Morph Animation Help

How exactly does the morph animation work? I created 2 different models who have the animation keys "Morph". When i tried this ingame, the models didn't activate the animations that i set for them.

Have two animations: Morph and Morph Alternate. The first is for the original unit shape transforming into alternate form, the second is for alternate form transforming into original one (make them nonlooping and short, probably no more than two seconds long)

Next, create two units in WE, one being "large", the other tagged "alternate" (the tag "large" is there just to make sure the unit doesn't use alternate animations). Next, create an ability based off of a morphing ability (Submerge ability should be just about right :)) and set it to point towards your two custom units. The morphing should now commence by itself when you would activate it.

dont use submerge, cause it can only be activated on deep water, use Bear Form, i've found its the best. The "Morphed" form of the model needs to be the SAME model as the "Unmorphed" form, otherwise you get some wierdass bugs.

you mean you have to combine the models together?
im totally confused, should you animate the models as one or separately?

currently, im trying tufy's stuff but im also not clear on what he meant

Hopefully I'm not muddying the waters out of ignorance. I believe that the DotC model has both the human and bear forms. Human forms are shown normally, and when in bear form, the alternate tagged animations are used.

Technically, I'm guessing that the two units could indeed be read in from different models. They would still need the proper animations, though. The game uses "morph" on the normal unit to turn into the other, and "morph alternate" on the second to turn back to the first. In the wc3 models which morph, I suspect that both units are contained in a single model file. I don't think this HAS to be the case, though. If you wanted to make (for example) a druid model and a bear model, that would be acceptable, provided all of the bear's animations were given the 'alternate' tag (including its morph animation).

The problem with using seperate models is they dont work properly, the unit will play his morph anim then the new model will just pop into existance (even if it has a birth anim)

Take a look at the Druid of the Claw, Goblin Tinker, Medivh or Druid of the Talon to see what i mean, both the morphed and umorphed form are the same model, the morphed form's geosets are hidden during the normal anims, while the opposite is the same for the unmorphed anims. This is by far the best way to work (mainly due to the above bug) it looks EXTREMLY stupid having this whopping great bear appearing from nowhere.

alright, so imagine i put both models together as one so i start animating them together. i would need to use separate animations for them right?
i.e. normal unit: Stand ; 2nd unit: Stand Alternate

however, i should i change the opacity of the unit that is not being animated to 0? or is there some other way i should make it disappear? (not sure about opacity working on only one mesh, didn't test yet)

i'd do it thru mdl editing and Geoset animations, i'm not an animator so i dont know the technicalities, but if theres some way to "hide" the model thats not being used then use that. I think blizzard just shrink it down to nothing during animations where its not used, then hide it in the geosetanims.

To make objects visible at only some times, go to the note track editor (same place that you set up when animations start/stop), select the object, and click 'Add Visibility Track' (which looks like an eye). You can then add keys in that track with the value of 0 for invisible or 1 for visible.

alright, thx oink

so far, i've gotten to the actual morph part. since the models are as one, i'll keep one invisible while the other is visible until the part where they morph. so in this part, the first model will be using the key "Morph" and the second model will be using the key "Morph Alternate" as compared to "Stand" and "Stand Alternate" right?
correct me if im wrong

yes, everything that has the morphed units animations should have Alternate on the end (Stand Alternate, Attack - 2 Alternate, Death Alternate ect)

Also during the morph anims, to make the transition smoother make the "morphed" unit like appear somehow, take a look at any of the other WCIII morphing units to see what i mean, the bear in the dotc for example sort of reverse shrinks into view.

ok, thx pheonix
er... problem again, lol
when i did that visibility thing, it only managed to work for the stand animation, the first animation on the track view. is it something i did wrong? (cause i merged the 2nd model after i've done the animating) or did i mess up the visibility thing?

EDIT: whoops, nvm, seems like i have to put a key for every animation

alright, i managed to finish the animations though when i tried importing it into warcraft,
(Export .mdx, import, change textures, yeah, i know all that stuff) it just couldn't detect the model. Is there something that i might need to know about this? (cause before i did the visibility shiznit, it worked perfectly)

You probably fuxed up the visib track. Well, see you on msn eh ;)?