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Hey I just opened one of my maps with starforge to test if I can beat the maximum doodad problem with staredit etc, and when I opened with Staredit and x-tra editor the sprite doodad's are all messed up and the placement of terrain now comes in dot blocks rather than reacting blocks if u know what I mean.

It kinda screwed up the whole map, so is there any way to fix this? I don't care about the doodads i can fix those up if I can get the terrain placement back 2 normal.

Hmm... I'm gonna go check out SF and see if I can figure out what you mean. If possible, I'll give you any info I understanbd and find that has not been posted to you before I do (=.

Hmm, i've never used starforge, does it allow you to place more doodads then the typical editor does?

yes you can place endless doodads, and they appear in game... However if you use another editor, or if there are already sprites in the game, starforge ####s them up and terrain placement in maps made by starforge is ####ed... I dunno how to fix it, if i cant fix it then I've wasted 5 hours on a new map =\

SF automaticly converts your terrain to 1x2 tiles. God knows why..

Well i guess if i can get past the known bugs of it i can be more creative with my maps. I've always ran into the problem of getting to the max amount of doodads on a map and basically it makes the map look only half as detailed as it should be.

Starforge Converts maps to 2v1 terrain because it removes the ISOM section in the sceneario.chk. The ISOM section is the largest section and it is not replicated. Future verisons of Starforge should be alble to do Isometric terrain (dimonds). This is to reduce file size of maps.

As for the tile thread im not sure what you mean but when most people use black tiles SE can not read them because there using the null tile. If you open up the master pallet in Starforge and pick any but the first black tile then SE will be able to display it properly.

Im not sure if this will work for doodads but its worth a shot. Load up Starforge then go to your custom brushes. Click Load Brush, and you should have a seclection of doodad brushes. Use the brush to place a doodad. (it might be SE compatable it might not im not sure)

Well SCMdraft doesnt do that but it has a habit of corrupting your maps.

Oh God i hate that, i used a tool like that on a map i had been working on for a week and it was corrpted and basically... a week of work was gone.

I mean after using starforge on my map, i can't stop placing terrain as 1x2 squares in ANY editor.

As for the doodads thing, make a map in staredit or x-tra editor, place doodads, open the map in starforge, save the map, open the map in xtra editor or staredit and look at your doodads... you can't select them and they're ####ed.

It only happens to things like trees and pillars etc... Anything which takes up more space graphically than it's placement square.

Ahh i see, well maybe its not the best idea because i typically use those a lot in maps, but i may just give it a test run with a test map.

There is no way to replace the damage, but you can open the map in X-Tra Editor, and replace the terrain and input the doodads all over again, but some of those halved doodads, make nice terrain effects and still retain their magical properties of Blinds, Misses, etc...

Still i wish an edit was made that allowed infinate placement of doodads without any bugs, because thats my biggest annoyance when making maps... doodad limits...

Blizzard made a handful of limits so SC works with slow computers.

Redo and erase the glitched doodads by placing terrain on it. Place doodads last with a regular editor.

I hope you mean scmdraft 1 and not 2....

I did mean #1. At the time, that was what I had.

yeah, 1 probably has a few bugs cause the project was inactive so long and the internal stuff had so many recodes.

My problem is not the doodads but the fact that in all editors after using starforge my terrain is now placed in 1x2 blocks instead of naturally reacting to other fragments of terrain.

Therefore my map is ####ed.

Plan ahead. Do your terrain in starforge. Starforge has byfar the best terrain editor. It's also a tad bit complicated.

I am working on having scmdraft 2 repair this, the function currently isn't perfect tho and therefor not public.

So I assume you are saying that square maps are smaller than diamond ones in size? Is this a significant?

My mistake for assuming your map was square. Don't let Starforge TOUCH diamond maps, unless you are pretty sure you're done with terrain (even then, it's still risky, you might wanna change some terrain). Well that's kinda obvious, but just a rule from now on.

Yes of course file size is significant. Its very closely related with download time if you didn't know.

yes and download time is so important in the era of cable / dsl / t1 lines aint it... isom section is for 256 x 256 map 500kb, compresses to say 10% original size, 50 kb, which is 30 seconds for 56 k.

... Well, I was trying to say: Is the file size change from with isom or without isom a dramatic or just a couple kbs off sort of thing? If it was significant, it would mean like 50+ kbs off, but a few like 1-10 wouldn't really matter to me. Let's say you are balancing on 1 foot. If an elephant was on your shoulder would it be significant (would you fall over)? I think yes. If only a fly landed on that shoulder, would it be significant (would you fall over)? Probably not.

Edit: I did a test with a 256x256 Ice map. It's called (8)Frozen Sea, and it's located at Starcraft/Maps/Brood War, if you want to test it yourself. the original size was 208kbs. I opened it on Starforge and saved it as another name and it turns out to be 154kbs.

So 208/154 = 104/77, which boils down to 1.3kbs of isom to 1kb of isom-free.

Unless this isom file affects more than just terrain, I find it not worth going through the trouble just to save a little, and if you screw up on your diamond terrain, gg. So I have concluded that diamond maps are larger than square maps to a certain degree, but it is only relevant in larger sized maps.