Newbie model-editor.. need help with 'ghosts'

I have a simple enough question.. how do I make a transparent ghost of a unit, such as the phantom Keeper of the Grove near the beginning of the RoC NE campaign, and the phantom Archmages near the beginning of the TFT Hmn campaign..

I've tried a copy&paste job of moving everything that was different, but naturally something that messy is doomed to fail (and it did).


I have access to 3dsmax, but would prefer as clean a pathway (preferably with .mdl editing) as possible, since I can't really understand complex instructions.


As one might expect, all help is far more than welcome!

Just give the model the ghost ability(make sure to use the one that doesnt turn them invisible.

You can just make the unit transparent through triggers.

you could chance alpha channels also...

So now I have three avenues.

I can attach an ability..
I can run a trigger on initialization..
Or I can change Alpha Channels..

But how would I do any of that? What's the Ghost Ability called? Which Trigger is it? And..how would I change those channels?

This is putting me over my head... maybe it might be best to forget this aspect.

I'd do this using the alpha channels. There tutorials all over the place explaining how to do this.
You'll have to edit the materials in the .mdl then alpha out the whole character(or the parts you want transluscent) in the .blp(.tga)

Animation - Change Unit Vertex Colouring