MDL Editing Help

I'm completely new to mdl editing so I don't know any of this...
How would I get the Naga building death to go higher up and thinner, like the Blood Mage's Crimson Wake spell in ToB?

In this case, the answer is probably pretty straightforward: go down to the section of the model deal with pivot points (just search for that string in the model), and add 100 to the 3rd value of each one (the z coordinate).

Actually, even better, if you intent to raise *all* pivot points, would be to simply download Oinkerwinkle's geoset geoset translation program, which is very easy to use: http://www.wc3campaigns.com/showthread.php?t=56444

Edit: Oops, I see you already posted there. If you can't get that to work, simply manually add 100 to the z value of each pivot point. That'll do the trick.

It's in there, right?
question is, which ones are they?

I think I misinterpretted your post. If you wish merely to RAISE a given aspect of the model, then raising its pivot point would be a good way to go about doing that. To give a little background: each pivot point corresponds to an "objectID" elsewhere inthe model. As luck would have it, I've edited this mdl myself, and so have it in mdl form. In this model, all but the first and last pivot points correspond to EMITTERS below the list:

ParticleEmitter2 "BlizParticle02burst1" {
ObjectId 1,

etc. Note that ObjectId 1 corresponds to the *second* pivot point listed (a "helper" above this list is ObjectId 0). Anyway, as you probably guessed from looking, this effect is actually composed of 5 different particle emitters (objects 1-5; object 6 is actually something different called an event object which you certainly don't need to worry about).

The point here is that if you want to merely raise the emitters, simply add to each of their z axis (2-6 on the list above).

I get the sense, though, that you want to actually alter the speed that the particles shoot out (making them go higher from the same point) and the cone that they emit from (making it narrower). To do this, there's going to be a certain amount of trial and error (unless you're using art tools in 3dmax) because it's not obvious which emitter controls which part of the effect - you'll have to experiment a bit. On the plus side, some of my favorite effects were created by messing stuff up - you may well like what you've done more than what you intended to do.

If you look in the emitters, you'll notice a bunch of parameters. The ones you care about are "static Speed" and "static Latitude." Raising speed makes the particles shoot out faster. Latitude controls the cone width - lower values make the cone narrower. I'd recommend playing around with different values with different emitters until you get what you're looking for. Here's a hint on playing around: WE won't load the same model more than once per session, so if you use WE to view your experimental models, name them each a unique name (test1, test2, test3, etc). Also, WE won't recognize a model until you import AND SAVE the map you're working on. If you try to assign an imported model to a test-unit before saving, the not only will the model not load, but since the model is only "looked for" once per session, it will not load until you restart WE - you'll have to rename it, save, and the use the newly named model.

Alrighty, I think I got it...
Just one more question:
How would I change the colors in the emmiters?

You'll find a SegmentColor section in the particle emitter(s). The first line is the start of a particle's lifespan, the second is the middle, and the third is the end. Going across, it's blue, green, and red, each on a scale from 0 to 1.

To make it go faster, change the line that looks like "static Speed ###," to something higher.
To make it go in a more narrow cone, change the line that is "static Latitude ###," to something lower.

One thing about changing a particle's color - you're tinting a texture that may already have a color, so the results may be different from what you want. For instance, (1, 1, 1) on a blue particle will be blue, not white. And (0 , 0, 1) on a blue particle may be black (or invisible, if blending) not red (if the initial particle had very little red in it, then lowering the blue and green channels to 0 will leave very little behind).

If you find that you're having no luck getting the color you want, you may have better luck changing the texture (textures are defined towards the top of the mdl, immediately below the list of animation).

Alright, it looks okay but there's one more thing,
I can't get some of the effects to go narrower