Using custom abilities as special effects during cutscenes?

[idyl]

Sorry for this noobish question, but despite some forum searching and googling I wasn't able to find an answer.

I'm making a cinematic and I'm trying to make a custom ability appear at a location. I know there is the action-->create special effect at y using x, but the problem is that my custom spells don't appear in the list of x. I also have the option import spell effect, but don't really see why I should do that since I made the custom spell in the same map as the cinematic (simply replacing the projectiles of healing spray with bottles from drunken haze.). Unit-->Issue order targeting a point doesn't allow me to pick custom abilities either.

Wondering if I should use a different method or if there was a way to have the custom abilities show up with the mentioned methods.

Sorry again for the dumb question and thanks in advance.

 

[Nichilus]

action-->create special effect at y using x, but the problem is that my custom spells don't appear in the list of x

This is action does not reference abilities, it references special effects. Special effects are also used by abilities. So your custom spell will never appear there.
If you have imported custom special effect, use the entire path to that special effect as it shows in Import Manager. For example:

• Special Effect - Create a special effect at some_location using war3imported\MyCustomEffect.mdl

Unit-->Issue order targeting a point doesn't allow me to pick custom abilities either.

In Wacraft 3 you do not create a completely new custom ability, instead you create a custom version of an existing base ability. That is important to realize, because in order to issue unit to cast your custom spell, you need to use the base spell as the order.
For example, let's say I create a custom version of Blizzard, called Rain of Frost. To order a unit to cast it, I need to order it to cast Blizzard (the base spell):

• Unit - Order some_unit to Human Archmage - Blizzard some_location

 

[idyl]

Thanks,

By altering the parameters of the spell I wanted to use and ordering the base spell I was able to get the result I wanted. That last bit had me confused since it seems to imply you can't have an edit of a spell and the original spell in a map at the same time, but maybe I'm still missing something.

 

[Nichilus]

No, you are not missing anything, it is exactly as you wrote - you cannot have multiple versions of the same base ability on a single unit, it will not work correctly.
There are few abilities which are exceptions to that rule, but the great majority of abilities are limited like that.