Backflip

Hi All!
Anyone got any ideas on how to make a backflip ability?

This is what i'm thinking
Unit Uses backflip, unit jumps backwards, say 300 units, then carries on as normal. While backflipping the unit cannot be hit by ground-only attacks.

So the above idea is very simple, and i can do that myself.
But has anyone got any ideas how to make it look like the unit is spinning in the air?
I think perhaps it was Infrane that gave me a dummy model with unit animations for many pitch angles (so i could turn it up and down) but i'm unsure if this could be used to make it turn beyond 90 degrees.

Can anyone shed some light on this, or perhaps suggest a better way of doing it?

No sorry, as far as i know there is no way to turn it more than 90 degrees.
The only other way i can think of is to create/edit/add animation where he is backflipping.

The 'Shadow Hunter' in the orcish race, his model has a backflipish animation. Maybe you could use that.
I just looked into it, and the animation is called Stand Victory.
If you lowered or highered the animation speed it could look realistic

This might be messy and take up some space, but it works. I made it for fun and never used it. I heard that they did something similar in Shipwrecked 7 too, the sea giant hitting the ground and spellbreakers flying in the air thing.

NagaActionSpin.w3x

Thanks Seruk, i've just downloaded your map and about to try it.

Thanks Tidehunter, question though, could i make the shadow hunter a dummy unit with no model, attach the model of the unit i want to it via triggers and have it appear that the unit i want is backflipping?
I can't see any reason why not, just checking if that seems reasonable.

That would be possible perhaps. Try attaching a unit to the chest. I think itll look quite weird tho..
But you would have to make the shadow hunter 100% transparent. You (OFCOURSE) cant have a unit which has no model and at the same time shadow hunter model...

Okay, that's my trigger so far.
The backflipper has the shadow hunter model, that I intend to use.

Now I have a new problem - it doesn't work. No attached model appears.
Furthermore, if I change (Last Created Unit) to be Unit, the model DOES get attached (if I don't hide the unit) but only when I use the ability the SECOND time.

What's going on?

If you hide a unit then all attachments are hidden as well.
Try making the unit 100% invisible and attaching the SFX, that will show the SFX properly.

Rereading what you said, I think you should set both the dummy AND the caster to a variable.
Then use the variable in all calls. That would likely fix the error you mentioned.

(Last Created Unit) is unreliable, make another variable for it.

Won't work, yes the attachment will show however the attached unit will sit there and do nothing, The dummyunit will be transparent and the animation you want will not show.

That’s bull, if a unit is 100% invisible it still animates. Anyway that will not work because if you attach a SFX to a unit that has it's opacity changed, the attachment's opacity is also changed. The only exception to this is particle emitters.

You misunderstood me, yes the animation will play but you will not see it. Try with the blademaster and you'll see what I mean.

Well DUH, you don't want to see the animation, you just want the footman to rotate around, the animation still plays and the attachment point still moves, which is what you want.

Attach to CHEST, not ORIGIN.

So can anyone give me a definitive answer of how to do this?

By 100% invisible, you mean permanent invisibility and ghost abilities? Tried that and it didn't work, as suspected - attached model goes invisible too.

Changed code:

This is correct, but you should attach it to the chest, not the origin. Read my previous post...

But I did that already, and it still doesn't work.
Making the unit transparent makes the attached unit model transparent also.