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Seeing how so many people out there still do not understand the grid system for maps...

At first, i didn't know about this concept of "coordinate grids" or w/e you call that funky junk. People would explain it to me over and over again and i'd get lost and be like, "huh? oh.... uhh.... w/e... still dont get it!" That is, until one of my friends, Devilesk, showed it to me in a game. Visually do i then understand the whole meaning of grids. Now how to teach people the system of grids? Simple: they have to see it for themselves, visually, so for those of u who still dont know about this grid system thing, let me see if i can explain it. I'm not the best at explaining this sort of stuff but i'll give it a shot:

So here's a picture i made. Pretend that this picture is an actual map with units aligned and placed like this. The Black dots represent units:

[attachmentid=4261]

So those black units let say belong to player 2. Now lets say you would want to use this sort of grid system in some sort of "board-like" game (like bolt's reflector or chess). Let's say you want a location to be placed over the second unit from the top at the very left column. Here's how you would do it with triggers:

Conditions:
- w/e you want
Actions:
- Give 6 units owned by player 2 at anywhere to player 1.
- Move location "your location" on men owned by player 2 at anywhere.

And here's what your result would be (the circle is location "your location"):

[attachmentid=4262]

Now as you know, when several units are just placed on a map and if you want a trigger to lets say, kill, each unit one at a time. The map will begin killing units that start from bottom left of map and work its way upwards. Then once it reaches the top, it finds the unit that's next when it comes to moving horizontally and start from the bottom again. Well, here's how it would work. Here's what it would look like if you did this trigger:

Conditions:
- w/e you want
Actions:
- Give 11 units owned by player 2 at anywhere to player 1.
- Move location "your location" on men owned by player 2 at anywhere.

[attachmentid=4263]

Now continuing from that picture. Lets say you want a location over the top unit at the second to right column. With those 11 units already owned by player 1, just take another 21 units from player 2 and move the location over player 2's first unit (which would be the top unit of second to right column):

[attachmentid=4264]

Now this sort of system would easily be used for things like dodgeball: having burrowed units at every 2x2 square of the arena and use those burrowed units for explosions. I'm sure there are better ways of explaining/doing this but this is just how i learned the grid system thx to devilesk

only looked at your pictures. Nice Work however.

Only the problem is sometimes it doesnt follow that exact pattern

I still don't get it... What is the grid system used for?

They are used to preserve locations. When you remove/give a certain amount of units, then center the location on a unit, you have the location at that spot. So instead of using locations at every spot, you can have burrowed/invisible units.

Ok I don't get it anyway But I must be stupid..

weeeeee Mill mentioned me woot!

Sessase it's ok if you dont get it. Only if you need it would you need to know it. Very rare cases in which people would use this.

And probably i didn't explain very well.... maybe

Guys chances are you don't need to worry about this anyway if you're just doing normal maps. If you however desperately need more locations beyond the 255 limit (and lack the creativity/capacity to recycle locations), or else need to do effects at specific points within a given area and want to save a bit of trouble by moving a single location around instead of using 1 location for each possible point, THEN you would want to use grids.

If I've lost you already, then grids probably arn't for you.

Very true tux. However, there's plenty of map makers out there who just want to be like you and bolt; know just about all these wacko fancy tricks out there for map making so they can brag "HEY i can do this. Haha!"

And more than 90% of them would never use such things in their maps... well

Unless they want to do effects like in LiQuiD Arena made by LiQuiD(U)

The grid on the unit? Amazing

Well, I sorta guess you got it...but I think people are still lost. I think I can bring up a small topic that I had on my mind lately about Grid systems.

I just recently replied to a Conceptual Thread regarding one of those sliding picture puzzles and how it could be achieved. (You know, those little things where you slide tiles around to get a pretty picture of Mickey Mouse?) It basically used a grid centered on one of the moveable tiles or in this case an SC Unit like an add-on, and moved it to the available space. Theoretically, it should work. By using overlords instead of the basic zergling and using the add-ons as a grid lock, it should work.

But I've also had this on my mind lately about Tux's "Endless" Firing System. I haven't taken a look at it yet, but I think it might work. The same concept with the "Sliding Puzzle tiles" would be used, however, the process continues until interrupted.

Say there was a defiler, with a grid locked onto it with all 8 cardinal directions (N, S, E, W, SW, etc.) and a dark swarm was casted into the "North" Location. The trigger system would create a unit, say an observer, at the "North" Location, center a grid on it, and move the observer into the next "North" Location. By centering the grid on the observer again, moving it, and continuing the process, theoretically, the observer will always move in the same direction: North. The only way it could be interupted would be say, there was an enemy unit where the "North" Location was, it would kill the enemy unit there, kill the observer, and voila! The chain is cut. Yeah. Just needed to get that out.

Don't be talking about me Mill xP, I like grid system because it is different and you can make nonconventional maps that are different from SC altogether.

Grid system is basically a grid of units and you pick out different units to center a location on the grid by giving the units back and forth, because SC gives away units in a certain order, and centers on a certain unit.

Thats kinda what i did in my reflector map but it only uses 4 directions instead of 8 and it randomly bounces 90degrees every time it hits something.

So it would work?

Of course it would the hard part is actually doing it.

speaking of which... was that bug that prevented player 2 from playing ever fixed?

About Liquids arena... all you really have to do is have one 9x9 location centered on the ling. (Oh and..the map was protected I never looked at it) Then create 9 overloards whenever they unload a unit from the shuttle. Then center the location make an explosion and create 9 more overloards...And don't use waits unless you need them for the explosion(s).

But the Grid is like this:
1st location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

2nd location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

3rd location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

4th location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

5th location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

6th location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

7th location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

8th location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

9th location hit:
X X X
X X X
X X X

I thought I would post an example of a grid being used in action. It's unlocked for everyone to see.

Download the map here, uploading is disabled right now for some reason.

This was done with 1 location, 2 triggers, and 64 preplaced units.

I thought the way SC gives units is like the bring command from the top down and from left to right instead of from the bottom to the top and from left to right.

I may be wrong since it has been about 3 months since i really sat down and did any mapping.

Maybe your right, we could have it backwards. But I doubt it =P.

Thermo, if you look at my map, it goes from left to right, bottom to top. That is the order which SC goes by.

I already understand it. I was just saying, using the knowledge of the grids, people can make these amazing effects really easily.

Rexy, it depends. Sometimes it is that way, but most of the time it is the "usual" way.

Shouldn't it be bottom to top, then left to right?

I made an experimental db map, its in DLDB, also using these concepts you can do different variations to make some good triggers, such as using burrowed units to align a location to a grid or using them as a place holder and such.