Drain Life's animation.

Heya,

Im trying to get rid of the green glow that surrounds the caster and target, along with the green ray that connects them, for when they're under the effect of Life Drain.

So far I editted DrainOut.blp to be completely transparent and then imported it into my map into the same location as the original DrainOut.blp.

There no longer is a green glow surrounding the caster when they're using it... However, it's still surrounds the target, and there is still a ray connecting the two.

How can I get rid of this? What do I need to edit?

Both Image Extractors Ive tried don't show anything else other than DrainOut.blp

I'm not sure, but I think that's because it can't be edited normally (like with skinning, ect.) because it's an animation, using particles and stuff. Not sure, but that's what I think.

I'm not sure, but you may be able to get rid of it by editing the .txt or .slk files to get rid of the animations.

How do I find the text/slk file of this?

Any help or pointing in the right direction would be appreciated. :)

Normally, this is what you would do:
Open the war3x.mpq file with WinMPQ (at least that's what I use). Then find the file called something like Units\NuetralAbilitiesFunc.txt Under there, find the listing for Life Drain.
Now, for most spells and stuff, there would be a field to edit the model used or something, but I can't find it. It only lists the icons and the stuff you already made invisible. I've had that problem on another spell, the Neutral Blizzard. So honestly I don't know how to do it. And I'm not sure .slk editing would help at all either. Sorry. :(

Ah hah! I found this in the human abilities function text.


// Drain Life (Caster)
// This buff isn't ever visible on the info card.
[Bdcl]
//Buffart=
Targetart=Abilities\Spells\Other\Drain\DrainCaster.mdl
Targetattach=chest

And one labed Drain Life (Target) that the exact same.

So I'm going to assume I change Targetart and Targetattach to be blanks... How do I import this? The same way I imported the DrainOut.blp? (I loaded my map, went to import manager, picked my DrainOut.blp and saved it in the same directory as the old one)

Thanks for all your help by the way :D

Gunna be gone till later tonight, so I can't test, but it should work it you just delete the .mdl files. Yes, its in Human b/c of Siphon Mana :D

Woo!

I testted it... green gunk surrounding caster and target is gone :D

But theres still a green ray that dances inbetween them, I can't seem to find anything that would suggest it's removal. :(

Still don't have time to test, if you need me to I can try to figure it out tomorrow night.

In case you didn't, I'd delete all the .mdl files and the attachment points for the drain.

May I ask, is there any perticular reason you're doing this, or not?

One last thing, if you want the art to be something else (say, the animation for Animate Dead), you could change the attachment to origin and the art to whatever Animate Dead is (I'd look in the "caster art" thing under the spell editor). Sorry if I've just convused you.

Hope this works!

Hey!

Yes, Ive deleted all the mdls and attachment points for both of the sections

The reason for this is I want the spell to look completely different, and its hard to give it the right look with all that green gunk flying around. :)

I changed how it looks by using art attach in th ability editor.

Thanks for all your help!

Hope you can figure out where the ray is! (Thought it mightve been mana burn, but was not so)

the art for drainlife, siphonmana, mana burn, finger of death, chain lightning and chain healing is specified in Splats/Lightningdata.slk. So far I've only tried changing the Chain Lightning art, but it should work.

Ooo, thanks!!

Can you tell me what I need to edit slk files? :)

You need Microsoft Excel

Well... you don't NEED Excel, but its *very* hard just using Notepad. In order to edit them, just open war3.mpq with an MPQ viewer and open the .slk with Notepad or Excel, if you have it.

Thanx for that ragingdemon, I forgot that all of those were listed under Lightingdata.slk; that helps me out too.

no problem =). actually, i belive its in war3x.mpq, unless you are editing for reign of chaos.

so would you happen to know where it is in war3.mpq?

And would you happen to know if you can just add other models and they'll work? Like, overlapping Siphon Mana and Drain Life, or will the original one override the other? Can't test right now... I'm at school... lol