Custom Hero's + Key for Doors

Greeting All!

I'm about to embark on my first custom map, and I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction for some questions I have.

I'd like to make an arena map. There will be heros that start out on ether end of a dungeon and they can find each other and kill each other. There will be creeps along the way so they can level. Some will respawn and others will not. I'd like to have some doors that require keys that you can get to unlock and lock doors.

I'm completely new at this and not sure where to look. So if anyone can point me towards an tutorials or give me tips on how to do the following I would appreciate it:

1. Create a custom hero from existing game models. For instance and archer model that has beast master bears skills, and ice arrows.
2. How to make keys that can lock and unlock doors.
3. How to make creeps respawn.

Also I am on a macintosh computer and might not have access to third party editing tools.

Thanks!
-Per

If you open up the Object Editor and click on the Units tab (which is the default tab), you'll see all the units on the left hand side in categories. The Beastmaster is a Neutral Hostile Hero. Find him, find the field for model, and it will allow you to select almost any model in the game.

If you stay in the Object Editor and click on the Abilities Tab, you'll see the same layout, but with abilities. Find Frost Arrows; it's a Neutral Hostile Hero ability. Change the button position of the skill to match where you want it in the command card (the standard 3 hero skills are 0,2 1,2 and 2,2 and the ultimate is 3,2).

Go back to your customized Beastmaster in the Unit tab and click on the Abilities field (I think it's the second one). Remove whichever ability you're replacing and add Frost Arrows.

More importantly, explore every field of the unit, ability, and buff tabs to get a handle for what kinds of things that you can change. For example, your new Beastmaiden has a new model, but the unit isn't timed to match the model's movements and, most glaringly, is still a melee hero.

As far as making keys to open doors, that's a pretty simple thing to do once you've got a grasp of the Trigger Editor. Go to the Trigger Haven forum and browse for a while. Once you think you know what your question is, post there.

Hope that helped you get started. Play around a lot. Good luck.

panto thanks so much. im gonna get on it now!

Few more suggestions regarding unit editing:
- I usually don't modify exsisting heroes, but make new heroes first (right click on a hero and then click "new custom unit") and then modify them. That way, I can still use original heroes alongside the new ones. It really doesn't matter if you don't mean to use the original heroes, but I do it anyway to keep things clean and organised.
- Out of the same reasons, I usually modify the "race" field in the object editor and some other fields that don't really affect gameplay, but keep things neatly organised in the editor.
- When changing the model of a hero to a unit model (such as an archer), keep in mind that units are all smaller than heroes. That is why I always set the "scaling value" of heroes that use unit models to 1.25, to make them seem more like heroes (to make them fully appear as heroes, you must also attach a hero glow to them, but that's a more advanced trick, no need to concern yourself with it now)
- As panto mentioned, when editing a hero's model, many things don't match. These would be "attack - damage point", "attack - backswing point", "animation - cast backswing", "animation - cast point" and some others. You can easily copy these values from a unit that uses the new model by default (in your case, when changing the model of beastmaster to the model of archer, just copy these values from the archer unit) This way, your unit won't, for example, fire it's arrow before it even aims it's bow.
- Don't forget to alter the hero's stats: inteligence, agility, strenght; there are lots of other things that differ between heroes, like movement speed, attack speed, armor... that is why the best way to edit units is to make them on the basis of a unit with similar characteristics; so, instead of basing your archer hero on beastmaster (just because they share one ability), it would be wiser to base it on Priestess of the Moon (because they have same attack types, very similar (if not same) stats, same attack speeds,...) so you have less editing work.

And another gameplay sugestion: Slow and stun are quite powerfull spells in hero arenas; summon spells as well. So a hero with frost arrows and a powerfull summon spell that has even bash at higher levels could be a bit unbalanced.

As far as opening gates is concerned, that is all triggerwork. With triggers, you can practically do anything, all you have to do is learn how they work.