Hiding passive abilites with spellbook?

01-18-2006, 07:32 PM

I'm trying to make it so some passive abilities' icons are hidden (not just a black icon). I've never used spellbook for anything before, so correct me if I don't know what I'm talking about =]

I read this in another thread, but still have some questions about it:

Quote:

Hi, I know that this is an old post, but I know a way to hide icons: u just have to disable them (Player - Disable Ability):

- add the spell u want to disable icon to an ability called Spellbook (on items spells);
- disable the spell Spellbook (f.e. with triggers);
- add the spell Spellbook to a unit;
- the icon won't appear but the ability can still be used with triggers OR if the ability is passive, it will be used passively.

I hope this could help^^

- First off, when I "add the spell Spellbook", does that mean add an item, add the ability in the Object editor, or add the ability with triggers?
- Second, the unit I'm adding this to morphs a lot (in fact it has 4 morphing spells, but only 2 of them are usable at one time...). Will I need to add the spellbook with triggers every time the unit morphs back to the regular form? The spells I want to hide are only used in the unit's original form, so that should make it a lot simpler.
- Are the passive abilities I want to hide ONLY in the spellbook, or does the unit have them also (or get them added with triggers)?

Normally I would just experiment with it, but this is the kind of thing that I would end up wasting hours and hours on because I'm so clueless. Any help would be great =]

01-18-2006, 07:44 PM

mmx2000

My understanding of it is that you use triggers to give him the abilities. I'm not familar with the Spellbook trick or the ability itself, so I'm just guessing here as I'm not in front of my WE:
You have PassiveAbility you want to add to your hero.
Open up Object Editor, find the Spellbook ability under Items.
I'm guessing there's some data field for spell's contained within(?)
Add PassiveAbility to SpellsContainedWithin Data Field of Spellbook.
Now, I'm trying to remember how the morph ability works... I believe it takes your current unit and creates and entirely new unit when you morph.
So for you, I think you can give your default form that uses the ability Spellbook in the Object Editor, but then you need a trigger for:

Code:

EVENTS
   A unit enters (Playable Map Area)
CONDITIONS
   (Triggering Unit) equal to FormWithPassiveAbility
   (Triggering Unit) spell Spellbook Level equal to 0   //this checks to make sure he doesn't have it already... the syntax on this is prolly wrong but it's something like this
ACTIONS
   Unit - Add Spellbook to (Triggering Unit)
   Unit - Disable Spellbook for (Triggering Unit)

Now that's all entirely a guess, and I'm referring to Actions from memory so I could be wrong. Of course, I also took it out of order from what your Quote said, so Hmmm. If that doesn't work, can you right-click the Spellbook spell in Object Editor and choose Disable (Like you can with triggers) and then basically use the trigger I have above to give it to the unit.

Hope one of those ideas helps...^^;

01-18-2006, 09:33 PM	#3
iNfraNe	You cannot disable an ability for a unit, only for a player. But everything else is fine. You can just give the unit the spellbook ability (unit ability) from the object editor and disable the it at map init for the player. When the unit has the spellbook which is disabled the passive ability will still work on the unit.

01-18-2006, 11:41 PM	#4
FriendlyWarlord	Haven't tried it yet, but I really hope disabling it for the player works (so I'll try it first). I'm pretty sure that "disable for unit" meant the "remove from unit" trigger, which is what I assumed it meant originally.

01-19-2006, 12:23 AM	#5
Vexorian	Removing spellbook from a unit will remove the abilities inside the spellbook, so that's out of the question

01-20-2006, 05:01 AM	#6
FriendlyWarlord	Yay! Disabling spellbook for the players makes the abilities invisible, and I can even turn them on and off by creating/removing a dummy unit that's a spell requirement for the spells. Thanks =]

01-20-2006, 05:37 AM	#7
qwertyui	so what you are saying if that: 1) If a hero has an ability A, and has a spellbook with ability A, if you disable spellbook, A's icon will hide itself?

01-20-2006, 03:04 PM

Extrarius

Quote:

Originally Posted by qwertyui

so what you are saying if that:
1) If a hero has an ability A, and has a spellbook with ability A, if you disable spellbook, A's icon will hide itself?

No. Correct except for the 'hero has an ability A' part - you don't give them the ability, ONLY the spellbook with the ability.

01-20-2006, 03:53 PM	#9
qwertyui	Ah, i finally got it, the passive inside spellbook still affects the hero, but its icon is hidden with the spellbook icon :) Clever.