Just a little something interesting

Not sure if this is known but...

Just by accident i found out that if you give an item an passive ability, then edit the ItemAbilityFunc.txt to include a:
Targetart="insert model path here"

When the unit picks up the item the target art will display, im having a little fun with this and the Named (like uniques i guess) items im adding to my RPG. I have a staff called thunder storm, and when you pick it up, a lightingbolt strikes the hero.

like i said, its just a little something, nothing major, but its pretty interesting, no triggers needed to create the little special effects...

so,for example, could you have a hero that doesnt have a weapon (graphically) and when he picks up the item "Sword" you could make the model of a sword appear in his hand?

techanly ya....

because you can use the attachment areas to move the effect around the unit

Problem with your thing. What if someone picks up a sword and a staff? They would both appear in the same hand.

well, a sword, no, you have to use images in the game, a spear, axe, other units, trees, doodads, all that stuff,
you can pick up an item that will make a ballista on the heros weapon "giant crossbow"
ive been experimenting with the special effects, ALOT, if you have one of the mpq viewer programs you can lok for all the .mdx files, and it will list all the possible effects.
just open the war3.mpq

triggers can limit items so a hero can only pick up 1 type of weapon. just define a item varible array of all the weapons, and when they pick up a item, run a loop to see if that item is a weapon, if so set a boolean true, then drop any other weapon they pick up until thier inven is cleared of the item they originaly picked up. i have done it before, not 2 hard

Thatd be more work then just doing it with triggers.

well using the items with attached SFX saves the array of special effects, setting the special effect with triggers, then destorying it.. not much to save, but does save. It still gives a nice effect for what im using it for. When a player picks up a "godly" item in my RPG they get a nifty short SFX to appear on thier char. A SFX that only loops once, not a repeating. so it works fine wiht no extra triggers.

Well that is cool, I didn't know about this. Can any special effect be used? How does it display it? Does it do birth/animation/death, or just the animation?

all the ones i tried it was just the normal animation, just for simple effects (the ferral spirit summon, the animate dead, holy light e.g.) only ones that do not repeat thier animations.