Question about ability anim editing

I finally figured out how to edit animations for spells via Win MPQ, and I'm getting the hang of editing spells via triggers thanks to everyone at these forums. I've still got questions though, as you can see. :bgrun: Well, I edited the spells blizzard and starfall to have custom target animations (WOOOO!!!) but this just gave me another problem. Maybe you guys will know how to work around this. How do I make multiple spells such as Starfall and blizzard with custom anims. I realize there are two starfalls, but what about blizzard? Or other spells? Is there a way? Thank you.

Well the unfortunate answer is that you can't create custom spells based off of blizzard, starfall, or basically anything with a buff. All you can do is change it. Until Blizzard changes this, we're stuck. On the bright side, MOST spells also have a neutral hostile version, so there are in fact 3 Starfalls, 2 Blizzards, etc. Hopefully that will be enough for your map.

I have a question. I know how to open the MPQ's, what changes to make, etc, but how do you "activate" the spells in your map, or make the changes. In other words, what do you do with the .txt and .slk files you change?

Changing animations for spells is easy. (Now that I was shown how to :D )
Here's the step by step.

1: Open up War3patch.mpq with your MPQ opener.
2: Find the file that corresponds with the abilities animation you want to change. For instance, Starfall is under unit/nightelfabilityfunc.txt and Blizzard would be under unit/humanabilityfunc.txt. Open the file.
3: Scroll down to the spell you want to change. Change the location of the animation to some new animation. I did the infamous Starfall to Infernal Birth one.
4: Save the newly created unit/XXXXXXXfunc.txt.
5: Import the file into the map you want to use and make the custom path unit/XXXXXXXfunc.txt.

(XXXXXX is nightelf,human,undead,orc,neutral, whichever file the ability you edited belongs in.)

Hope that helped.

ok the 2 starfalls use the same buff and spell script so u cant edit that one and a diffrent one plus u can just use the ability editor for all non buff spells