Repository for editions and examples of the Warcraft III Version of scCS

This sounds real good. I'll send you my progress on the cinematic soon. Keep school your #1 prioirty, of course--and after that family time over the Holidays.

Don't worry about the wraith so much--since they're smaller we probably don't need a more detailed model than Blizzard will provide us, even though having one could still be cool.

As far as texturing, borrow a lot from Blizzard's other textures if you can--I don't know what you can extract from the original game, but just going to the Blizzard site seems to put a lot of rusty metal stuff on your screen--might work just fine if you arrange it carefully.

 

Yeah. I plan on doing a lot of "borrowing" as its the best way to get things done.

I'm looking at taking some of the pieces of the Project Revolution models to create the more intricate parts of the Battlecruiser. Maybe borrowing some Seige Tank turrets as turrets for the BC itself, etc. and then shrinking it all down to size.

When I can sit down for a couple of days and pound out some work, it'll come easier.

 

That sounds like a great idea, but do you actually have access to the Project Revolution models? I can't even get the site to work for me--I can't see any gallery images, let alone model files.

 

Yeah, but I have to get my hands on the high-res one, obviously. I'll probably end up sending them an e-mail asking for it.

Probably won't get it either, but it's worth the shot.

 

I don't see why these guys just don't release what they have. I mean, SC2 is coming out in a matter of months, and at that point it will be of no value to have anything Starcraft in WC3. Rather, it will be much more valuable to have the nice models that these guys have made, perhaps will some tune-ups, for use in SC2 maps.

These guys have been working on this project of theirs for almost eighteen months now, and hardly anyone plays WC3 anymore. Releasing what they have really is their last shot at making anything of this--they should let others, should there be interest, reconstruct the various Starcraft maps, or make new stuff.

 

That's pretty much the argument I will make in an e-mail, unless you want to do it.

I don't have any more connections than you do. LOL!

And as a mod developer, you may be able to convince them more.

 

Well, I can email them, but perhaps you can do it first. Send me a copy of the email you send so I can follow up as appropriate in a couple more days.

I may know some of the developers online, but I'm not sure. I would hope they'd see the light and release a couple of models in confidence that they would not be further distributed until some particular date...

 

OK, the "Starburst" function that was a major goal since this project's inception is now functioning! I have a bit more to add, and then I will test it in-game, but seeing as it only needs to compile code that I already know to work, it's a good bet!

 

Fixed a bug in the starburst function and got it working--it can now be used to generate explosions. I'm still tweaking some of the parameters a little bit before I release a demonstration. I want the drag coefficients to work more smoothly to create more dazzling effects.

I also improved the transition from scCS output to WC3 triggers. Now, scCS prints ALL of the text for a trigger with the name you give it (so, create a trigger called "foo" and run scCS as:

>> scCS -i input.txt -trig foo -o foo_script.txt

Then, you merely open foo_script.txt with a text editor (I'm using Word because I'm using scCS in a Linux environment and Word can read the unicode better than Notepad). Select ALL of the text in foo_script.txt with CTRL+A, copy with CTRL+C, and paste into WC3 with CTRL+V. Takes seconds!

Sizzling pyrotechnic effects can now be coded by only a couple of lines in the scCS input script, with lots and lots of parameters, or you can just rely on the default values and still get something good.

 

OK, well, after much deliberation and numerous attempts, I'm pretty well stymied as to figuring out how Warcraft III determines a units' actual flying height. Just interpolating the terrain height is hard enough--it's by no means a simple grid of squares, but instead a complex surface of lots of triangles (the natural cliffs and man-made walls are different models and so have different polygonal profiles, for example).

So, the only update I can offer at this time is that there will be no update pertaining to terrain effects. I will leave what I do have finished in there, so that it may be picked up at a later date if that is deemed necessary. The default, as it's always been, is to proceed scripting the cinematic without any assumptions about terrain topography.

Next up, an honest-to-goodness cinematic!