Shredder Animation/Selection Issue

[Elf_Lord]

So I was playing around with the Goblin Shredder model, trying to make a "disabled" animation set, and I finally got something I thought was passable. When I placed the unit in the editor, however, the unit was completely unselectable, but only when playing the new animations; when I turned off the new "alternate" tag and let it play the regular animations, I was able to select it again. I poked around online for a little while looking for ways to fix it (hence the randomly added collision sphere) but still can't make it selectable while playing the alternate animations. I'm wondering if this issue stems from either a) that the alternate animations come after the death animation in sequence or b) that certain frames in the alternate animations were taken from/based on parts of the death animation. I honestly don't know. If anyone could help me diagnose this problem, that would be fantastic.

 

[GhostWolf]

It's not clear to me what the game uses collision shapes for (projectiles?), but they are not used for selection. Rather, extents control it.
Open your model with Magos, and use the Calculate Extents function under the Edit menu.

 

[Elf_Lord]

Yeah, they're used for projectile targeting. I discovered that after I added one.

But anyway, that seems to have fixed it. I guess I need to spend a little more time around my model editor. Thanks for the help!

 

[GhostWolf]

Out of interest, what changed regarding projectiles when you added collision shapes?

 

[Elf_Lord]

I didn't do extensive testing of it; I believe it changes the center point of the model in terms of projectile impact so the projectile will move to the center of the collision sphere (and possibly impact the edges of it) rather than... whatever WCIII was using to figure it out before. Again, I'm still pretty new to this, and my goal was selectability, so I didn't pay that much attention.

Although I have an interesting question: if the extents were what was causing the selection problem, would it be possible to deliberately make units unselectable by changing extents on their models? I have a couple units right now that need to be unselectable but visible to the player and recognizable by triggers as existing within an area, so Locust doesn't work right because it removes the pathing of the unit completely.

 

[GhostWolf]

Extents also control culling, so it would lead to your models disappearing as they approach the sides of the camera.

I am assuming there's a way to do what you want within the editor, but I haven't touched it in too long to remember.