Melee flying unit.

I did an angel model some time ago, it was supposed to be ranged and attack with magic. Now I decided to do a melee variation. One of the problems is that with the current animation set it float about at 2 meters of height, (because that way it could have a proper death animation, falling exactly at the ground level) but that leaves me with the problem of the attack animations: I can animate it so that it flyes a little down and then comes back to the regular height, but then against flying units it would look like it's swinging the weapon under them.

Any ideas?

Make it unable to attack air? Or fix the death for a lower height.

maybe Im not complete understanding the question but flying units animations are exactly at the same level as ground units animations, I mean you dont animate the unit to float 2 meters above ground, the engine does that for you. And all flying units explode on death, so you dont have to worry about height

Massive swing arc?

Indeed you didn't understand the question.
I think his model is set to 2 meter height by default with 0 flying height.And his attack animation it go down strike ground units with melee attack but his probleme is that it sucks if it attack a flying unit.

You can make an attack slam or attack alternate animation and then use a dummy passive ability wich use attack slam or alternate (cleave with 0 area of effect) but it can work only on air unit so it use a different anim if he attack air unit.

They would have to be VERY broad; also I couldn't make horizontal strikes.


Exactly.


That's an idea, thanks.

In alternative I was wondering if it was possible to adjust the flying height according to the attacked unit... I know you can set the height of a unit via triggers but dunno about detecting the target's height.

Easiest way is to use WCIII's way of using multiple attack animations.

Give it 1 attack anim called "Attack One" you can add stuff like - 1 to the end for multiple "Attack One"s, but you have to have Attack One there, make it the animation for attacking ground units (swoops or whatever) then you need an animation called "Attack Two" where the angel is attacking the airborne unit.

Then go into the object editor and give the angel 2 identical attacks, attack 1 can only hit ground units and structures, attack 2 can only hit air units. Assuming it has the animations Attack One and Attack Two, WCIII should play the Attack One animation whenever the Angel is using the first attack and Attack Two animation when the Angel is using the second attack.

You can detect flying height with triggers, however it detects the flying height as set in the object editor. WCIII dynamically adjusts flying heights as units pass over terrain and doodads, so doing such a detection will work when all the units are on level terrain, but will fail miserably if doodads, cliffs or hills enter the picture.