Adding an impact effect?

01-05-2010, 08:20 PM

I don't think this is possible through triggers, but it sounds very easy for anyone just a little apt with model editing.

What I'm looking for is a slightly bigger impact effect on the red dragon breath missile. The blue dragon has a rather dominant impact scatter effect, but the red clearly doesn't cover the damage area. I use this missile-art for a certain spell also, so it would help me a lot to get this.

So I want to add an animation from Will the Allmighty's fantastic selection, found here.

So can you give me (as detailed as possible) pointers on how to manage this? or better yet, if it's as easy for you veterans as I imagine it is, can I humbly as you to make one for me?

Anyway, thanks for all help.

02-02-2010, 11:55 AM

Infrisios

Well, it should be a rather simple thing, but I don't know your knowledge.
Also, I only know how to do it in raw mdl editing.

I used the mdl of a random mdl I just had opened.
I use Notepad++ to edit mdls, but you can also use common Notepad or any other tool to work with textfiles.

First off, you need to extract the red dragon breath model out of WC3 and convert it to mdl (both can be done easiest with Mago's model editor). Also download the model you'd like to see as death animations.
Then you have to take the particle emitters (it should be only emitters I think) from the proposed death animation and basically just put them into the dragon breath model, behind the other emitters.
Make sure that the ObjectIDs have a consecutive number and that the number of particle/ribbon emitters is defined correctly at the top of the mdl (NumParticleEmitters2 [YOURNUMBER])

Then you have to make sure that the emitters fire at the correct times.
Animations run in certain time invervals, defined quite much at the top of the mdl:

Code:

Sequences 3 {
	Anim "Birth" {
		Interval { 0, 33 },
		NonLooping,
		MinimumExtent { -39.4838, -39.5001, -38.8792 },
		MaximumExtent { 39.2587, 39.2425, 39.8634 },
		BoundsRadius 39.3713,
	}
	Anim "Stand" {
		Interval { 367, 1100 },
		MinimumExtent { -39.4838, -39.5001, -38.8792 },
		MaximumExtent { 39.2587, 39.2425, 39.8634 },
		BoundsRadius 45.1464,
	}
	Anim "Death" {
		Interval { 1567, 2133 },
		NonLooping,
		MinimumExtent { 3.40282e+038, 3.40282e+038, 3.40282e+038 },
		MaximumExtent { -3.40282e+038, -3.40282e+038, -3.40282e+038 },
	}
}

For example, the death animation goes from 1567 to 2133.

In turn, particle emitters have their times when they are visible.
Same example, in the particle emitter:

Code:

	Visibility 1 {
		DontInterp,
		1567: 0,
	}

Adapt the newly added emitter visibility to the death animation.

Next thing is the textures.
Each emitter got a line looking like that:

Code:

TextureID 2,

The textures are defined at the top:

Code:

Textures 3 {
	Bitmap {
		Image "Textures\HeroLich.blp",
	}
	Bitmap {
		Image "Textures\Yellow_Glow.blp",
	}
	Bitmap {
		Image "Textures\Star8b.blp",
	}
}

First texture has the ID 0!
So if you want to use Textures\Star8b.blp in the example you need the ID 2.

You can also add the sound events, which look like that:

Code:

EventObject "SNDXMNCH " {
	ObjectId 4,
	EventTrack 1 {
		1567,
	}
}

SND means it's a sound, X is an isolator, MNCL defines which sound it is. Care for a consecutive ObjectID here as well and adapt the number of events in the header (NumEvents [YOURNUMBER]). You can set the time like with emitters, but in this case it's the time when the sound starts.

If you don't want to keep the old parts of the dragon's breath, you can delete the emitters that are visible then or, if they are also visible in other times, you can simply make them invisible during the death time.

I hope it's possible to understand what I just wrote -.-

Infrisios