Changing Unit Speeds In ICE written by
Stwong from Staredit Network
What this
example/tutorial intends to do is make the Protoss Dragoon move four times as
fast, teaching the subject how frames work, what is possible speed-wise in ICE,
and how to do most of the animation editing with a little bit of
experimentation.
1. Open your favorite MPQ viewer, and extract
ISCRIPT.BIN from a copy of >patch_rt.mpq (can be found in your Starcraft
directory). Do not load the default one from ICE, since it is outdated and does
not contain all of the updates Blizzard has made over the
years.
Notes:
* Never use originals when
modding. Originals are bad. Make copies, then mod
them.
2. Pop open the extracted ISCRIPT.BIN in ICE.
3.
Since we are using the Protoss Dragoon as our example, click on the Main Headers
tab on the top tablist, and find Protoss Dragoon in the combo box labeled
Header.
4. The Protoss Dragoon is now open for editing... we will want to
edit his animation script to change either the delay between taking steps or the
scale of the steps he takes. On the bottom tablist, hit Animation Scripts to
open the script editor.
5. Since speed is located in the walking animation,
click Walking Animation under the combo box labeled Animation.
6. In the
black box below the combo box, you should see something to the effect of:
<insert picture of default dragoon walking animation> If this is not seen,
turn back now and recheck your steps.
7. Since the dragoon moves every time
his frame changes, it will be useless to remove the delays, except to remove the
animation and make him appear to hover. (This will NOT, however, render the
speed uneditable.) We instead will change the scale of the steps he takes, by
changing the "Move graphic x units forward" instruction to an increased or
decreased speed. To make the changes VERY obvious, we will make the dragoon move
four times as fast. With that speed, he will clear the map in a few bounds.
*
By frames, we mean graphic changes. Units whose graphics do not change, yet
still move, use Animation ID 31162 for movement, with an introduction of listing
a bit off of the floor. A frame change instruction is symbolized by a "Play
frame x" instruction, and this instruction is directly linked to the frames in
the GRP. You can use the GRP viewer to see what a frame is ahead of time. Aside
from death frames, all frames have a full hemisphere of movement, and rotate all
the way around on the right side, meaning that you only have to select the
beginning of the set of frames, instead of writing instructions for each
direction that the unit is facing.
8. To change the value of x in the
instruction, simply click the text, delete the current value, enter your new
value, and hit enter. If you wish to cancel, click somewhere else, deselecting
it. Note that pressing enter is the only way to save changes to instruction
values. Multiply each "Move graphic x units forward" instruction by 4.
9.
Save your changes, by hitting File>Save File.
10. Create a a new MPQ
called MOD.MPQ or a similar name and save the modified ISCRIPT.BIN into it,
under the SCRIPTS\ path. Use MPQDraft to use this modified PATCH_RT.MPQ, build a
dragoon in a lang map, and watch it run like... well... a really fast
dragoon.