things a bit faster but till then at least it's not impossible to use.
 
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