Model of under construction buildings

[VAC]

Hi guys. I'm new to World Editor, and here I am with another (probably dumb) question so please bear with me here. I would like to know if it was possible to change the model of building under construction. For example, would it be possible for a barrack to grow out of a tree (with a worker still there to construct it of course)? My final goal is to make some custom buildings to have the construction animation of the Naga's buildings. When I add custom building into the Mur'gul slave's techtree, the model of under construction building is the same as the finished one; one can't tell without checking its hp. Thanks for reading, any inputs would be great.

 

[Jampion]

Building models have their own birth animation. There are two models called UBirth and NEBirth, which are used when undead/nightelf buildings are built. You can for example replace their textures, maybe even models (did not try it). But I think these building animations are connected to the model file, so you would have to edit the models, if you wanted to add those effects to other models.

the model of under construction building is the same as the finished one

This means that the model has no birth animation.

 

[VAC]

Okay, I understand the problem, but not quite sure about the solution. Would I need a model editor program and open the MPQ archives? And I'm looking for Replacement/ <something>NEBirth.<something>?

 

[Jampion]

I guess you will have to edit the models using the model editor. The Altar of elders has a node called BirthLink, which contains the path of the NEBirth model. You can use warcraft 3 viewer to extract the model from the mpq.
You should get help from a modeler. I can't help you there.

 

[VAC]

I'm viewing the model using War 3 Model Editor (v1.07). For all Night Elf buildings save for Ancient of Wonder, there is only 1 .mdx file for each. So they must have an universal model for all of their building. I'm thinking maybe I could try imitating that for the naga; but I guess the World Editor forum is the wrong place to ask that.

 

[Jampion]

As I said they are using the NEBirth model (SharedModels\NEBirth.mdx).
I tried to add a node BirthLink with the path SharedModels\NEBirth.mdx to the barracks and it worked. You will still see the normal human build animation, but there is this also this plant.

 

[VAC]

Ah, I used that only as an example. What I want is to change the model for Naga haha.

 

[Jampion]

Yeah I know. You could extract the Naga Birth animations (they are actually models) and use this method to link them to another model. Problem is that the original model needs a birth animation that is somehow fitting to the Naga Birth animation.

 

[TheFrenchLeprechaun]

Choose a Birth model here : Search Results for Query: naga birth | HIVE

And give me a building model that would need this Birth animation.

I will give it a try and if I manage to do the trick with BirthLink I'll explain you how I did

 

[VAC]

Thanks for the model collection. I just found out how to upload the file, so it's here: https://www.hiveworkshop.com/pastebin/c69242592a68eb4bcfe0b96a603efbfb10128/

 

[TheFrenchLeprechaun]

I've found some useful information :


[1] How do I "add" a birth animation. - Wc3C.net :

post

"It is possible by doing the same method used by the Night Elf and Undead buildings even for Human and Orcs. First find a building which is about the right size and shape as the building you want to add the animation to then extract the model to your new model's folder and rename it to something like OrcBirthLarge.mdx for instance also you should convert this model to mdl and make sure that the only sequence it has is birth, birth attachments seem to use the first listed sequence so it's important it is the birth one.
Then in the model (convert to mdl) you're adding it to add a new attachment point called "BirthLink" (not sure if the name matters) and set it's path to the path of your extracted model. you will have to correct the pivots for the new attachment though.
Last things to do in your model (Goblin shipyard in this case) is add a 60 second sequence up the top for the birth anim called guess what, birth. I recomend copying one from an existing model with a birth anim and then correcting the numbers but the important thing is that is is still 60 secs, handily one of the features of the TFT world editor shows you how long an animation is but I'm afraid it's guess and check.
Ok last thing you do in this model is go back to the attachment "BirthLink" and set it so it's only visible during the birth animation and the other GEOSETS are not. You may want to experiment with making the building appear near the end of the build process but I'd suggest sticking with it appearing at the end to start with.
Now you should have a build animation that works but it will most likely still have parts of the original building you borrowed the birth animation from appearing during the animation."
Xaran Alamas

[2] How to make a geoset disappear when specific animations are played?

post

In Magos' Warcraft 3 Model Editor, go to "Windows" then "Geoset Animations" right-click in the white blank then click "Create New". In Geoset ID select the Geoset you want to disappear then under Alpha click "Animated" then click the once greyed out "Alpha" there you should type the animation number and the visibility. For example the death animation is 333 then type there 333: 0. This way when the animation that starts with frame 333 is played, the selected geoset will disappear. To know the number of Animation, just click "Windows" then "Sequence Manager".
Karassu

In summary, with Model editor :

0) creating a Birth model that can be used like NE or Undead one

see [1], done
​

1) creating a "BirthLink" attachment in Node Manager (Windows)

see [1], done in the file previously uploaded
​

2) adding the path of the Birth model to the BirthLink

see [1], done in the file previously uploaded
​

3) creating a "Birth" animation in Sequence manager (Windows), with frames that aren't used by other animations

see [1], done in the following file uploaded
​

4) making the model invisible (hidding geosets) during the Birth animation

see [2], done in the following file uploaded
​

5) making the BirthLink attachment visible only during Birth animation

see [1], but not detailed enough in order I manage to do it myself
(I'm interested in how to do this)

​

Note : I removed all BlitzParticles (in Node Manager) because I don't know how to hide them during Birth animation. It removes water effects (which should be useless if you build on the ground) and death explosion (which can be replaced by the Naga one in theory).

EDIT : I found how to hide the Birth model once the building is built, but the Birth model doesn't display well during Birth anim (file reuploaded)

 

[VAC]

Thanks. It would take some time for me to read and figure stuff out. Btw for this building, I set the Pathing - Placement requires water radius to 30, so water effect might be necessary.

 

[Jampion]

@judotrente
I have already tried to get this model to work. I had also problems with the particles, but only the death particles the other ones I could hide in the birth animation.
I tried to make the ship "grow" during the birth animation, but it worked only in the model editor, not ingame.
3)
It's important to make the build animation 60 seconds(60000 duration in the model editor). I had to change all the times for scaling,rotation,translation,visbility because of this, but the naga birth shows fine now.
4) will try to get this to work
5) right click on the BirthLink node and modify visibility

 

[VAC]

Okay, I tried to follow construction but the problem persists for this model:

Strangely, in game it has a screen in the back with the same color as the player. I set the birth from 0 to 60000, stand from 61000 to 65000 and death some interval beyond 70000; yet the building still show itself during construction (with a screen behind). Please check it for me.
Edit: and the birth animation does not show up at all.

 

[Jampion]

This probably means that some time values of other components are not updated to your new times in the animation. The back screen is part of the portrait animation.

Edit: Why does the model even have a background? Since it has no portrait animation the background should never be visible.

 

[VAC]

I don't really know, but it has a sequence called portait -1

 

[Cuore]

Hey guys I've tried to come to a solution of the problem by a completely different approach, and it seems to have worked.

1) I chose a naga building to base my work on. In my case i used the model for the Altar of the Depths. I exported a copy of its .mdx to start working on it.

2) I opened the UdFrigate model in Magos Model Editor and I exported the two geosets that make the ship.

3) I opened the Altar of the Depths model in Magos Model Editor and i imported the geosets using the following procedure:

• 3a] By using the MPQ browser, I found the .blp texture for the UdFrigate and selected "use as texture".
• 3b] I recreated two Materials using the UdFrigate texture. I mimicked the two materials for the frigate, there is a simple one for the ship and a 2-layered one for the flags. I copied the values from the materials of the frigate model directly (opened in another instance of Magos model editor)
• 3c] I imported the two geosets by attaching them to the bone called BASE, and I made them visible by assigning them to the correct material. I then saved and closed Magos.

4) Opening the model in Mdlvis, I rotated the ship of 90 degrees to represent it being a wreckage, and I deleted the geosets corresponding to the standard altar structures one by one.

• I also copied the vertices of the ship geoset and pasted them inside the small geoset that represents the watery, expanding and rising form of the altar while it's in the process of being built. I separated my newly pasted vertices from the previous altar shape and then i deleted the whole bunch of altar shape vertices in one fell swoop. I UV-mapped the pasted ship to the texture Water00.blp (the same that was used by the small mesh i just deleted), repositioned and scaled it so that the end of the birth animation looked approximately decent. I believe that this copypaste work allows me to assign the pasted vertices to the right bone automatically, that of the rising watery mesh active during Birth 's final part.

5) Opening the model in Magos Model Editor again, i deleted the blizparticles that i don't want (i recall fires, but there were others).

6) Lastly, i painstakingly set the visibility of the NagaBirthLink Attachment/Bone to ": 0" at the start frame of each animation that was not Birth


I found much use in consulting the messages and the links given by Jampion and TheFrenchLeprechaun, I'd really like to thank you guys.
Thanks especially to VAC who posed the problem in the first place, and gave me useful suggestions.


Here I post my results, with some further open questions from me, specifically:

1. - I end up with bones that are no longer in practical use. But I fail at deleting them while keeping the model working. How to remove the unused bones without corrupting the model?
   
   
2. - There is a HUMUNGOUS number of textures stored inside the model (from the start). I don't like it. But if i forcefully delete every one that i'm not using, the model becomes corrupt (and it crashes the game if used)

Edit: minor grammar/spelling corrections