[Unsolved] Data editor questions - Warcraft Assets

[Varimathras.]

Hi everyone,

im currently trying to make a tower defense map using the warcraft assets and still have some problems with the data editor:

1. there is a model called "towerDefenseTower", which consists of 5 towers and their upgraded versions. To get those i use an actor event:
- ActorCreation
-> AnimGroupApply StageSecond
this works fine for the tower itself, but the portrait and the preplace model (when you want to build the tower and the construction hasnt started yet) still use the StageFirst (default) animation group
how can i fix this?

2. my tower's missiles just disappear when they hit their target instead of playing the death animation (other than the SC2 projectile models, the WC3 ones do have a death animation and there is no "impact" model). When i add the model to the target map of the action actor, it plays its stand animation (for about 1s) and then the death animation, which looks crappy. Any ideas how to make the missiles play their death animations on impact?

3. i cannot find any place to change the sounds like "I cant build there!". It would be nice if the human builder would use the peasant sound for it and so on. Did anyone find this?

4. This is a more general question: i have created some templates on which i base my tower units/actors. when i modify my template and use ##id## to refer to the current object id (for example when createing actor events) and i base a new object on the template it writes ##parent## in those fields, which is annoying because i have to change everything everytime i create a new tower. Any suggestions how to create templates more efficently?

EDIT: 5. when i change the cursor texture, it does not change ingame when i load the map the first time. but after playing the map, the starcraft main menu has the changed cursor and when i play the map a second time, the cursor looks like i want it - this is annoying, is it possible to fix this?

thanks for reading all this

 

[Tya]

2) You need to make your own impact model actor. Add this to your actor XML;

    <CActorModel id="GenericAttackWar3ImpactModel" parent="GenericAttackModel">
        <Remove Terms="ActorCreation" Send="AnimBracketStart BSD Birth Stand Death ContentPlayOnce"/>
        <On Terms="ActorCreation" Send="AnimBracketStart BSD IGNORE IGNORE Death ContentPlayOnce"/>
        <On Terms="ActorCreation" Send="SetCastShadows"/>
    </CActorModel>

You'll now have a new actor called "GenericAttackWar3ImpactModel"

Now go to your action actor (the one where you set launch, impact effects etc, the missile actor) and paste this into it's XML;

        <ImpactModel value="GenericAttackWar3ImpactModel"/>

What you've just done is changed the impact actor to a new one which has a different animation set. I also turned off the shadows because they often don't work properly with war3 effects. This will work for all war3 missile models. Apologies if you're not used to XML editing, but it's really easy overall!

 

[Varimathras.]

Great! Thanks, this works well. XML is totally fine.
Anyone got ideas for the others? especially the first one is important

 

[Varimathras.]

1. ok, i figured the first out myself now.
the solution is very similar to TyaArcade's solution for question 2

if someone is interested in the solution:
in my unit actor, i changed the PortraitActor, PlacementActorModel, and PlaceholderActorModel to custom actors that have an event to activate the proper animation group