[vJASS] Creating an effect (or dummy unit) under the surface?

[Sephalo]

Hey there.

I was wondering if there's a way to create an effect under the surface.
If I could describe it in flying height it would mean that the effect would have a flying height of -75.

I basically want to know if this is possible with Special Effects and if it's possible with a dummy unit. Because if I change the flying height from a dummy unit to a negative value it doesn't seem to work, but is there a trick to trigger this?

 

[WaterKnight]

Spot-bound effects do not update their height when the terrain z beneath them changes. So you may lower the terrain, create the effect and raise it again. However, the graphics (and therefore the height) of an effect are rendered only when the local player sees them and it requires a delay. So that is no good solution, rather edit the model adding an offset.

 

[PurgeandFire]

As WaterKnight said, the cleanest solution is to just edit the model. (or edit a dummy model)

Open magos' model editor. Open the model. Windows -> Model Editor. Select all. Transformations -> Translation and edit the Z value. Save as .mdx and you are done.

 

[Sephalo]

Hmm I see.
I basically needed this for 2 different models. One of them is easy to fix in the model editor because the model itself is only 5kb, however the other model is a bit bigger and I'm nearly on the max of the map size already.
The model I'm talking about is the Serpent Ward model. Is there no other way to create this unit so that it looks like serpent's head coming out of the ground so that the 'wood' of the ward is not visible?

 

[WaterKnight]

How about using an invisible model with an attachpoint below 0 and attaching that Serpent Ward model as a special effect?

 

[Sephalo]

Hmm. I'm gonna try that out!

 

[Fingolfin]

I also know for a fact that it is possible to set a negative fly height for objects in the editor by holding shift as you double-click the fly height field. This requires you to set an option in your settigns though, to allow negative values in all fields. I am not sure if triggers accept this, but if you don't need to change it durign runtime you can just settle with setting it in the object editor.

 

[Sephalo]

Ah yeah ofc, didn't think of that.
Tested it and it seems to work.
Thanks Fingolfin!