About
Too many times I've seen maps and ideas wasted away by errors in spelling, grammar, and in triggers. Far too many maps available today are poor in the fields of professionalism and aesthetics. There are always spelling errors at every corner and bugs at every step, every cinematic, every event, purging the map of its true potential. Since there are so many of these maps out there, I've decided to write a user friendly guide on making your map look and feel professional, as well as making it aesthetically pleasing.
Key Terms
Professionalism - The standing, practice, or methods of a professional, as distinguished from an amateur.
Aesthetics - The study of the mind and emotions in relation to the sense of beauty.
Note: When people say "aesthetically pleasing" they're referring to this definition.
Useful Links
dictionary.com - A cliche website that's useful for definitions of words as well as proper spelling.
thesaurus.com - A branch of dictionary.com to find more attention grabbing words.
google.com (Proper Grammar searched) - Possibly the best search engine available.
Professionalism and Attitude - A guide on being a game/map maker with the right attitude and the right approach to professionalism.
Useful Tools
SCMDraft - It cannot be stressed enough that this is indeed the best map editor available. Useful tools within it for professionalism and aesthetics are the grid feature to pinpoint a precise area for units and locations, the string editor which is useful to easily track all of your strings to fix grammar and spelling errors, the sound editor which is useful for compressing .wav files for use in your map to make the download shorter, and the user friendly "Map Settings" tab, allowing you to edit map properties, forces, unit settings, upgrade settings, tech settings, strings, and .wav files all in one place. The tileset index has all of the high dirt doodads, low dirt doodads, grass doodads, etc., together. This makes it easy to find similar pieces of terrain in the tileset index right next to each other, helping you to make your blends more professional.
People to help with your map - I'm not entirely sure if this can be considered a tool but let's face it, most people, no, everyone needs help at least one time in their map. It's okay to ask people for assistance; it helps you get your map done.
Notepad++ - Useful for making text triggers. Can also be used to search in your triggers after copying the text from your map, useful for bug killing.
Tortoise SVN - Making a team map project? This tool is useful for organization and management of project resources.
Google Code - A Google supported project hoster. Useful for team projects.
Sourceforge - Source for filesharing and backing up, among other things.
The Elements of Style - By William Strunk, Jr. A guide to grammar made in 1918, though recent versions are subject to copyright. Thanks to MiniMoose2707 for finding this source in this thread.
Helpful Tips
- Test as much as possible. The more you test, the more balance you'll have. The more you balance, the more professional your map will be. Nothing says professional more than balance. Also, while testing you will most likely find a plethora of bugs and glitches. By testing often, you will be able to fully purge your map of errors. Try and put yourself in situations that you think would mess up the map's triggers, and then fix the bugs if there happens to be any.
- Paste your strings into Microsoft Word (or whatever documenting tool you have) and run a quick spell check. This will weed out spelling errors, making your map more professional looking.
- For grammar, make sure you don't use any Internet short terms. For example, putting "u" for "you" and "ur" for "your" or "you're".
- Check terrain in game to find any bugs concerning height, vision, or just blocks. Use a small unit, a medium unit, and a large unit to make sure all terrain is passable (unless you want it otherwise).
- Test with all sorts of personalities; the more input you get from more variety, the more the map will appeal to people both professionally and aesthetically.
- It's much easier to find bugs if you've organized your triggers. I'm not saying to make comments on everything and waste strings, I'm saying to organize the center location triggers together, the level up triggers together, the spell triggers together, etc.
Conclusion
Yeah, I was bored, but hopefully this will help those of you who seem to not know a thing or two about grammar and spelling. Happy mapping .
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 6 2009, 8:03 pm by lil-Inferno.