Editor Questions (map design)

[dispalor]

Hi there,

I’m a little confused about the Editor. I posses the german version and I heard we have not the full editor-explainations, so please forgive me, if my questions are already answered in the english manual, but I'm a kind of helpless at the moment. Well...

1) Is it possible to import or better: convert maps from another source. Let’s say we have a jpg from a part of the world. Is it possible to convert it into something SC2 can use?

2) Is there anywhere in the game a “fill”-Button? Im trying to make a huge map and I'm getting mad by drawing piece by piece. And if not, is there a tool or something I could need?

3) The Coast Lines... uhm... at the moment I draw every single piece of coast and I need hours for it. Is there a smooth-function or something alike? Or a tool, that adds automatically coastlines to the placed landpieces?

Hm... yes, that's all for now. I would be glad, if someone knows.

[pzgndr]

Hey! You should have a full German translation of the Editor Help file. That covers everything.

1. You cannot do a direct convert. For best effect, you would have to take your normal map image and shrink the vertical by 50% to get the isometric look. Then overlay the SC2 tile grid and draw your map from that.

2. There's no fill, but you can hold down the mouse button and "paint" an area. Terrain features, country control, etc.

3. Yes, this is tedious. Fantomas worked on some tool that might make this easier. But hey, an artist needs to take his time, yes?

[dispalor]

Interesting, I heard we havent the full translation, but so what.

Thats a very annoying situation, because it's very timeconsuming. There must be a better way. Perhaps Hubert can add some features for the editor? Please imagine a 256x128-map with 90% Land-Tiles. There must be some kind of fill-feature, not to speak of the coasts. Otherwise only Nerds will do their own maps.

I found a link to Fantomas Page in Huberts Posting, but the Links seem to be down. It's a pity, I would like to use it.

[Otto Kontrol]

1. You cannot do a direct convert. For best effect, you would have to take your normal map image and shrink the vertical by 50% to get the isometric look. Then overlay the SC2 tile grid and draw your map from that.

Pzgndr,

Once you've shrunken your map, how do you get the map into the SC2 editor in order to overlay the tile grid on it :confused:

[pzgndr]

Please review the Map Making tutorial that comes with the game. I think it's in the \Extras folder. That explains the whole process.

Hubert is adding a MapGen tool to the next patch which will help make things a little easier. But you still need to know what it is you want to draw and then draw it tile-by-tile. It is tedious to be your own artist, no?

[Moonslayer]

Yes!

Especially when you are a muppet like me that spends six hours drawing a map of a continent to painstaking accuracy only to forget to save it at the end.

Perhaps 'muppet' is not a strong enough word? ;P