Lain's Decision

I have finnaly decided—after 3+ years of wc3 III—I will buckle down and learn how to become a great 'mapmaker'/'mapper'. The best place to come for help? Wc3campaigns, of course.

The intention of this thread is to help me learn mapping, essentialy from the ground up. I know some things, the basics of systems, and how a few triggers work, but, nothing that would enable me to stand-alone mapmake. (Later on, Skinning & Iconing too). Ex.: links to novice-level-mapping threads, terraining (which I know quite a bit about, atm), importing skins & icons.

When I reach a point where I've come along way, I'll post attachments to maps/projects I'm creating to show how far I've come (with the help of wc3c) to analyze my work.


~ Lain of the Wired

You could just look through the tutorials section. Then work on a map you think you can accomplish, in which if you get stuck ask.

Well, I'm not really sure if I should move this to OT, Map/Campaign Projects, Triggers & Scripts, or what... so I'll just leave it be.


Read the tutorials first.

Once you learn about the technical knowledge needed to make a map read this for a nice tutorial on how to design a nice map:

http://www.wc3campaigns.net/showthread.php?t=94871

If you could inform us how you learn best, that would help us inform you of the best way for you to become a better mapper.

For some people, reading a tutorial is the best way to go. For others, editing an existing map and tinkering around with triggers (i.e. change values, test, and see what happens) works best. Other people learn best from just starting a map from scratch and asking specific questions along the way (i.e. asking "how exactly do I do <this>" as opposed to trying to learn everything about mapping at once. Just try to find what's best for you.

P.S. If "following other people's advice on how you should start" works for you, by all means do it. The bottom line is, there isn't an undisputed "best way to learn" so be flexible.

I am. They are usefull.

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That is a good idea. Do you have a map suggestion, or rather, could you attach one to a post?


~ Lain of the Wired

Depends on what map you want to edit and how skilled you are. I don't know either so it adjusts to you. You can edit melee maps with small triggers if you want, or take a RPG and look at it etc.

I have a whole bunch of not-so-finished maps you could look at/through. Do you have AIM or MSN so that we could talk there?

Or I suppose I could link you to a thread in the pastebin with some random maps attached.

i think it is stupid tat most people protect their maps now... Before i learned map making from opening other's maps and learn how they did it. Now u cant anymore...

i support this BUT ! (in my case i mean TcX) i have simply used the space saving optimizations... (the war3map is not screwed !) so a bit advanced (a user with jass knowledge) could look in ^^ i hate screwed "protected" jass code. but anyway i don't write code for publick
so my source are also not really easy to read or better to say to understand... and i don't have much objects so the most important thing is the code ^^ (it's just an example...)

Direct links for map/s to study, please.


P.S. - Thank you for the responses so far, everyone. Keep them coming (*Knock on wood*)


~ Lain of the wired

Yes, now we can't abuse open source maps and insert cheats into maps. Here's a list of things that have been extorted in that way:

• Vampirism
• Sheep tag
• Various mauls
• Animal tag
• Various mazes
• Poke The Angry Ogre

Protecting is wonderful. Very few people open maps to 'learn'. If someone wanted someone to learn from their map, they'd do something about it, not leave their map open-source for the public of B.net to rape with cheats.

For example. Pyrograsm is giving his incomplete maps that he doesn't care about out for study, which is great. But I doubt he'd do the same if he'd invested 200 hours (or whatever.) into a map, finished it, and released it... Only to find someone walked in and took credit for the map, including adding cheats. That's bad.
[/offtopic]

Anyways. Back on topic.

If you want to learn, read the tutorials and just enjoy map-making. Don't be an ass around here and you'll get plenty of kind help. Oh, and don't forget to tinker around in the editor itself. You can learn a lot from trial and error.

If you have some basics of programming from other languages (I mean primarily algorytmization, not syntax) - even very simple ones like basic or php are enough - you can hop in pretty fast. You just need to know what the language is capable of (first in GUI, then JASS).

If you don't have any experience, you will have a lot harder time. I think you already had a look at world editor, so you know what are trigger, objects etc. Triggers are the core part, so you should try to create some simple ones first (yourself!) - you can for example try to create simple tower defense - creep spawning, life counting etc. Single actions in trigger editor are pretty self-explanatory, so you should be able to create it with almost no knowledge. It may be buggy, ineffective, laggy...but it will be yours ;)

Ah yes, I agree with darkwulfv in both points. But for the on-topic one, remember trial and error. Only ask questions when you've tried multiple times and did each of them differently for your problem.