How to change Unit Animation attack animation to Spell in Warcraft Editor?

[Zergy]

So in Survival Chaos, I noticed a certain super unit, in Survival Chaos, using the Model "Alliance Siege Tower", has an attack animation that uses "Its spell throw animation", instead of its default attack animation.

But when I notice it uses its spell, it uses its attack animations.

I'm aware of these part of the editor:

Art - Required Animation Names:
Art - Required Animations - Attachments:
Art - Required Attachment Link Names:

So here is my point. I want my own Alliance Siege Tower to attack with its "Spell Throw Animation", and when it uses a spell it uses its Attack animation. How do I edit the animation in Object Editor??

​

 

[Uncle]

What is the model for the Alliance Siege Tower?

Anyway, most abilities use Animation Names that you can modify yourself. This is taken from the Storm Bolt ability:

There's plenty of examples to reference and I'm sure you can find a thread on Hive listing all of the different animation names.

Regarding the Required Animation Names field for Units, if you look at the Towers for the Human race you can see that they all use the same exact model. How this works is that the model uses multiple sets of animations with one set for each type of tower. In the picture below you can see that the Required Animation Names field is what's causing the Guard Tower to use it's specific set of animations:

If you delete those Required Animations then it will appear as a Scout Tower.

You can find the "upgrade,first" Animation Name in the Model preview:

The Footman has an easier to understand example of this where it's "defend" Required Animation Name is used to make it play all of it's special animations. This is automatically handled through the Defend ability when you toggle it on and off, but you can easily recreate the effects yourself through the Object Editor:

Or with a simple trigger, in which case they refer to these as "tags":

• Actions
  • Unit - Create 1 Footman for Player 1 (Red) at (Center of (Playable map area)) facing Default building facing degrees
  • Animation - Add the defend animation tag to (Last created unit)

^ That footman will now play it's special "Defend" animations. You can remove this tag as well to return it to normal:

• Animation - Remove the defend animation tag to (Last created unit)

When working with custom models that have alternate animations you can look at the Model preview to learn the name of the "tag". Also, the custom models on Hive will often have an explanation on what "tags" to use in the description section.