SC2Mapster

Hi guys, I've found some issue in an animation that I think that experienced people could solve.

I've been playing with the immortal weapon because I wanted to recreate a tracking turret for it. All went quite smooth and well as I followed the method that decembsercalm had used in a video (which is pretty much what Starbow tanks do). Video is here for reference.

However, I've messed a lot with animations, because they didn't work as intended in the tutorial, probably because in some update Blizz corrected some options/bugs that may have changed some options and I had to disable two flags that didn't appear in the little tutorial shown. I've managed to get tracking turret immortals, but I have a problem with them, because attack animation fails sometimes(can be interrupted)

All the attack part works well, however, the Immortal Attack animation fails displaying the impact sometimes. The attack animation is interrupted if you just move the immortal as soon as it shots. There is probably a delay related with the "Weapon Stop" animation that interrupts it if you move the unit. So the attack launch works well, but the impact animation is interrupted. I would like to find a way to make the "Attack Launch" and "Attack Impact" animation play almost instantly and in an uninterrutible chain. (so if the attack plays, the impact model/splash, etc., plays after, no matter whatever you do).

If you need photos or video to understand it plz just tell.

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Quote from DrSuperEvil: Go

Standard immortal weapon effect tree?

Well, I thnk that there shouldn't be an issue with that. The Tracking turret is achieved with the Real weapon + a Weapon Dummy like the starbow tank. The weapon dummy is the same weapon, with allowed movement and only with one flag (can initiate attack). The immortal unit has both weapons (Real and Dummy)

The weapon dummy has no effect (so it's normal that it don't show an impact) BUT the animation is configured to play only at the real Weapon. When the fake weapon gets a fake (empty) damage effect, it still happens the same thing.

As the immortal weapon doesn't act like a missile based attack (with launch and creaete persistent), there should be no interference between attacking and effectively dealing damage/playing the damage effect. I've contrasted that when this fail happens, no damage is dealt. So the weapon fails. I've played around with weapon values (specially scan range and slop) but this still happens, so this could be related with animation in some point. I've noticed that this can still happen sometimes with normal immortals

If anyone knows a reason for this or a solution, it would be fantastic. I will continue playing with all flags. Has anyone attempted to rework similar attack as a missile attack (with no missile) and reanimating the whole, so it uses a dummy missile and thus the animation plays always because it's not directly related with the unit?

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Thanks Superdevil! It wasn't exactly that, but reviewing what you said I found one of the problems. And from there, I managed to get it working by fooling around.

It was a fail in all three places (basic weapon, fake weapon and animation). The issue was caused because even if the dummy weapon was a replica, a value differed and it needed indeed a fake damage effect, because if not, the animation seem to mess around as sometimes the fake weapon fired without a reason.

I had to give the fake weapon a fake effect, mark BOTH weapons as channeled (not only the real one which is the one that should be channeled because it deals the damage), remove random delays and set up an animation event that didn't appear in the tutorial, which is weapon stop and another value for the attack actor. I redirected ALL attack related and weapon related events to the main weapon, even weapon stop.

Basically I forced both weapons to work at the exact same time, without randomness, forcing a damage effect. The point of it was the damage effect and channeling aspect. The dummy weapon didn't have to be a dummy but a real weapon instead, and by forcing the attack at the same time under the same conditions, it has worked correctly without many issues. Sometimes the attack animation does not display completely in lenght (you can't see the hole set of lights/cannons rising) if you spam moving commands timing at the exact moment the weapon fires, which is quite hard to do because of microlag values/responsing time when online. It has showed in offline testing. This seems to happen because the attack launch animation is longer than the time needed to deal the effect,which is instant. With a missile launch/persistant which lasts a fraction of a second, it could be perfectly solved because of the Channeling weapon.

But it works okay right now and is quite hard to notice, because you have to force it to see it.

The tutorial for dummy-based tracking turret wasn't very clear and seem to be a bit outdated.