Phoenix, phoenix egg model

I have a hero (the firelord) with the Model Phoenix, Phoenix Egg. For some reason, when the hero is not moving, the egg appears, and when he is moving or attacking, the Phoenix is shown. What is going on? I tried removing the stand alternate (which is what the egg is I think) tag from the unit with a trigger, and nothing happens.

Try making the unit targetted as Ground, Air. Or just air.

What on earth are you talking about, Kingtofu? Model animations don't have anything to do with how it's targetted.

Allow me to suggest this possibility.

In melee Warcraft 3, the Pheonix egg is a motionless, attackless unit. However, it's the same model as the Pheonix, only with an extra animation tag (alternate, I think). This means that, if you set a model to be a pheonix egg, by picking the appropriate model and adding "alternate" to required animations, then when the model tries to walk or attack, there are no "alternate attack" or "alternate walk" animations in the model, so it shows the normal "attack" and "walk" animations.

Without .mdl editing, I can't suggest a solution that involves using the Pheonix Egg model.

You might try using the Thunderlizard egg item model instead.

Well, the way the Phoenix works is that it's flying, and when it's timer runs out it goes ground and turns into the egg to await rehatching. So I thought if it was targetted as air, perhaps it would retain the model. Just thought I'd throw the idea out there.

Well, Panto, I understand what you are saying for the most part, but I'm not looking to use the egg model at all. I just want the Phoenix. If .mdl editing is the only way, could someone get me started on how to do it? I have never messed with models before, and I wouldn't know where to start.

the phoenix has a stand and stand alternate animation
make sure you based your unit off of a normal unit instead of a morphed unit

Well I guess thats the problem. I have two units, both are based off the firelord, but one has the Phoenix model, and an ability based off bear form that changes the firelord unit to the phoenix unit. Any other way to make the unit be able to morph back and forth freely and use the Phoenix model?

Ah!

The problem is that the bear form ability automatically uses the "alternate" tag of animation on whatever model the bear form unit uses.

I don't know of any way around this without physically removing the "alternate" tags from the Pheonix model.