Specific portrait animations?

[Nasrudin]

Simple question, I would like my unit to show different emotional states (angry, happy, etc). Making the animations is easy, but is there a way at all to control wich animations are displayed in the portrait? A script command or something?

If not, could it be a solution to make several portraits, each one with its own animation set?

 

[Adiktuz]

I believe the portrait animation is automatically managed by the game and cannot be directly run via scripts... like when a unit speaks, it plays the portrait - talk animation if the unit has one...

You can make several portraits but remember that each model can only be paired to 1 portrait...

 

[Nasrudin]

You can make several portraits but remember that each model can only be paired to 1 portrait...

Wich means that for every portrait file I'd have to import a copy of the unit model?

 

[Adiktuz]

yup...

 

[Nasrudin]

Mmm, for cinematics it wouldn't be a problem, I could make an invisible dummy model for every portrait and it should work just fine.
On the other hand, for other kind of maps, if the unit is under direct control from the player... the only solution would be using specific animation tags for every emote state, correct?

 

[Adiktuz]

yes, but I believe you cannot control Portrait animations that much...

but if its just for the face of the model then using animation tags could work...

 

[Nasrudin]

Alternate and Upgrade tags should work at least, I'll have to see by trial and error if there are more usable, or are enough for what I want to do.

Thank you.

 

[Nasrudin]

Actually... after some testing things didn't really go as I expected. I'm posting here for reference: adding the "alternate" tag via trigger works, although not perfectly, the portait is updated instantly, but the model needs to perform an action before changing stance.

As for the "Upgrade" tag, that works too... but not for units. If the model is assigned to a building, then yes, portrait and model are changed right away. For units, the portrait doesn't change at all, and this ruins the whole point of using animation tags.

Looks like using separate portrait files is the only way to go, but if someone know a workaround, please let me know.