Armageddon Onslaught - Building the Concepts
What we know works -
Multiple types of powerfields.
Randomized weapon cooldowns of some nature.
What we are unsure is possible or how it works -
Multiple-weapon attacks. (HKS said that the game seems to just fire what has the shortest cooldown which is kind of silly and dumb but there's probably something we're not looking at). All attempts to make units use more than one weapon at once have failed. Dishearting...
What we know doesn't work (at least not right now) as in probably hardcoded unless the editor shows otherwise
Custom creep outside of simple texture changes and placement formation.
Two types of creep.
Using lava for creep (it has no emissive for starters which is a HUGE blow to custom creep in general)
I am officially entering the modding scene as of now.
Actordata.xml
This is surely one of the most important files in all of Starcraft 2. It is compared to the iscript.bin but is less powerful in that it doesn't seem to be able to
directly control animations (frame rates, animation speeds...)
but handles all sorts of other shit.
Code: Select all
<CActorModel default="1" id="TerranFlameModel">
<On Terms="ActorCreation" Send="$Birth"/>
<On Terms="AnimDone; AnimName Birth" Send="$Stand"/>
<On Terms="AnimDone; AnimName Stand" Send="$Stand"/>
<On Terms="AnimDone; AnimName Death" Send="Destroy"/>
<On Terms="SupporterDestruction" Send="$Death"/>
<On Terms="ActorOrphan" Send="Destroy"/>
<Host Subject="_Selectable"/>
<Supporter Subject="::Creator"/>
<HostSiteOps Ops="SOpAttachHarness"/>
<!-- For cloaking Terran burning buildings. Otherwise, the fire gives their location
away. -->
<Inherits index="CloakEffect" value="1"/>
<Inherits index="Visibility" value="1"/>
</CActorModel>
<CActorSound default="1" id="TerranFlameSound" parent="SoundContinuous">
<Host Subject="_Selectable"/>
</CActorSound>
Without the editor, modifying files of this extreme complexity will be difficult, but Actordata is where my attention is going to be largely focused.
Analysis
Using my ineptitude as a spear, I'll drive my cock into this file and try to understand wtf is going on.
On Terms is referring to an animation and an event during that animation. This is just like wc3, really, but softcoded. $stand and such are calling something else, either from another file or a hardcoded routine, that tells the engine what's going on and what to do next.
This is interesting to me because on birth it's telling the engine to go to the Stand sequence - this is not hardcoded? I am not programmy enough to understand the implications of this but it looks to be a lot like the iscript in how you can pick and choose where headers go.
No idea what SupporterDestruction is referring to, but Orphan is quite possibly referring to spawned effects like fire, lights, ect. Not sure what host subject is referring to.
FUCK YES SOUNDS THAT AREN'T ATTACHED TO MODELS WE HAVE STANDARDS FINALLY
Code: Select all
<CActorUnit id="DarkShrine" parent="GenericUnitStandard">
<PortraitModel value="ExecutorPortrait"/>
<BuildModel value="DarkShrineBirth"/>
<PlacementModel value="DarkShrinePlacement"/>
<PlacementSound value="Protoss_BuildingPlacementSmall"/>
<DeathArray index="Normal" ModelLink="DarkShrineDeath" SoundLink="DarkShrine_Explode"/>
<DeathArray index="UnderConstruction" ModelLink="ProtossWarpInDeath" SoundLink="DarkShrine_Explode"/>
<EventDataSound Name="BuildingWarpIn" Actor="UnitSound" Sound="Protoss_BuildingWarpIn"/>
<AnimBlendTime value="0.750000"/>
<Macros value="UnpoweredAnim"/>
<Macros value="QueueAnim"/>
<Macros value="BuildingFlattenTerrainMacro"/>
<Macros value="ProtossBuildingPowerUp"/>
<ShowBlobShadow value="0"/>
<BarWidth value="85"/>
<BarOffset value="0"/>
<SoundArray index="Ready" value="DarkShrine_What"/>
<UnitIcon value="Assets\Textures\btn-building-protoss-eyeofadun.dds"/>
<HeroIcon value="Assets\Textures\btn-building-protoss-eyeofadun.dds"/>
<ShieldLayer value="Assets\Textures\Wireframe-Protoss-DarkShrine-Shield01.dds"/>
<ShieldLayer value="Assets\Textures\Wireframe-Protoss-DarkShrine-Shield02.dds"/>
<ShieldLayer value="Assets\Textures\Wireframe-Protoss-DarkShrine-Shield03.dds"/>
<GroupIconLayer value="Assets\Textures\Wireframe-Protoss-DarkShrine.dds"/>
<WireframeLayer value="Assets\Textures\Wireframe-Protoss-DarkShrine.dds"/>
<LifeArmorIcon value="Assets\Textures\btn-armor-protoss-air.dds"/>
<ShieldArmorIcon value="Assets\Textures\btn-upgrade-protoss-shieldslevel1.dds"/>
<GlossaryImage value="Assets\Textures\btn-building-protoss-eyeofadun.dds"/>
</CActorUnit>
<CActorSplat id="DarkShrineSplat" parent="GenericUnitSplat" unitName="DarkShrine"/>
I think these are fairly self-explanatory but I'll run through them.
PortraitModel - Portrait 3d model.
BuildModel - Possibly the build animation which is separate from the unit (unlike wc3)
PlacementModel - looks like that the green overlay is a unique model.
Placementsound - Unique placement sounds for every building good, good...
DeathArray - An animation event for dying that seems to be able to depend on what animation the model is currently in. I think it's really cool that this controls the death animation during construction independently of the construction itself, surely you can also use this for channeling cast animations on a boss/caster and make them explode violently or something.
EventDataSound - Not
quite sure how this works in relation to the value "UnitSound". Might be an xml file... which would be great since I can then make a custom file and organize a little better.
AnimBlendTime - Not sure. Might be similar to the "smoothing" that wc3 had? Which would be great since some models will need those from WoW and such.
Macros Value - Not a clue what a "Macro" is. Maybe another series of animations?
ShowBlobShadow - Might be referring to the basic shadow from low-detail settings that overrides dynamic shadowing?
BarWidth/Offset - Health bar?
SoundArray - Looks like this controls unit responses and such.
UnitIcon - Build icon most likely.
HeroIcon - Icon for HUD if the unit is a hero most likely.
ShieldLayer - Multiple instances of this, the shield is comprised of multiple models? Awesome!
GroupIconLayer - Same value as wireframe... probably for group select.
WireframeLayer - Yes, you're going to be making wireframes in much the same way you did sc1, but here the files are bigger so you can just render either untextured and process as normal or render textured and filter it to fuck. Probably won't be TOO hard once you get used to it.
LifeArmorIcon - It seems the game does support per-unit unique icons but Blizzard is just too lazy to make sc1-styled unique icons.
ShieldArmorIcon - Same deal.
GlossaryImage - Seems like those tech tree screens are actually dynamic which is pretty cool. Or you need to manually edit them, but I'm sure this is where their icon is defined.
CActorSplat - Either a texture left behind when the building dies or a ground texture like wc3. Not sure...
This is some confusing bullshit right here.
Let it begin...
