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How to create Lightning Effects

You have probably all been annoyed when you wanted to create an ability like Life Drain and you had only few lightning effects to choose from.That is why I decided to make this tutorial because it took me long enough to see this one through.

Tools that you are going to need are:
-Magos Model Editor:War3 Model Editor - The Hive Workshop - A Warcraft III Modding Site
-Microsoft Excel.

Step 1:
First open a Model Editor then go Windows > MPQ Browser > File > War3.mpq > Splats > LightningData.slk and go to the right mouse button and then go on Export.

Step 2:
Open file LightningData.slk in Microsoft Excel and you should get something like this:
View attachment 51675
Now short explanation what does this means.

Name:This is a code that you are supposed to know if you want to do triggering in JASS.You can put whatever you want in this section.You will have to put this code in the Art-Lightning Effect section.

comment: This is ingame name of your lightning effect,like(my lightning effect,custom lightning effect,...etc.)

Dir is location of the folder,not the texture you are going to use,if you are using custom texture you are supposed to put the path in here without TextureName.blp.

File is texture that you would like to use,you can put whatever texture you want.

AvgSegLen:This is short for Average Segment Lenght.Segment is actually the texture and here you chose how long it is going to be.

Width: This is width of the lightning effect

R,G,B,:These are colors of the lightning effect.R=Red,B=Blue,G=Green.

A : This is transparency of the effect

Noise Scale:This tells at witch frequency and at witch latitude it is going to emit waves.

TexCoordScale:Texture Coordinate Scale this is for choosing how much of the texture will this effect take.

Duration: This is duration of the one Segment.

Now to make a new effect:
View attachment 51676
Then import this file in the map and put Path to (Splats\LightningData.slk)
Then make new ability Chain Lightning go to the Art-Lightning Effect and then hold Shift and double click on the Art-Lightning Effect.Then write the code of the lightning effect.

Here is how my lightning effect looks like.I just recolored Chain Lightning Effect.
View attachment 51677
I hope you understood this tutorial and good luck !:thumbs_up:
 
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