How Much Triggering for Alternate Animations?

[DiggetyBo]

Hey,

This is a question concerning alternative animation for those more complex models. An easy way to get a feel for what I mean by this, is to take the WC3 Obsidian statue model. As a statue it has ground movement type, but when it assumes Destroyer form it becomes air movement type.

When working with models that have animations such as, morph, stand alternate, walk alternate, ect. It is fairly straight forward to use the Statue/ Destroyer format as I mentioned above. The key is understanding they are actually two units, at least as far as World Editor is concerned. This gives map makers a lot of room for creativity, and there are several great custom models out there with neat alternate animations. We can find so many cool ways to incorporate them into our map.

But this is where it gets tricky. The destroyer / statue format may not work for everything. Suppose your unit has to co-exist and share experience. In other words, it can return to its initial form, and when it changes form it retains experience and other stats. A good example of this is a hero. How can one create a hero that has an alternate form unit? Much like the Alchemist's Chemical Rage. This seems to be the best way I found. However sometimes there are discrepancies in experience. Other morph abilities like Storm Crow, caused my game to crash, in almost every way I tried to use it.

I suppose hashtables may come in handy for cleaning up discrepancies, but you know what they say, prevention is better than the cure. So then, if someone out there is well-versed in the application of alternate animations, please respond to this thread with some tips for what unit spells / triggering (if any) are best suited for smooth, consistent results with the several different kinds of morph capable units (as aforementioned). And also how one configures a model to only use the alternate form animations.

 

[Ceday]

Hmm, what actually you want?Play a unit's alternate animations and change it back whenever you want?

 

[DiggetyBo]

Yes, people unfamiliar with modeling may not understand how to revert to the original unit perfectly. If I configure it wrong, I may end up with a unit that can morph, but it will not remember anything it did while it was in its alternate form (experience, stat gains, ect)

So in short, I wanted to invite people to share ways of how they successfully configured a fully functional morph-capable unit -- esp. a hero.

And also, during this process, where does one configure the two units to only use their dissperate animations, i.e. initial form uses normal animations only, while morph unit uses alternate animations only.

 

[Ceday]

There is a trigger action for units which makes them play their alternate animations and change back whenever you want.

• Animation - Add the alternate animation tag to yourUnit

 

[DiggetyBo]

Oh I see, +rep!

So most people use triggers to supplement the unit morph ability? Whether its the demon hunter morph, druid of the claw morph, or the alchemst morph?

You don't just rely on the unit editor configuration alone?

 

[aple]

You don't just rely on the unit editor configuration alone?

I usually do, but then again I never payed attention to any kind of discrepancies that the unit morph does.

However, did you try using the Avatar State from the Mountain King? That's not even a morph, but it still plays alternate animations, and I think it's toggleable.

Chemical Rage is based off of the Demon Hunter's Metamorphosis if I remember correctly. But I'm pretty sure Metamorphosis works perfectly fine.