.::[Tutorial/FAQ]::.

[tassadar920]

You'll have to make custom units to create the new race. Here are a few easy steps.

1. Ok you need to pick if your going to make the race from SCRATCH, or if your going to copy one of the 4 races that came with the game and CHAGE it to fit your needs.

From Scratch:

Create a new .txt file somewhere and lay it out like this:

-Buildings
/t-Tier1
/t/t-Tier2
/t/t/t-Tier3
-Units
/t-Tier1
/t/t-Tier2
/t/t/t-Tier3
So on and so forth with, "Buildings" "Units" "Spells/Abilities" "Upgrades"

Now under each heading, add the name of the unit/building/spell/upg and next to it put all the required buildings etc for the race.

At this point you should have a race that is basically fully planned out, now you'll need "skins" If you don't know how to skin, your screwed at this point, otherwise make the skins/clicky thingy that you click on to activate spells and stuff, and have those ready in a folder off to the side.

Now the fun part, you get to put together your race, it's totally unnesseccary to have a name at this point, normally names for races (orgiinal ones anyways) come from an outside inspiritation later on, just wait if you have no ideas. Now if your not experienced in custom building, your screwed here. IF you are, replace the units models/textures, import all of the files from the folder, and put together all untis and buildings. These are the importatn parts for now, then interconnect the buildings/units by setting the different things they can build/be upgraded into, again if you have no expereince in custom units your screwed.

Now repeat the last step but doing spells/abilities. Some spells may require you to use triggers off to the side to activate them, this is totally unnessecsary, but can make cool effects sometimes.

You have your race, all thats left to do is balancing the different parts, i wont go into details because if you dont understand this, again your screwed.

If you need inspiration for a new race, just look around... a cool idea i once had for a race is a 'nomad' race, that dont have any permanent buildings. Much like the night elves that can pick up and move, but the nomads would be able to move faster, and they would have weak 'mercenary' units mainly, that would have short life spans before turning into normal peasants.
Another Idea is a race where you can get units like normal, but the untis are very powerful, and can stand in battle relitively alone. But over time like the phoenix fromt he humans, they lose their strength, though unlike the phoenix they wouldn't ONLY lose health, but also some armor, and some attack dmg. Sooner or later they would topple over and die, their souls though, would come back to your base, invisible except to detecting towers etc, and you would get part of your money back.

Yeah... the other way:

From CHANGES:

Start with 1 of the 4 prebuilt races, like from scratch plan out your race in a seperate file not just in your head. Once you have a basic idea formed, right it all down, but make sure that you can edit the units already in the prebuilt race so they fit your needs. In english:

You can only change names, dmg, spells etc to fit what you need, but with this system (unless you have experience doing custom units/spells etc) you won't want to change anything drastic. You can obviously change models etc to fit your needs. Importing models is relatively easy (import manager > import file > find your file > copy the path > use it for the model, under 'custom path - ___') then change spells etc, or copy other spells to fit your needs according to your plan.

ez enough no?

[Shatterd-Ice]

GOD DAMN GIVE THE KID A HARD ATTACK tassadar920.

I GOT A QUESTION ON THIS CUSTOM MODEL AND SKIN I CANT GET THE **** TO PLACE IN MY ****NIG MAP. i went to wc3campaigns and downloaded the santa to see if i could get it to work and i imported the files did ever thing it said to but it still would not work. Just want to see if you could go there and put it in a map and then psot it for me. . . . . . THANKS

[Darimus]

I would come up with an answer... but I never looked into making custom models or even using them... if you got a trigger question I will give you a good answer though

[(V)aster)V(ind]

heres a question, don't know if its already been asked but hey, I'll try.
How do you make a normal unit (ie something like a troll headhunter or something) have a certain time limit on it, sorta like a water elemental or a inferno?
do I just use the water elemental/inferno as the base unit and change the skin?

[tassadar920]

You could use it as the base unit, or in the unit stats i think, way at the bottom you'll find a setting that says like... "Type" or something... in there check the box labeled "Summoned" this way the unit will get a summoned timer on it, u can also set the summoned units life time.

[tassadar920]

Ok for custom skins:

download the .blp file, and run warcraft III. Start the 'Import Manager' (F12) then import your .blp. (File > Import File > Browse for it > Import) now, there will be a "Path" for the file you imported, your going to need WC3 Picture Viewer 2 or whatever its called to find the path, but once you ge thte units path (Normally either, 'Unit\*Race*\*UnitName*\*Unitname*.blp) change the new .blp to the unit you wants skin to change. (If you have an arthas skin, techincally u can use it on any unit, but using it on arthas is smarter) once the skin has been "Attached" to the right file, restart hte editor and place the unit that was re-skined.

If your using a new model file, just import the .mdx file, and in the "Art - Unit Model File" select, "Imported" and choose your file.

[jetlee]

how would u make things rotate around a hero or revolve around like those ball-of-fires around the blood mage?

[l33t 0n3]

Alright, I spent the entire three months that i didnt post on skinning... Here's what I've learned, to teach and preach.

I am guessing you are not an idiot, or a newbie. By that I mean you can extract, import, etc on your own, and you have SOME artistic talent.

First, select the DH's chest with polygonal lasso, make a new layer, and paintbucket in gray (r50g50b50) Also, zoom in to 400%

[l33t 0n3]

Next, set the gray layer to 70% opacity. Use a size 13 "dodge" brush to get the highlights (use 13pt brush with 23% exposure and set to MIDTONES.) check periodically for mistakes, and it should look something like this:

[l33t 0n3]

Now, do the same for burn. Burn is the shadows; I preferred a 9pt brush for the dh, 23% on midtones. Here is what he should look like now.

[l33t 0n3]

The next step is a huge leap, you may want to do the 1st three a few times over again before you attempt this:

Take a 2pt 23% midtones burn, and highlight (once over) the indents and folds and bumps, etc. Burn around and inbetween muscles, where the skin shows the thin lines. Go over that with a 47% 3pt burn again for optimal look. Next, to get the correct texture, run a 13pt 23% dodge over it, then a burn, and repeat. Also, now is the time to get the right brightness:

[l33t 0n3]

another effect is the "laser" thing. It's used for lightsabres, many high tech skins, etc. First, define your outline color and shape:

[l33t 0n3]

now, select your tool with magic wand, and go to the layer under. Set the above layer to "color" and dodge the crap out of the middle:

heres an example of a finished one, the one i tried with that shape sucked. I just made part of dhs blade transparent and made that part "laser" This is just a guideline, simple but helpful.

[l33t 0n3]

Realistic Blood + Realistic Zombie Flesh

as seen in my "Undead warlock" in wc3c:

for the skin, run sponge over it, on desaturate 100% leaving some "living" parts, some medium, and some sponged 3 times, randomly (random is the essence to a zombie)

For blood, set your foreground color to r128g25b25 (or any bloody-ish red) and select a small area. Make it drip, and split. When making this skin, conveniently, I cut my wrist on something, but instead of cleaning it up, I let it go for a bit, studying how it dripped. See my pic to see how it did. Also, run the sponge ONCE over some of it for a realistic look.

[l33t 0n3]

Practice Suggestions:

Re-do the arthas completely with dodge/burn 10+ times. After that, you are garunteed a good skinner. Arthas's upper leg is a very good learning spot, very fun to do. Dh's ear and face is hard too, try to get dimension into it, too. Felguard's face into scales was great practice, aswell as the blood mage, to teach you how to skin shitty UV unwraps.

Hope this helps, and please sticky.

[tassadar920]

Woah!! Well I've never seens omeone explain skinning in that much detail man!! I'll ask Darimus to take this and put it all together into a tutorial, unless you can put them all together into one post?

You can always do this:

Make your tutorial (all the parts together) but everytime there's a picture for one of them, leave the picture attached in a later post, but have a link to the attachment by doing:

[.url=***.***]Picture #[/.url] that way the pictures are all on one post and its easier to read. Plus we can sticky it easier that way.

[westin1616]

whats the quickest way to learn almost everything in the world edit? for example making a game where you have to fight through a certain area to the boss using regular units, but the units are hero types.

[tassadar920]

You want to know the fastest way to learn crap in the WE?

I would do this, first off you'll want to locate your strengths and weaknesses. So when you think about a map in your head, (once you've got some ideas laid down) do you see in your head, the terrain, or how the map is played.

If you imagine for example, an arena map with the name "Hell's Arena" what are you imagining? A huge inferno of fire that has like giant mountains of fire blasting destruction in the air? Or do you see all sorts of cool heroes, with cool skins running around using custom created spells with triggers?

I mean, once you've got that laid down you can try to check if that's really what your most interested in. In mapmkaing there are three main parts, custom creation, triggers, and terrain. Personally I like terrain the most, it's the most fun part of map making, but some people (Like darimus) seem to prefer triggers. And other people, mostly artists prefer custom creation, making new skins, and 3d artists, like myself, sometimes prefer making models, though I rarely like doing that since it's hard.

So now make a blank map, any size at all, and name it "inferno arena" make the tileset dungeon. Expirement with different aspects of terrain (rasing/lowering, "sound" making mujltiple levels, etc) if you enjoy this, try making it look like an arena, and then add some doodads, go through every list in dungeon and find cool things to add to the map. If this is getting boring, move to the next step.

Triggers, start with something simple, like making a wisp at the starting area, we can go into easier trigger system later but fornow, make a region where u want the wisp to appear, then make another region, with a hero next to it, where the player chooses the hero. Now make the trigger, im not good at explaining hwo to do this at newbies but yeah... just mess around till it works .

If you think you're an artist of any kind, try going for art, you need photoshop at the minimum for this. You'll also need extracting programs, like "Wc3 image extractor" to find the .blp files, you'll then need a file that can convert .blp into .tga for photoshop editing. Etc, if htis interests you ask help from other people so you can learn more about this prat of map editing.

And of course, once you've got basica skills in any section of map editing, here's the easiest way to learn more:

Mess around. I learned the whole map editor this way, and I can make pretty coolm aps, not counting i can do some pretty awesome special effects and things through double use of terrain and triggers etc... I'm an "all around" map maker, good at evferything. You may want to concentrate on one thing if you prefer that over everything else. thought I doube this will be the case.

Custom creation is the only one that anyone can get good at very quickly, its not hard. (Requires TFT) go into the object editor,and from there you can change things most are self explanitry.

Ok, so in one word.

Expirement.

[l33t 0n3]

agreed, this forum needs major sticky merging o.0
ill yell at kald later.

[Kaldaris]

Ill merge and sticky when my internet isnt as jittery as a goddamn dragonfly.

I cant believe theres that many stickies, last time I merged and unstickied I left around 3-5 up there.