Your first map
You will make a map with a hill and a few units for two players, and play it. It takes about fifteen minutes. You use the Terrain, Objects and Players modules and the Play button.
1. Make the map
On the welcome screen click New map. Give it a name (First steps), leave the place as Documents\W4 Maps, pick a size (the smallest is plenty) and a first ground tile; Lordaeron Summer grass is the default. Create opens the workspace.
What you see: the 3D view in the middle, a top bar (Undo, Redo, Export, Play, the panel toggle, Commands, Settings and the saved indicator), the module panel docked on the right with six tabs, and two floating panels, History and Activity, which you can drag anywhere or collapse to an icon.
There is no Save. The editor writes the map a second after every change; the indicator at the right of the top bar shows saving and saved.
2. Paint the ground
The Terrain module (Ctrl 1) is open. The tile picker at the top is a drop-down of categories: In this map and the eighteen Warcraft III tilesets. Open a category, hover a tile card to read its name, click it, and paint on the ground with the left button. The brush shape and size are below the picker; the wheel zooms the view, the right button orbits it, Shift and the right button pans.
Painting with a tile from another tileset adds it to your map (a map holds up to thirty-two tiles; the x on a tile card removes one you do not paint with any more). Mix a dirt path through the grass.
3. Raise a cliff
Pick the Raise cliff tool and click where the hill goes. Cliffs have four levels; Lower takes a level back. The view draws stone walls with an outline and real shadows. Try the sun buttons, Morning, Noon, Evening, to see the light move; Flip turns it around.
Every stroke is in the History panel. Ctrl Z undoes; a click on an older entry jumps the whole map back to that moment, and a click on a newer one forward again.
4. Define a unit
Switch to Objects (Ctrl 2). A map starts with no definitions, so make one: New definition, kind unit, name it Footman. A definition needs a model: the picker lists the models in the map's Imports. A new map has none yet, so either
- import one from the game you own: Imports (Ctrl 4), From Warcraft III…, search
footman, pick the model (its textures come along), or - drop any
.mdxor.mdlfile onto the Imports list.
Back in Objects, choose the model. Set health 420, speed, attack power and range to taste; the defaults are sensible. Save happens by itself.
A hero is a unit with a level and a mana bar in the game; a building trains the units in its Trains list; a decoration is scenery that nobody owns. Make a second definition, a building named Barracks with a model, and put Footman in its Trains list, and the Footman gets Barracks in Builds so your workers could place it.
5. Place units for two players
Pick the Place tool, select Footman, and click on the map: a ghost follows the pointer and a click puts the unit down. Set the owner with the colour swatches (players 1 to 12, or neutral) and place three units for player 1 on one side and three for player 2 on the other, facing each other. Turn left and Turn right rotate the selection; Select moves units by dragging; Delete asks once.
Units animate in the view (a setting turns that off on a slow machine), and owners show in the players' colours.
6. Name the players
Players (Ctrl 5) lists twelve players: a name, a colour swatch with the twelve classic colours, a team number, and the map's start gold. Put player 1 and player 2 in teams 1 and 2, so they fight. Players on the same team never attack each other.
7. Play
Press Play in the top bar. The engine starts with your map: the loading screen, then the players page, where you pick Play as this on player 1. In the game, drag a box over your units, right-click the enemy, and watch. Enter opens the chat; type /help for the commands, /gold 1000 is a cheat that works in a game at one computer. Esc opens the menu with Quit.
Everything you changed is saved in Documents\W4 Maps\First steps. Next: give the map rules in Go.