Actors and animations aren't really my strong point, so I can't figure this out. Is there anyway to make beam attacks animation like the diamondback's or the archon's impact the outer point of an attack instead of the closest unit?
I managed to make the attack damage all the units till the outer point, but for some reason the beam art only shows it attacking the closest unit.
Nobody knows what you're talking about when you say "outer point of an attack." If you're going to use terminology that doesn't specifically match names of things in the editor you need to be very specific.
Essentially I have an effect (persistent) that goes on for a certain distance in a line (till the outer point) in the direction the target unit. I know the effect is working because the units are being damaged properly. The problem however is the beam shows that it's hitting the first unit in it's path instead of the end of the line of the attack.
I see the problem. "Outer Point" doesn't mean anything close to what it sounds like. In the context of effect chains, "outer" is used to reference the source unit of a parent effect. In this context, it's resolving to the same thing as "Source Point" which actually makes your effect work as intended anyway.
Anyway your issue here is getting the beam's impact to attach to the correct place which is entirely about actors. It's kind of complex to explain so let me see if I can whip up a demo for you. It's basically identical to how the hellion's attack works - you create a site actor at the impact site and attach the beam to it.
edit: I've attached a map containing the simplest possible implementation. Take a look at the "Tesla Tank." A few things to note - first, the beam actor is not managed by the attack actor, this is necessary to prevent the attack actor from creating a new beam for each impact point. The attack actor is there to play the sounds and show the impact models on targets that get damaged, but the beam actor is completely separate. Second, the red circles on the ground are simply a debugging tool to show you the radii of the search area effects, I find this EXTREMELY helpful when developing AoE abilities.
Wow! Ok first of all thank you for taking so much time to help me >.< This is the nicest thing someone has done to me on the forums ^_^
I've tried playing around with the tesla tank a bit. I've increased the range of the weapon and the persistent effect to 8. The red circles are going up all the way to the end of the range, but the beam is still hitting halfway of the effect. I tried playing around with the host impact + and site ops+ of the beam actor. The results were much worse xD. I'm thinking of going with an effect similar to the red circles instead of a beam :D
P.S: Thank you for the outer point explanation. I had it figured out all wrong.
If you want to extend the range under the Beam actor where it says "EffectExecuteIndex 9" you need to change 9 to the (number of search effects - 1.) For example I have 10 search effects which is why the number is 9.
This number tells the beam which search effect it should use as the target point basically. So if you add extra search effects, but are still attaching the beam to the target point of effect #9, the beam isn't going to extend the full distance of the attack.
Actors and animations aren't really my strong point, so I can't figure this out. Is there anyway to make beam attacks animation like the diamondback's or the archon's impact the outer point of an attack instead of the closest unit?
I managed to make the attack damage all the units till the outer point, but for some reason the beam art only shows it attacking the closest unit.
Nobody knows what you're talking about when you say "outer point of an attack." If you're going to use terminology that doesn't specifically match names of things in the editor you need to be very specific.
@RileyStarcraft: Go
Sorry about that. Should have been more clear >.<
Essentially I have an effect (persistent) that goes on for a certain distance in a line (till the outer point) in the direction the target unit. I know the effect is working because the units are being damaged properly. The problem however is the beam shows that it's hitting the first unit in it's path instead of the end of the line of the attack.
I see the problem. "Outer Point" doesn't mean anything close to what it sounds like. In the context of effect chains, "outer" is used to reference the source unit of a parent effect. In this context, it's resolving to the same thing as "Source Point" which actually makes your effect work as intended anyway.
Anyway your issue here is getting the beam's impact to attach to the correct place which is entirely about actors. It's kind of complex to explain so let me see if I can whip up a demo for you. It's basically identical to how the hellion's attack works - you create a site actor at the impact site and attach the beam to it.
edit: I've attached a map containing the simplest possible implementation. Take a look at the "Tesla Tank." A few things to note - first, the beam actor is not managed by the attack actor, this is necessary to prevent the attack actor from creating a new beam for each impact point. The attack actor is there to play the sounds and show the impact models on targets that get damaged, but the beam actor is completely separate. Second, the red circles on the ground are simply a debugging tool to show you the radii of the search area effects, I find this EXTREMELY helpful when developing AoE abilities.
@RileyStarcraft: Go
Wow! Ok first of all thank you for taking so much time to help me >.< This is the nicest thing someone has done to me on the forums ^_^
I've tried playing around with the tesla tank a bit. I've increased the range of the weapon and the persistent effect to 8. The red circles are going up all the way to the end of the range, but the beam is still hitting halfway of the effect. I tried playing around with the host impact + and site ops+ of the beam actor. The results were much worse xD. I'm thinking of going with an effect similar to the red circles instead of a beam :D
P.S: Thank you for the outer point explanation. I had it figured out all wrong.
If you want to extend the range under the Beam actor where it says "EffectExecuteIndex 9" you need to change 9 to the (number of search effects - 1.) For example I have 10 search effects which is why the number is 9.
This number tells the beam which search effect it should use as the target point basically. So if you add extra search effects, but are still attaching the beam to the target point of effect #9, the beam isn't going to extend the full distance of the attack.
@RileyStarcraft: Go
My next question was going to be what the "index" is for! It works great now! Thank you for your help. You are pure awesomeness! :D