attaching an effect to an item?

[aquilla]

Hiya,

I was playing with the idea of attaching a special effect to an item using AddSpecialEffectTarget, since it allows any widget as target ... but I haven't been able to get it to work. I used one of the tome models and double-checked their attachment points. Has anyone else tried this? Is it possible? It would be nice to have a generic item model which rotates and glows; and you can attach weapons and what-not to.

 

[BPower]

Moved to world editor helping zone.

Unlike units, items don't have an attach point for special effects.

 

[Abovegame]

You could give the item a spell which gives the effect?

 

[Warseeker]

Or create a special effect region just under that item.

 

[Dr Super Good]

This is not possible in Warcraft III as you cannot attach special effects to items. You can only attach special effects to units or the ground terrain.

In StarCraft II you can do this trivially since items are units and attaching anything to anything else (even other attachments) is trivial thanks to the actor system.

To work around this in Warcraft III you will need to import a custom model for the item with the special effect already attached to it. You can then assigned your item's model to this imported model and it will appear to have the effect attached in game. If you want to dynamically attach the effect to the item model you will need two copies of the item, for both states, and then change between them with triggers as required.

 

[Chaosy]

You could use a dummy unit at the item's location and attach the effect to the dummy.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You could use a dummy unit at the item's location and attach the effect to the dummy.

So that the item can still be targeted it will have to be locust or have its model collision geometry removed.

 

[TheLordOfChaos201]

use distructable model
make it look like an item chest
add effect to model
set its life points to 1
make it neutral hostile and add to map

when you click on it your hero will attack and destroy it with 1 hit, appearing so like it was taken

use trigger to give item to hero when model of that type destroyed

solution ^^

 

[Dr Super Good]

when you click on it your hero will attack and destroy it with 1 hit, appearing so like it was taken

Next to the entire attack animation part and that heroes can attack at range.

 

[Legal_Ease]

You could use a dummy unit at the item's location and attach the effect to the dummy.

This way works well. You can also adjust the size and height of the effect this way.

But why not just make the dummy model the effect you want? No need to attach and effect to something else.

 

[TheLordOfChaos201]

Next to the entire attack animation part and that heroes can attack at range.

the attacking part is what makes it look like gragging the item

for ranged units Your screwed

 

[aquilla]

Woa, I wasn't expecting so many replies!

Moved to world editor helping zone.

Unlike units, items don't have an attach point for special effects.

I will try to clarify a bit because I think my question regards the wc3 engine if anything. What do you mean by items don't have attachment points? The models do. Or at the very least, the tome power ups (e.g. tomeBlue.mdx) have chest, origin and overhead which work when the model is used by a unit. Nothing happens for items though. An effect "can" be added with the native JASS function below but I guess it's not supported then?

native AddSpecialEffectTarget       takes string modelName, [i][b]widget targetWidget[/b][/i], string attachPointName returns effect

@The others: The destructible idea is cool. I'll mess around a bit with that for now

 

[Dr Super Good]

An effect "can" be added with the native JASS function below but I guess it's not supported then?

Has anyone tried it? For some reason I thought it took a unit type instead of a widget.

 

[aquilla]

Has anyone tried it? For some reason I thought it took a unit type instead of a widget.

Well, I did but it didn't seem to do anything. That's why I created the thread

 

[DracoL1ch]

specify different model for an item, any unit, to see if it's about item type or it's model. maybe chests have no attach points

 

[aquilla]

specify different model for an item, any unit, to see if it's about item type or it's model. maybe chests have no attach points

Effects attach to units with the tome model but not items. I think there's definitely something going on here

 

[DracoL1ch]

Effects attach to units with the tome model but not items. I think there's definitely something going on here

looking at the sources, it seems that there are check "is target a unit" or something like that. guess "widget" there kinda overreaction. try to attach anything to destructible. no luck = no way

 

[Dr Super Good]

Not all models have attachment points to attach to. You need to give an item and destructible a unit model to test properly.