Staredit Network

Well considering that I am average map maker...I still do not know how to overlap text, I was just wondering if someone can explain that to me (how to do that). And by the way, Yes I did try the "Staredit Tricks & Tips" but I think that page is down .

Oh, I put up a tutorial of it before, I guess I could repeat it for you.

Requirements:
Starcraft (And/Or BroodWar)
An Editor (X-tra 2.5)
Overlapping Marks


Steps:

1. Download X-tra Editor 2.5 Here! and run it.
2. Load up your map by clicking open and then going to where your map is and loading it.
3. Goto the Place you want to overlap and place the Followng mark Called a "Back Mark" It determines what appears in the back text: 
4. If You Want, find a color mark (Bottom Of The Page) And Place it after the overlap mark: 
5. Now Write the text you would like to appear: Text
6. Now Place This Mark Afterwards, "The Front Mark", it determines what appears in the front of the text: Text
7. Now Place Another Color Mark If You want: Text
8. Now Write The text You would like to appear over it: TextText
9. Now Make spaces at the end of the second word, preferrably these type of spaces : , You can get them yourself by opening notepad and clicking Tab

There You Have it, a 2x overlap (Works in Brief,Forces,Map name, Leaderboard,unit names and anywhere else)


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3x Overlap


Requirements:
Starcraft (And/Or BroodWar)
X-tra 2.5
Overlapping Marks

Steps:

1. Run X-tra 2.5 and Load your map
2. Do the same thing you did above except when you get here, place the back mark again: TextText
3. Put another color mark if you wish: TextText
4. Write the Text you would like to appear their: TextTextText
5. Keep making spaces until it's perfectly overlapped, use the space again to help with this process, takes a while to get right.


There You Have it, a 3x Overlap! Can also be used anywhere

Thanks!

ADDITION: Ok I tried it out but it doesnt work for "Forces". Whats wrong?

Chances are you won't get it on your first try, just mess around with the spaces and you should get it.

When i read your post you didn't say anything about it might not work then i was happy cause I though that was the exact formula but then... ohh well units is so much easier to overlap...damn forces

Actually, I find forces the easiest to do, but then again, I find overlapping itself very easy.

The Arrow one is like Align Right.

The || One is like Align Center.

That's what it looks like in normal in-game text anyway.

4x overlaps are pretty easy as well, as far as I know, I was the first person to 3x in brief and Display text .

What map was it? I don't think i've seen any of your maps. Unless you release your maps in other gatways because I'm on east

I don't really release my maps, I just finish them and start on another one, I really should, the only map I have released is RC Challenge, which can be found in the Download database, or my siggy.

I can't remember the names but...

One sign is an arrow pointing up.

The other is two vertical lines.

When I had Win98 they all were single vertical lines, but WinXP showed different thingies.

Question: Is there an editor with a string table that shows exactly what you see in SC so it can make overlapping wiht trial-and-error method faster?

Really? Starforge both have string editors with previewing... Well, they don't even take into account that the Gray mark lasts for an entire line, so we probably can't trust the Overlapping previewing either. How about PROEdit?

I was pushing Heimdal to do this when he was still working on Starforge, He did most of it in the string editor except the problem is when you use more than one overlap charater it messes up. It also doesn't display tabs properly, problem is since it isn't perfect it almost useless.

I talked to Clokr_ a lot about this once on AIM. The reason it's so hard to do is because the font StarCraft uses for displayed text and unit names and such is not fixed-width, and it was developed solely for StarCraft so there's no specs for it available. Even the font specs that SI posted over at StormCoast Fortress leave out the width (in pixels) of each character. He probably left that information out to prevent exploiting the information by hackers who could make spoofers that use overlaps and stuff like that. At least, that's the only reason we could think of. Maybe he can shed some light on this mystery.

Heimdal got pretty close, He ended up with bitmap images of all the ascii letters SC uses for each mode (i remember cause he sent me them all in image file once). He would set there telling me things like a period takes up 3 pixels while a comma takes up 4, and weird stuff like that.

I think Clokr_ had those images, too. But for some reason it was too difficult to make a previewer.

Just a Question, Does Space mark differ from letters or symbols?
Example:
( ) 2 D Q?

Yes the letters have differant widths (this isn't notepad here)

for an example a m is a differant width than a l is. The space has a set width too just like every other letter.

i have the tips and trix in my favorites, (U)Bolt_Head made an entire topic just for that

http://www.staredit.net/index.php?showtopic=1885&st=0

its the same exact thing as tricks but in a topic here u go it was no problem