| 11-12-2003, 11:22 PM | #1 |
My Feign Death skill is working great but, there's something that has been becoming more bothersome as I play with it - the casting animation. There really shouldn't be one, it's out of place with the skill - what happens now is - the unit starts casting <dummy spell> which has no effect, will complete half (or so) of the casting animation then "drop dead". I would like to prevent the unit from using it's casting animation if possible. You may tell me to use an ability with no casting animation as a dummy, I know you will.. here's the problem with that. The ability needs to be instant-click ability, so it's limited what abilities I can base it from. I have played around with abilities like windwalk and shadowmeld (instant click, no casting animation abilities) BUT I can't make the unit stop from becoming invisible! Even with the ones with casting animations there is sometimes problems (like with Roar, pretty buggy trying to make a trigger spell from Roar). Anyway, I'm currently using Thunderclap which works perfectly with the exception of the casting animation, and here is my trigger. Code:
Death Animation
Events
Unit - A unit owned by Player 1 (Red) Starts the effect of an ability
Conditions
(Ability being cast) Equal to Feign Death (Custom)
Actions
Unit - Order (Triggering unit) to Stop
Animation - Play (Triggering unit)'s death animation
Unit - Make (Triggering unit) Invulnerable
You should know that I have to tell the unit to "Stop" or else I have to make a workaround so it doesn't get up immediately and keep doing what it was doing before clicking the ability (or perhaps I don't need to do that anymore with thunderclap based ability but I definitely needed to on all of my previous dummies). I've also different variations of the Event - Unit starts / stops casting an ability etc. But, no matter what casting ability is always in progress before my death animation starts. My next skill is Radiate, which creates a graphic on the left hand of the caster and grants increased nightvision, the range of vision increase / duration of the spell is greater per level. It's somewhat buggy right now, because you can use the dummy ability (I think I used thunderclap for this one too), and if you move IMMEDIATELY after casting it, the trigger will sometimes not activate. Code:
Radiate1
Events
Unit - A unit owned by Player 1 (Red) Finishes casting an ability
Conditions
(Ability being cast) Equal to Radiate (Custom)
radiatelvl Equal to 1 <-- This is my variable to tell the trigger what lvl it is!
(The Sleeper 0058 <gen> is sleeping) Equal to True <-- This is my invisible unit in the corner that sleeps at night so the
ability cannot be activated in the daytime
Actions
Special Effect - Create a special effect attached to the hand left of (Triggering unit) using war3mapImported\NexusHigh.mdx
Set nexusFXlvl1 = (Last created special effect)
Unit - Add Sight Range Bonus (1) to (Triggering unit)
Wait 30.00 seconds <-- This is the cooldown of the spell
Unit - Remove Sight Range Bonus (1) from (Triggering unit)
Special Effect - Destroy nexusFXlvl1
You should know, I have tried using the "Unit - A unit begins casting an ability" event, and it worked better EXCEPT ... if you click the ability and move immediately, you will get the spell to work without actually using it because of the.. very short casting "delay" (which to me is just irritating), and so you could therefore STACK the spell, as well as casting it for free. Very bad. Anyway, I've done much toying around with both of these abilities to perfect them but I would appreciate a bit of advice on these little issues, or perhaps some alternate methods of creating the effects that I have set up for them. Please! 8)) |
| 11-12-2003, 11:45 PM | #2 |
I've made a spell similar to your Feign Death spell.. Called Soul Release My spell actually makes it so real, that it's hard to see if the character dies or not...Only way to do this, is to have him targeted or target him while playing death and disapate animations, as he will display as invulnerable... This is a 2.25 second window, wich isn't much in the heat of battle. My unit is then hidden once he flies off into the air, like he died... Here is the trigger, take a look and if u find something u like (or the whole thing?) let me know.. Btw, the spell is in the trigger repository, under the spell thread (page 6 or 7) called Keeper of Souls Trigger: Code:
Release Soul Level 1
Events
Unit - A unit Spawns a summoned unit
Conditions
(Unit-type of (Summoned unit)) Equal to Soul Release
Release_Soul Equal to 1
Actions
Unit - Remove (Summoned unit) from the game
Unit - Make (Summoning unit) Invulnerable
Unit - Order (Summoning unit) to Stop
Special Effect - Create a special effect at (Position of (Summoning unit)) using Objects\Spawnmodels\Undead\UndeadDissipate\UndeadDissipate.mdl
Animation - Play (Summoning unit)'s death animation
Animation - Play (Summoning unit)'s dissipate animation
Unit - Pause (Summoning unit)
Wait 2.25 seconds
Unit - Hide (Summoning unit)
Wait 7.35 seconds
Unit - Unpause (Summoning unit)
Special Effect - Create a special effect at (Position of (Summoning unit)) using Abilities\Spells\Undead\AnimateDead\AnimateDeadTarget.mdl
Unit - Unhide (Summoning unit)
Animation - Reset (Summoning unit)'s animation
Unit - Make (Summoning unit) Vulnerable
Unit - Set life of (Summoning unit) to ((Life of (Summoning unit)) + 300.00) |
| 11-13-2003, 01:37 AM | #3 |
A few problems with your spell.. Casting animation - this is my problem anyway. Dissipation - Nice effect... for a PvP map. I intend for my skill to be used in single player campaigns to simply prevent and stop current enemy attacks in tough situations. No acknowledgement? - Your unit makes no sound when he dies... I'll attach the new version of my spell (it's based off of Roar again, I figured out the problems I was having with Roar weren't with Roar itself but some stupid file that got imported by a 3rd party program, which I deleted.) If you take a look all the triggers I had to make for it, you may be able to think of a simpler way to remove the effect when the unit resumes normal activities.. I couldn't. (I can't think of any way to "exploit" my way yet, but I'm sure someone will at some point. ie: it used to let you move around when invulnerable if you clicked somewhere immediately after casting or aquired a new target). Keep in mind that if a unit is not set to "Worker" classification with "Can Flee" set to False, it will ruin the spell. FYI it is unprotected and you can so with it what you please, once I am satisfied with it I will put it in the vault but as it is now I wouldn't even think about making it for public use. |
| 11-13-2003, 08:27 PM | #4 |
Ok, i have an idea. Make the unit, when it is issued the ORDER to feign death (you would have to give it maybe a 1 second casting time), just give it shadow meld and then carry it out maybe... Otherwise, you could just, when issued the order to fake death just carry out the trigger...use strings to make sure it is feign death. ONLY, that would mean no cooldown. |
| 11-13-2003, 08:50 PM | #5 |
If I could use shadowmeld it would essentially solve all the problems that I have with the ability. The problem with shadowmeld is that I can't figure out how to A) use it during the day, and B) prevent the unit from becoming ghosted. If both were possible, I wouldn't even have to make the unit a "Worker" and it would eliminate the casting animation - it would be awesome. I already have it set up the other way, Unit - A unit uses an ability, Ability equal to feign death equal to True, then <etc>. So, yeah ? |
| 11-14-2003, 01:43 AM | #6 |
In Radiate you should be using "Casting Unit" not "Triggering Unit". Also, try putting the "Play Death Animation" before the "Order to Stop" that should do it. |
| 11-14-2003, 01:57 AM | #7 |
I've seen no difference when using "Casting unit" or "Triggering unit" for Radiate, the problem lies more in preventing the ability from being stacked anyway - there seems to be some flaws in how the trigger checks the outcome of an ability being cast - or something. As for FD, I tried what you said and it broke it ;). Wouldn't even work on a peasant (no casting animation). Well, I should rephrase that, it worked improperly - casting animation was significantly shorter (but not gone) but death animation did not play, which I assume is because Stop interrupts any current animation and resets unit to standing animation. |