Getting a spider to climb up a wall

[darwin]

I want a bunch of spiders to climb over a wall. I used a doodad wall and the alpha tile so that the spider walks over the wall as required.

My problem: The spiders' pitch and/or roll does not put it on its side. In other words, the spider remains flat and walks up the wall. What I want is for the spider to be on its side.

I changed the unit's maximum pitch and roll to 90 degrees. In the world editor, when I place the spider it looks perfect. But when I play the game, the spider is flat again (as if walking on flat terrain).

Does anyone know why pitch and roll wouldn't work on a unit? I'm using its normal movement commands, not using a projectile system or triggered-movement.

 

[Veritas 117]

Is the spider's movement set to flying? If so that might cause a problem. If you change it to foot and just remove their collision as they walk over the wall it might work better. (not sure though) Just remember to add collision back when they are over the wall.

 

[darwin]

I used the normal spiders (unit name: spider) and kept their movement the same. I put their collision size to 0 as well (I like spiders to stack on top of each other...scary looking).

I set the collision back to their normal size...that didn't solve it. I also tried putting their pitch and roll back to 60 (normal maximum for spiders) and they still look flat.

I made a test map and played around with a spider and think I learned something. When the spider is walking along the wall (horizontally) it looks fine. But when it tries to climb over the wall, it loses its roll and pitch. I've uploaded the test map here:

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/pastebin_data/uwzklc/_files/spider walking.w3x

I might be able to get the spiders to do a zig-zap climb of the wall, but it would look weird. Anyone understand this?

 

[Veritas 117]

Hmmm. That's a tough one. I hope you get it figured out. That sounds like an awesome idea. I can just imagine a bunch of spiders coming flooding over a wall.

 

[yeyoxcore]

maybe you can edit the spider model and move head bone to chest then (you can use event to make unit look to) and add custom dummys at custom height, the via tiggers make spiders look that custom dummy

 

[darwin]

I'm afraid I'm not very good with custom models. My next plan was to do a simple rotation on the model so it looks like it's walking up. Then I'd swap out the vertical spiders for the regular ones when it reaches the top of the wall. I'm still hoping for an easier way though.

 

[Alright]

Try setting the movement type to hover. I think that may be what you want the spider to look like it's walking up the terrain, unless I didn't understand the question.

 

[darwin]

Alright, thanks for trying, but I'm afraid that didn't work. I'm not sure I explained myself clearly, sorry.

UPDATE:

I think I solved it. I changed "Art - Elevation - Sample Radius" to 0 on the spider unit. Now (in my test map at least) he'll run up a vertical wall.

 

[Alright]

Could you show pics/examples as what it looks like? I'm fairly curious now

 

[darwin]

Here's a video. Watch it on high quality to see the actual spiders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQHaLosxB1U

Here's the lead in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk4oP9Km5nE

 

[Alright]

Oh, I see why now. That looks really well done.

 

[darwin]

Thank you. If anyone else tries to do this, I should point out that you need to adjust animation speed and move speed when they reach the wall. Otherwise the spiders will zip up the wall almost instantly. Move speed in WC3 is based entirely on horizontal movement...so units will travel instantly up steep slopes. To compensate, I put regions by the ramp and slowed the spider's move speed (and had to raise their animation speed to compensate for that).

Also, animation speed doesn't seem to be raiseable above 100%, so I changed the spider's walking and run speeds to 1/3 of their original value, and slowed their animation speeds during the rest of the cinematic. Then, when the spider approaches the ramp I set animation speed back to 100% and lower move speed.

 

[Veritas 117]

That looks awesome! I'm glad that worked out for you. I may just have to use this method myself.

+rep

 

[Paulus]

Awesome dude

 

[darwin]

I had some people ask for the system so I've uploaded my test map that shows roughly how it works. The numbers aren't perfect, so I'd play around a bit with the animation speeds to make it really perfect if it's going to be a big part of your map:

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/pastebin_data/u8fagl/_files/spider walking.w3x