Creating an Elevator

Introduction



Elevators and switches are very special types of destructible doodads.
Elevators can be used to move units up and down onto or off of a cliff,
just like an elevator in real life. This can create a really cool
effect in maps such as RPGs and CTFs. Also, switches, both foot
switches and levers, can be used to allow units in the game to control
different aspects in the map. Both of these are powerful tools which
can greatly benefit almost any map.


Placing an Elevator



The first thing you must do is place the elevator on the map. Basically
you can place one anywhere on a map, but there are a few guidelines to
follow:

• Be sure that the elevator is touching the cliff. It won't do much good otherwise.
  
• Be sure that there is at least one full side of the elevator from
  which to enter, and at least one full side from which to exit. You may
  want more, but for most purposes, it is good to have only one for each.
  
• Be sure that the entry and exit are walkable. To do this, just
  press "P" while in the World Editor, or go to View -> Pathing
  (Ground). Any pink areas are not walkable. (Note: It is alright if the
  exit is pink, so long as it is just a thin line. This will be covered
  later.
  

Note: These guidelines apply only to elevators whose purpose is to
carry up/down units. There are other purposes (covered later) which do
not need to follow these guidelines.

Bad Placement

More Bad Placement

Good Placement

Placing Elevator Walls



Every elevator must have elevator walls. The way these work is, when
open, they become walkable, allowing units to enter/exit the elevator.
When closed, they act as pathing blockers. Elevator walls should be
placed at any possibly entry/exit side, and any place where you do not
wish people to enter/exit that isn't already blocked. For example, the
elevator below would only need two elevator walls: one each for the
entry/exit. It does not need one on the other sides, because the cliff
edges prevent units from entering that way.




A few things to note about elevator walls:

• Elevator walls can be rotated 90° by selecting them and changing the angle in the screen that appears.
  
• If you ever wish to place elevator walls on adjacent sides of an
  elevator, you must do it in the following way, due to the fact that
  Blizzard made the elevator walls longer than a side of the elevator.
  Place the elevator wall near the elevator and select it. Then, hold the
  control button and used the arrows on the number pad to move it into
  place.
  
• Elevator walls that are open by default can be placed by placing the doodad "Elevator Wall (Dead)".
  
• The way elevator walls work is that a closed elevator wall is
  living, a doodad which has blockable pathing, and an open elevator is
  dead, a doodad that has walkable pathing. So, when you open an elevator
  wall, you are killing it, and when you close an elevator wall, you are
  reviving it.
  

Raising/Lowering the Elevator



To raise or lower the elevator, you will need to use triggers.
Elevators have three different heights, each given the number 1, 2, or
3, one being the lowest. You can set the height of the elevator by
using the action "Destructible - Set Elevator Height" in a trigger.
Also, whenever you change the height of an elevator, you must open and
close the elevator walls using the action "Destructible - Open/Close
Elevator Walls" in a trigger. Any wall(s) you want a unit to be able to
walk over should be open, and any wall(s) you do not want units to walk
over should be closed. The trigger below will demonstrate this.


There are a number of different events that could be used for this
trigger. One possible way is to create a region on the elevator and
have the elevator raise when a unit enters that region. Another is to
have the elevator controlled by a switch (covered later). For more
information on triggers, see the Trigger Basics Tutorial.


Advanced Elevator Techniques



For those seeking to do more things with elevators, here are three suggestions and explanations on how to do each.


1. Underwater elevators These work in virtually the same way as normal elevators, but you
need to do something special to create them. Go to the "View" menu at
the top of the screen, and uncheck the option water, which will make
the water invisible in the editor. From here, create the elevators just
as you would normally. You can do all sorts of cool things such as a
path that rises out from the water, a hidden shop that rises every once
in a while, etc.

2. Elevator Mazes An elevator maze is a square region filled with elevators, where
the goal is to get across to the other side. Typically, the elevators
rise and fall what appears to be randomly (you could do it randomly,
but it's a bit complicated). This would require the above mentioned
technique to place adjacent elevator walls and a good deal of triggers.

3. Elevator Traps An elevator trap is an elevator that goes down into the ground and
traps a unit(s) there. To make one, build a pit in the ground that is
the same size as the elevator, then, in your initialization trigger,
add an action that sets the trigger to ground level. You can then add
another trigger that lowers the elevator when a unit enters it.

Levers



A lever is basically just a destructible that switches position when
attacked. Using a lever is fairly simple. First, you must place a lever
wherever you want. Then, you need to create a trigger. The event should
be "Destructible dies.", with the destructible being your lever. For
the actions, you should have whatever actions you want performed when
the lever is hit, followed by "Destructible - Resurrect Destructible"
if you want the lever to be used again. An example trigger is shown
below.



Note: The lever doodad can only be found in the Dungeon tileset. You will need to use the Doodad Layer to access it.

Foot Switches


Foot switches are very similar to levers but different in one major
way. Since they cannot be attacked, the event "Destructible Dies"
cannot be used. Instead, we have to create a region on the switch and
detect when a unit walks into it. Another important note about foot
switches is that in most cases, you should be sure to turn off the
trigger after it runs. Otherwise, your actions would run every time the
unit entered the region. See the trigger and screenshot below for an
example.





Summary



All of the techniques described in this tutorial are demonstrated in
the demo map below. It should give an adequate description of their
use.

Good tutorial, very thorough!

Yeh..

Thanks. Again. Again.

Elevators are difficult