Stretching a portion of a a model during an animation

I was wondering how i'd go about animation a portion of my model (namely the sword)'s length during a certain animation. I have no skills whatsoever in moddeling, but perhaps some sort of general guide would help. I'd greatly appreciate if someone could tell me how to go about this...

Could you post your model and say which program you're using? How complicated this is depends on those things.

Well I'm not actially using a program. I'd actually like to know what I would need to do the following:

-Stretch/retract the sword of the unit for 2 seperate animations at a certain time within the animation.

That's all I want.

as for the model; it's one of black_stan's: here's a link to it;s dl and picture:

http://www.wc3sear.ch/index.php?p=Models&ID=3999&sid=

I wish to modify the spell slam animation to stretch out his sword midway through is swing for a short period of time. I'm more used to triggering but i cannot create the desired effect.

ok. Now what programs besides 3ds max could i use to do that?

Use this to convert the MDX file to MDL. MDL is a text-based model file type.

Open the MDL in notepad. In the Sequences section, you can see that the interval of Attack Slam is 17000 to 18133
So seach for 'Sword' to get the the sword bone. You want to add some scaling between those two frames. Doing so makes the sword bone look like this:
Each of those added lines is the frame followed by how much to scale it in each directions. You can adjust the times or whatever as you like.

Convert back to MDX and import it as usual to see how it looks.

In the animation was actually spell slam, but anyways, same deal, but he performs a mid-air spin.... So the direction is constantly changing. How can i tell which direction it will stretch it in? Or does the direction stay constant regardless of the model's direction in the animation?

The direction should stay constant, per bone, as far as I know. So if the sword points forward in the zero pose, then you should be scaling the sword on the... X? ... axis only, and it will still stretch 'forward' no matter what the rest of the model is doing.

well we'll see what happens with some testing i guess. BTW didn't know u guys were still working on the map.

[edit] btw I really want precise timing in the animation; are there any other programs i can use to track the model as it goes through it's animations to find exact points in the animation?

well considering I'm making this animation coincide with a triggered spell, accuracy is key here. I need to have the sword extend at a certain time, and retract at a certain time, namely a certain angle in order for it to look proper, so i'll see if i warshape will take the model and go from there.

Using this will work. Open your model, press F3, click the "..." button to pick your animation, then press the arrow keys to scroll through (or click on the white rectangle).

does that tell me the animation times so that i know at what intervals to start the stretching when i mod in notepad? also, in terms of stretching, does the model always stretch from origional, or from it's last transformation?

ok thx.

now that you point it out, are you still working on it?

I haven't been recently, since I had something else to prepare for. I might start again soon.

Haven;t used it yet but it should be good enough for ym purposes. i hope.