Overlapping Text System in SC Xtra Editor (v2.0) Jan.29.2005 By Angelfarto - East/West/Asia/Europe BNet Servers O---------------------------------------------------------------O X TO VIEW THIS TUTORIAL CORRECTLY X O O X PLEASE SET YOUR FONT TO "FIXEDSYS" X O O X.................THE X's AND O's SHOULD LINE UP................X O---------------------------------------------------------------O i. Intro ii. Basics iii. Example - 2x Forces iv. Example - 3x Forces v. Pseudo Example - 2x Map name vi. Tips/Troubleshooting - important info here!! Tables A. 2x/3x Formulas B. Overlapping 2x - Forces names C. Overlapping 2x - Units names D. Overlapping 3x - Forces names E. Overlapping 3x - Units names (not complete) Hyperlinks http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap1.jpg - Example images http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap2.jpg http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap3.jpg http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap tut.scx - Example map http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/Overlapping Tutorial v2.0.txt - This tutorial http://www.angelfarto.com - Home site +---------------------------------------------------------------+ i. Intro I assume you have some experience in overlapping text, success or not. You should at least know how to open up SC Xtra editor and get into the Forces or Unit naming screens. And have a familiarity with the 'back' and 'front' characters. Or, are super pro and you just want a reference tool here. +---------------------------------------------------------------+ ii. Basics So basically, overlapping has a simple pattern to it. There's a 'back' character, an optional 'color' character, the text you want overlapped, then a 'front' character, a color again, then the same text again, and some spaces or tabs at the end (which is explained later). Following that logic, we get a nice little guideline, or formula to apply to any text we want overlapped: 2x overlap formula - yourtextyourtext This formula will overlap text 2x. For 3x, you can almost guess what the formula is: 3x overlap formula - texttexttext (If you don't know what the back and front and color characters are, or how to get them, well, I feel for you. But just in case you really need to know, just copy and paste them from the forces window) Remember these formulas, or look back here if you forget. These are the basic rules of overlapping text. +---------------------------------------------------------------+ iii. Example - 2x Forces Names Download http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap tut.scx so you can follow along with examples. So let's take an example. Say we want to overlap the text "Bounders", as 2x, in the Forces screen. So open up Xtra, goto the forces screen and clear whats in Force 1. Then, 1) Copy and paste the back character | 2) Copy/paste your favorite color (say, white) || 3) Type in "Bounders" without the quotes ||Bounders 4) Copy/paste the front character ||Bounders| 5) Copy/paste another color (we'll do grey) ||Bounders|| 6) Type "Bounders" again ||Bounders||Bounders Now comes the fun part. We need to know how many tabs and spaces to put next. This depends on how long the text is we're lapping. So count the characters... Bounders = 8 characters long. And since we're doing a Force name, 2x lap, refer down to Table B, for a 8-char length word. It says 3 or 4 tabs and 1 space. So how do you know how many tabs? Well just try both out. But I'll just tell you this time - 4 tabs. **In order to get the 'tab' character, you can't just hit Tab on the keyboard. It won't work. So open up Notepad, or wordpad or whatever, hit Tab, then Copy and paste it into Xtra... 7) Paste Tab 4 times ||Bounders||Bounders|||| 8) Hit space 1 time ||Bounders||Bounders|||| And that's it. In SC Xtra, it'll look something like this, without the quotes: "||Bounders||Bounders|||| " (the tabs show up as those funny black bars) Save yer map and check it out in Starcraft. You should see Bounders in grey text, with cool white highlights underneath it. Cool yes? 1st try ;) Take a look at http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap1.jpg and http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap3.jpg to see finished products. · For overlapping UNIT names 2x, refer to Table C instead, to get the number of tabs & spaces. Check out the .scx example for some unit overlaps: http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap tut.scx +---------------------------------------------------------------+ iv. Example - 3x Forces Download http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap tut.scx so you can follow along with examples. Ok, that 2x lap was too easy right? Let's try a trickier situation. We want to 3x overlap "Jan 5th". Easy right? Well let's go thru it. Open up SC Xtra and goto the Forces menu. "Jan 5th" is 7 characters long (the space counts), so in a blank forces name do the following: 1) Copy/paste the Back character | 2) Copy/paste a color (Light blue 2) || 3) Type "Jan 5th" without quotes ||Jan 5th 4) Copy/paste Front ||Jan 5th| Now since we're 3x lapping, there's not gonna be enough room for a lot of different colors (since you have to type "Jan 5th" 3 times), so don't put in any more colors 5) Type "Jan 5th" again, no quotes ||Jan 5th|Jan 5th 6) Copy/paste the BACK char ||Jan 5th|Jan 5th| 7) Type "Jan 5th" once more ||Jan 5th|Jan 5th|Jan 5th We said "Jan 5th" was 7 chars long, so goto Table D at the bottom of this tutorial. A 7-length word needs 2 tabs and 1 space. So.. 8) Copy/paste tab 2 times ||Jan 5th|Jan 5th|Jan 5th|| 9) Hit spacebar once ||Jan 5th|Jan 5th|Jan 5th|| Save the map and check it out in starcraft. Did it work? ... NO!! Why not? Because letters like t and J are 'thin', which screw up my charts...(%$#@&%$# muttered cursing...) anyway, in this case the overlapping is shifted RIGHT, so try ADDING a TAB at the end. So it'll look like this: 10) "||Jan 5th|Jan 5th|Jan 5th||| " Save it and check it out in starcraft... Sweet! Easily fixed lap! · If the text was shifted to the LEFT, you would REMOVE a tab. · Use Table E when 3x overlapping Unit names. I haven't found a good system of doing this so the chart is unfinished Take a look at http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap1.jpg and http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap3.jpg to see finished products. Check out the .scx example for some unit overlaps: http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap tut.scx +---------------------------------------------------------------+ v. Pseudo Example - 2x Map name The reason this is not really an example is because lapping map names are usually a pain in the ass. However, they are possible to do. I just don't have a system for that yet. But check out the example .scx map (link is at the top of this tutorial). Maybe it'll give you some ideas. Look in the Scenario>Properties menu in Xtra. The map name looks like this: "||OverlapTut||OverlapTut|| |." What I did was really: [b][c]OverlapTut[f][c]OverlapTut[t][t][s][s][s][invis]. Back, red color, text Front, white color, text Tab, tab, space, space, space Invisible color, period The invis color hides only the period. So how did I figure this out? Trial and error, and a lotta luck. Actually, it's still not quite right - the O in Overlap is kinda hidden...Close Enough!! This: http://www.angelfarto.com/txt/overlap2.jpg shows you the map name overlap in Xtra. +---------------------------------------------------------------+ vi. Tips/Troubleshooting The most important tip you NEED to know is that when the overlap doesn't lap exactly right, like when one word is shifted over too much to the left or right when you use my tables, to correct the lap just add or remove a tab (or two) depending if... ...the FRONT text is to the LEFT of the BACK text, REMOVE a tab. ...the FRONT text is to the RIGHT of the BACK text, ADD a tab. Here's a couple other important ones... · If the text has a lot of 'thin' letters - like i l 1 . [ ] etc... follow the charts as normal, but you might need to add or remove a tab or two to get it right (by using the tip above). · In order to get the 'tab' character, you can't just hit Tab on the keyboard. It won't work. So open up Notepad, or wordpad or whatever, hit Tab, then Copy and paste it into Xtra... And just to further your knowledge of overlapping... · When doing 3x overlaps, the longest word you can overlap is 8 characters long in the forces screen. · The max numbers of characters of a Force name is 29. · The max numbers of characters of a Unit's name is 40. · The max numbers of characters of a Map name is 31. · For 3x lapping, or if you have long text to lap, you might run out of room to add spaces and tabs. Try eliminating some of the color characters to give you more room. · You can place colors anywhere in the forces/unit name (not just after each back or front char). Try different places to get different effects. · When putting colors in, if you use 'grey', everything after grey will be grey, even if you put other colors after it. The same thing is true for 'invisible'. · This tutorial covers overlapping of the same text. If you want to overlap text that's different, like "Bound" and "Super Bound", (which could be a &^%$ing pain in the ass) try making them the same length, like " Bound" (with spaces or underscores "___"). Or just vary the tabs/spaces at the end until you get it right. · For 3x laps, the last color you place in the text will show up on top in starcraft (even though the text in the middle has the 'front' char on it) ... i think +---------------------------------------------------------------+ + Table A - 2x/3x Formulas -------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------+ 2x overlap formula - [b][c]yourtext[f][c]yourtext[t*][s*] 3x overlap formula - [b][c]text[f][c]text[b][c]text[t*][s*] Legend: ŻŻŻŻŻŻ [c] - any color code [b] - the "back" code [f] - the "front" code [t] - ascii code for 'tab' = ALT+0009 (you can't enter this code directly into x-tra, so enter it into notepad, then copy-paste it into x-tra) [t*] - one or more tabs [s] - normal space = spacebar [s*] - 1 or more spaces +---------------------------------------------------------------+ + Table B - 2x Force Names -------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Length Tabs Spaces (# chars) [t] [s] ============================== 1................8.......1 2................8.......1 3................7.......1 4................6.......1 5................5.......1 6................5.......1 7................4.......1 8..............3 or 4....1 9................2.......1 10...............2.......1 11...............1.......1 12...............?.......? +---------------------------------------------------------------+ + Table C - 2x Unit Names --------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Length Tabs Spaces (# chars) [t] [s] ============================== 1..............6 or 7...2 2................6......2 3................6......2 4................5......2 5................5......2 6................4......2 7................4......2 8................3......2 9................2......2 10...............2......2 11...............2......2 12...............1......2 13...............0......0 14...............0......2,3,4 and/or invisible period +---------------------------------------------------------------+ + Table D - 3x Force Names -------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Length Tabs Spaces (# chars) [t] [s] ============================== 1................8......1 2................7......1 3................6......1 4................5......1 5................4......1 6................3......1 7................2......1 8................0......0 (you wont have room for any color) (and... it's "perfectly" overlapped) 9..........impossible!! +---------------------------------------------------------------+ + Table E - 3x Unit Names --------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Length Tabs Spaces (# chars) [t] [s] ============================== 1...............6.......2 2.............5 or 6....2 3...............4.......2 4...............3.......2 5...............2.......2 ... using this chart, only 2 colors show up... I haven't found a good system for 3x overlap for units yet... = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Angelfarto@yahoo.com http://www.angelfarto.com/ Angelfarto @ U.S. East = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =