Spells

[Murmeli]

Hello, im really new mapmaker and i'd like to know how do you edit the effects for spells like in dota there are earthshaker that has attack like shockwave but it makes scrotches on the ground and leaves rocks that you cant pass and in tree tag you have a nuclear, i think its made out of flamestrike, but it has same flamestrike effects but 5 of them. So how can i change + set the amount and position of the effects.

 

[Murmeli]

Oh yes and i forget to ask, what is the "Text - order string - Use / turn on" on spells?

 

[Pszczolek]

1. It's not so simple to do. Many spells in Dota are made using Triggers or JASS script (spell which you describe too). But for basic spell effects you can change those properties:

Art - Target - for spells with target it's effect which are created on target when unit casts this spell
Art - Area - for AOE spells effect created at area when casts ability
Art - Missile - for targeted spells with missile it's missiles model
Art - Caster - effect created on caster when casting ablility
Art - Special - Various effects, its position depends of spell, not all spells have special art (I think).

If it's spell like Rain Of Fire, you can go into Buffs/Effects Editor, create your own effect based on effect used by ability, and then change in spell editor Statistics - Effect.

Some spells also gives buff to unit, to change buff art, you should go to Buffs/Effects editor, create buff based on buff used by your ability, change buff's arts, and then change Statictics - Buff in Spell Editor.

2. It's order issued to unit when it casts/enables ability. It's sometimes used in Trigger Editor for trigger/Jass enchanced spells.
If hero has more than one spell with the same order's string, if he cast one of those ability, it will bug.

 

[l33t5up4h4x0r]

For the fissure, he used triggers/jass to put up doodads/units that looked like fissure cracks. Try learning dummy spell casting from this site tutorials to get a grip on basic trigger enchanced spells. Use trigger - add special effect to point then use the flamestrike model. I really suggest you learning basic triggering first so things such as building special effects will be a breeze in the future...(ur next big problem is manipulating data numbers...especially elusive ones such as damage taken, max life manipulation, timed stat manipulations, stacking armor bonuses, stacking numerical effects, evasion aura). All of which os completely possible but not without learning a few things first. Im thinking you want to create ur own dota? if so then learning spell triggers is the one you need to start out first. Try focusing in understanding the functions of spell related triggers first before heading on to game manipulation, messaging, dreaded multiboards and cinematics. For a balanced game, you may want to meddle with the gameplay consonants first.

 

[Murmeli]

Yeah, umm where i can find a tutorial for dummy spellcasting? And by the way im making hero arena instead of dota

 

[Wolverabid]

Dummy Units And Abilities

From Daelin's The Basics of Trigger Enchancing Spells

First of all, you have to know that an unit cannot have two abilities based on the same root ability. What does this mean? If for example a unit has two abilities, both copies of the Flame Strike ability, the unit might not cast the spell it has been ordered to. It may cast the other Flame Strike ability, if it is not under cooldown. Be careful! There are enough abilities to copy.

Secondly, you must learn the concepts of Dummy Units. Dummy units are special units (lol, not really) meant to help you enchance the spell with better effects. For now, you must know how to create your own dummy unit in the object editor. After that, you will learn how to use them as well.

So go to the unit editor and copy-paste the footman unit. Rename it as dummy, so that you will be able to recognize it later. And now, change the following fields accordingly:

Abilities – Normal – It should include only the Locust unit ability. This will make the dummy unselectable, invulnerable and will remove its collision, allowing any unit to pass through it. By this you assure the unit cannot be detected in any way.

Art – Model File – Switch to custom and type none.mdl. This will make the unit invisible (not as invisibility, but unseen).

Art – Shadow Image – Switch the value in preset to none.

Art – Special – Delete everything there.

Combat – Attacks enabled – Switch to none.

Combat – Death Type – Switch to Can’t Raise, Does not Decay

Movement – Speed Base – Set its value to 0.

Movement – Type – Switch to Fly.

Sound – Unit Sound Set – Change its value to NONE.

Stats – Can Flee – False.

Stats – Food Cost – Set it to 0.

Stats – Hide Minimap Display – True

Stats – Sight Radius (Day) – 0
Stats – Sight Radius (Night) – 0

Techtree – Upgrades Used – Delete all.

After you have given the unit all these values you can place one on the map and notice that ingame you won’t see it. In World Editor it will appear as a box with green/black squares. That’s because the model you assigned to the unit doesn’t exist. It will disappear ingame.

Another concept we need to study is Dummy abilities. You will give these abilities to the hero and they will practically have no effect, until we enchance them with triggers. What they will have is the mana cost, cooldown, description, eventually requirements, buffs and icons (and obviously name). Practically they should act like a normal hero ability, if you learn for example the ability should be there, with its mana cost and cooldown (when the hero casts it), the description when you put the mouse on the icon and of course it should be AoE if your enchanced spells is supposed to be AoE, or single target if your enchanced spell is supposed to be single target and so on. And this leads us to a second problem: on which spell to base your dummy ability?

Let’s say that you want to do an Area of Effect Sleep (affects all the units in a selectable area). Some of you who have absolutely no experience in spellmaking might say that you must base your dummy spell off Sleep. Wrong! The dummy spell as I mentioned before must mimic the final result spell with no effect (so in this case targets the units in an AoE but doesn’t put them to sleep when cast). However, sleep is a single target spell, not an AoE (like Silence, Blizzard, Cluster Rockets, Flame Strike and other Area of effect spells). You should base your spell off one of the example spells I gave above.

Note
The duration of the dummy spells should be set to 0.01 if it is initially greater than 0. If for these spells you set the duration to 0, it will last forever (or for some until dispelled). And this might lead to other problems. If you want to make a dummy spell which targets a single unit and only damages it (pure example), if you base it off storm bolt, it will do a 0.01 stun, breaking channeling spells. Same thing will happen with silence if you don’t remove the spell disabling effect. Be very careful!

 

[l33t5up4h4x0r]

Hero arena i guess is a lot better than another AoS(tho im makign another one at the moment), tho it can be debated that dota is a hero arena, since the creeps are fodder, lack of strategy, upgrades, tactics outside heroes, and highly focused on buffing up heroes; im guessing ur used to dota's way of hero battles. I myself am not used to hero arena type battles and am having a problem balancing it since i prefer hero arena with fodder-style aos-creeps.

Dummy spell casting is basically ordering an invisible, locusted unit to do the work for you. An example would be a rain of fire that does nothing but the triggers pick every unit around that area and creates a "dummy" unit that has hex and hexes each and every unit within the area. Dat would be the dummy spell casting way of creating mass hex.

By Dota standards, this is also a way you can build spells that have a non-standard damage/effect, such as sunder and mana void. Using triggers/jass allows you to calculate things such a unit's movespeed, max life, max mana, attribute, armor and stuff like that. Wat you could do with them is up to your imagination....just imagine stormbolt damage = ((str x .3)/(enemy movespeed/ your agi))x((your max life)-(enemy current life)).....ahhh i remember my first experiments with trigger enchanced spells....the good old days...*imagines map wide hex*....

 

[Numeror]

Depends if you want a triggered spell or a non-triggered spell

 

[blackchoas]

Depends if you want a triggered spell or a non-triggered spell

Most DotA spells are triggered I think. For the flame strike spell try this.

• Multi-Flame strike
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit Starts the effect of an ability
  • Conditions
    • (Ability being cast) Equal to Flame Strike
  • Actions
    • Set Target = (Target point of ability being cast)
    • Special Effect - Create a special effect at Target using Abilities\Spells\Human\FlameStrike\FlameStrike1.mdl
    • For each (Integer A) from 1 to 4, do (Actions)
      • Loop - Actions
        • Set Target = ((Target point of ability being cast) offset by 250.00 towards (90.00 x (Real((Integer A)))) degrees)
        • Special Effect - Create a special effect at Target using Abilities\Spells\Human\FlameStrike\FlameStrike1.mdl
        • Custom script: call RemoveLocation(udg_Target)

EDIT// For this spell all you need to do is make it, and then when you cast regular flame strike it will have those 4 extra strikes around the original strike.