buff editing

how do the blizzard buffs work? are they models? if not what are they? how do they work, and how do you make them. I really want to make a whole bunch of custom buffs for my mod, but I really don't know how. If anyone would be willing to tell me i would appreciate it very much. Heck, I might even give you some points.

buffs seem to be animated models with alpha textures and sometimes added particle systems.

eg: the animated model may be a cylinder( with the top and bottom deleted) that is set to rotate 360' over 8+ keyframes, has a tga image applied to it, this image would be 32bit and have an alpha channel ( built-in transparency).

in the material editor under 'extended parameters' you could select 'additive' to give the image ( applied to the cylinder ) a glow effect. you couls also attach other objects to the cylinder (as children to be effected by its animation) eg; a blizz particle system, etc

cant go into much more detail now.. typing with left hand [ right hand is broken & in splint] :(

edit: here's an example of the kind of texture: sorry if you already know..

okay, that makes more sense. What are point helpers though? I see them a lot in blizzard models and I really don't know what they are? Would these be used to make good buffs?

from art tooks doc:

Event Objects

Certain visual and sound effects are triggered in the animation by event objects. These events can trigger splats and
sounds, or they can spawn objects that are in the Warcraft III game. A spawned object is a point helper object with a
specific name and a note track with keys. The keys need no info. The name of the point helper is an eight-digit code
which the game looks up from one of three SLKs, then plays the appropriate sound or art.

In the case of a Human
Footman's right footprint, for instance, the point helper attachment would be named FPTxFBR1.
Footprints FPTxyyyy Appendix C
Blood Splats SPLxyyyy Appendix C
Uber Splat UBRxyyyy Appendix D
Sound Events SNDxyyyy Appendix E
Spawn Objects SPNxyyyy Appendix F
“x� represents any single character to make the object's name unique.
“yyyy� represents the four-character event object code listed in the Appendices.

get more info from the art tools doc.

Thx, that helps me out a lot. How do shockwaves work though? They are particle emitters, but how are they separated from other ones that are just spray emitters? I really appreciate your help.

shockwave effects would probably be animated models with alpha textures.

you can animate & texture models to look like a particle system.. in the case of some spell effects, this is more practical. you can also have multiple particle emmiters attached to animated objects.

spray emmiters ARE particle emmiters, but there is only one particle emmiter type in WC3/TFT which has a variety of editable properties, as it says in the art tools doc which i suggest you read.

animated textures might be worth looking at in your case, if you want more info on this, read the art tools doc, u can download from blizzard.com

i have read the art tools doc.....

anyways thx

then you could have answered several of your own questions yourself :-)

A shockwave uses the "xyquad" parameter, which creates particles along a horizontal plane. If you look at, say, the ripple effect in the moonwell, you'll see that that's the parameter used to create that. Refer to the art tools documentation for a better explanation (and possibly a more accurate one :)