Hydralisk weapons are much more complex than Marine weapons, so the "creating your first unit" tutorial does not work for me. Granted, I talked to Bifuu and s/he (I don't know his or her gender, sorry) helped me make the missile weapons (Hydras have melee weapons, too, remember? They have melee animations). However, we discovered that the weapons had no sounds, the projectiles were going off in different directions (like in 90 degree different, not normal Hydra different), and there was no blood impact on units with blood.
Now, since Hydralisk Hero is a Psionic one, he has "Psionic Spines." He's currently set up as a classic hero type: one with a lot of HP and does a lot of damage. Currently, in the SC1 campaign, he only does 24, but I've been playing around with the idea of giving him 40. So, in my SC2 test map, he's going to do 40. However, I'll need an Air version of the Psionic Spines (yes, there are two versions of the missile weapons for the Hydra) and a melee version. Since my hero is going to be glowing with Psionic energy, I think I just use the slashing sound from the Zealot for the melee attack sound.
However, the spines themselves, for the moment, need to sound and look, and impact like normal Hydra spines.
Now, I've managed to get the sounds, and the look working fine (without the random direction), however, there is a problem, the weapon does not increase with upgrades, its icon does not increase with upgrades (IE. the number remains at 0), etc.
I am having the same problem with his armor. All I did for my hero was make his base armor 2, and now for some odd reason, even though it's the same armor as the other Hydras, he doesn't get ANY upgrades from the Evo chamber at all.
Upgrades explicitly list the unit data fields they modify in their own data entry. Look up the Zerg Carapace upgrades and see what I mean, there is a table that lists units, data fields, and how the upgrade modifies those data fields. The upgrade is responsible for changing the actual armor value of the unit, as well as the icon and number displayed, so to get all of that to show on your Hero, you need to add those three data references to the Upgrade.
@AegisRunestone: Go
The Affected Units array is the wrong place to put. That array doesn't actually do anything (I'm pretty sure it is used for generating the tooltip in the help menu or something, so adding a unit to that array will just show that unit in the upgrade's tooltip).
You need to modify the "Effects" fields of the Upgrade.
Yeah, I did that before you responded, and it worked. It raised his armor by 1, and changed the icon! Yay! Thank you! :)
I suppose I will have to do the same with weapons. I actually tried editing the effects, and it didn't seem to work as well. I do use a "special" icon for the Psionic Spines: the purple missile upgrade since that looks as Psionic as I can get until we can make custom icons. Is that the cause for the weapons problem?
Correct, when you add a Data Reference to the Effects of an upgrade, you can choose from a lot of different object types, including weapon, so upgrades can affect weapons as well.
The nice thing about the upgrading effects working like this is that it's very easy to mix and match different sorts of upgrades into a single upgrade, and have full control over how the upgrade effects every single unit (so I can have one upgrade that improves all Zerg armor, and another upgrade that improves just Ultralisk armor, and they will not interfere).
I need to make it so I can hear the sounds of the weapon
I need to make it so the projectile doesn't go whacky
And I need to be able to replace these in the future with new models/sounds
I did get most of it down a few days ago, except I forgot how I did it. :S
If you want to change the sound and look of a Weapon based on an acquired Upgrade, you can change that in the actor. go to the actor's event field, find the events that cause the actor to "Create" when the effect happens, and add a "Validate Player" term which checks a validator that is associated with not having the upgrade. Then, you can create seperate actors with different models/sounds and create the same event but check a validator that is associated with having the upgrade.
You will probably need to make new validators.
However, I just made the weapon for him, and it's working fine, except there's no impact (blood, etc.) animation! It also upgrades fine now after editing the Zerg Missile Upgrades. The only thing missing is the impact animation (blood coming out of organic target, etc.), and I don't know how to fix that one.
However, I just made the weapon for him, and it's working fine, except there's no impact (blood, etc.) animation! It also upgrades fine now after editing the Zerg Missile Upgrades. The only thing missing is the impact animation (blood coming out of organic target, etc.), and I don't know how to fix that one.
That stuff is also handled by an actor.
Suppose I wanted to change the impact effect of the Hydralisk air attack, as an example.
I open the data editor and notice that there is an actor called "Hydralisk Air Attack." Let's look at it.
The events field shows two different events that can cause this actor to be created, "Effect.Bogus.Start" and "Effect.HydraliskAir.Start". "Bogus" is an effect that doesn't exist in the data editor. It's either campaign data or antiquated (you can find lots of examples of campaign data being referenced in actors. For instance, the Hydralisk unit actor has events that relate to his "Lurker Morph" ability which is presumably in the campaign data.) The fact that this effect doesn't exist in the beta is not cause for alarm because it won't break the actor, that event will simply never be called.
This is an "Action" actor which is really handy. The nice thing about Action actors is that you can specify sounds or models to occur at the launch site or the impact site. In this case, we want blood! But wait, we don't want blood every time the missile hits something. Who ever heard of a bleeding Mothership?! So, we use "Impact Map - Model Reaction." The reaction means that the creation of the model "reacts" depending on what got hit.
Let's open it up. They have fields for "Dirt" "Flesh" "Light Armor" etc. Most of these have generic "HydraliskAirAttackImpactReactionDirt(Unknown)."
This is reference, again, to data that doesn't actually exist. Most likely, it's all there just to accomodate future graphics engines improvements (if they were to add an effect for the hydralisk hitting Dirt, they could do a simple Find-and-Replace on the string "HydraliskAirAttackImpactReactionDirt")
However, one reaction in particular references data that actually exists. The "Flesh" reaction is "Blood Target Impact." As we would expect, this is a Model (go look it up if you want to see). And it makes the target bleed like we want.
I realize I didn't actually show you how to do anything, but hopefully by talking you through the Hydralisk attack and telling you how it makes it's blood will help you understand it enough so that you can look through the actors for your own attack and add the necessary stuff.
Opps, wrong topic, sorry
BTW, using the model of psi blade (cut it =)) ) is not a bad idea for Psionic Spine though, and please reupload your map to another host (mediafire). I couldn't download your hero to learn more thing about it :(
Hydralisk weapons are much more complex than Marine weapons, so the "creating your first unit" tutorial does not work for me. Granted, I talked to Bifuu and s/he (I don't know his or her gender, sorry) helped me make the missile weapons (Hydras have melee weapons, too, remember? They have melee animations). However, we discovered that the weapons had no sounds, the projectiles were going off in different directions (like in 90 degree different, not normal Hydra different), and there was no blood impact on units with blood.
Now, since Hydralisk Hero is a Psionic one, he has "Psionic Spines." He's currently set up as a classic hero type: one with a lot of HP and does a lot of damage. Currently, in the SC1 campaign, he only does 24, but I've been playing around with the idea of giving him 40. So, in my SC2 test map, he's going to do 40. However, I'll need an Air version of the Psionic Spines (yes, there are two versions of the missile weapons for the Hydra) and a melee version. Since my hero is going to be glowing with Psionic energy, I think I just use the slashing sound from the Zealot for the melee attack sound.
However, the spines themselves, for the moment, need to sound and look, and impact like normal Hydra spines.
Now, I've managed to get the sounds, and the look working fine (without the random direction), however, there is a problem, the weapon does not increase with upgrades, its icon does not increase with upgrades (IE. the number remains at 0), etc.
I am having the same problem with his armor. All I did for my hero was make his base armor 2, and now for some odd reason, even though it's the same armor as the other Hydras, he doesn't get ANY upgrades from the Evo chamber at all.
Here's what I mean for the armor: http://runestonelibrary.pbworks.com/f/Screenshot.Jpg <- shows the orginal Hydralisk with upgraded armor.
http://runestonelibrary.pbworks.com/f/Screenshot000.Jpg <- shows my Hydra Hero ("Kheldrun") with 2 base armor at the same time without any upgrades. Yet, he does not have custom armor.
Anyway, suggestions, help, etc. would be appreciated. :)
Upgrades explicitly list the unit data fields they modify in their own data entry. Look up the Zerg Carapace upgrades and see what I mean, there is a table that lists units, data fields, and how the upgrade modifies those data fields. The upgrade is responsible for changing the actual armor value of the unit, as well as the icon and number displayed, so to get all of that to show on your Hero, you need to add those three data references to the Upgrade.
I have already placed Kheldrun in the affected units array for the armor. :/ I don't know why it's not working. It should.
@AegisRunestone: Go The Affected Units array is the wrong place to put. That array doesn't actually do anything (I'm pretty sure it is used for generating the tooltip in the help menu or something, so adding a unit to that array will just show that unit in the upgrade's tooltip).
You need to modify the "Effects" fields of the Upgrade.
Yeah, I did that before you responded, and it worked. It raised his armor by 1, and changed the icon! Yay! Thank you! :)
I suppose I will have to do the same with weapons. I actually tried editing the effects, and it didn't seem to work as well. I do use a "special" icon for the Psionic Spines: the purple missile upgrade since that looks as Psionic as I can get until we can make custom icons. Is that the cause for the weapons problem?
Correct, when you add a Data Reference to the Effects of an upgrade, you can choose from a lot of different object types, including weapon, so upgrades can affect weapons as well.
The nice thing about the upgrading effects working like this is that it's very easy to mix and match different sorts of upgrades into a single upgrade, and have full control over how the upgrade effects every single unit (so I can have one upgrade that improves all Zerg armor, and another upgrade that improves just Ultralisk armor, and they will not interfere).
Um... okay, but I'm still curious about weapons.
I did get most of it down a few days ago, except I forgot how I did it. :S
Anybody....? *whistles*
If you want to change the sound and look of a Weapon based on an acquired Upgrade, you can change that in the actor. go to the actor's event field, find the events that cause the actor to "Create" when the effect happens, and add a "Validate Player" term which checks a validator that is associated with not having the upgrade. Then, you can create seperate actors with different models/sounds and create the same event but check a validator that is associated with having the upgrade. You will probably need to make new validators.
Um... I don't follow.
However, I just made the weapon for him, and it's working fine, except there's no impact (blood, etc.) animation! It also upgrades fine now after editing the Zerg Missile Upgrades. The only thing missing is the impact animation (blood coming out of organic target, etc.), and I don't know how to fix that one.
That stuff is also handled by an actor. Suppose I wanted to change the impact effect of the Hydralisk air attack, as an example. I open the data editor and notice that there is an actor called "Hydralisk Air Attack." Let's look at it.
The events field shows two different events that can cause this actor to be created, "Effect.Bogus.Start" and "Effect.HydraliskAir.Start". "Bogus" is an effect that doesn't exist in the data editor. It's either campaign data or antiquated (you can find lots of examples of campaign data being referenced in actors. For instance, the Hydralisk unit actor has events that relate to his "Lurker Morph" ability which is presumably in the campaign data.) The fact that this effect doesn't exist in the beta is not cause for alarm because it won't break the actor, that event will simply never be called.
This is an "Action" actor which is really handy. The nice thing about Action actors is that you can specify sounds or models to occur at the launch site or the impact site. In this case, we want blood! But wait, we don't want blood every time the missile hits something. Who ever heard of a bleeding Mothership?! So, we use "Impact Map - Model Reaction." The reaction means that the creation of the model "reacts" depending on what got hit.
Let's open it up. They have fields for "Dirt" "Flesh" "Light Armor" etc. Most of these have generic "HydraliskAirAttackImpactReactionDirt(Unknown)."
This is reference, again, to data that doesn't actually exist. Most likely, it's all there just to accomodate future graphics engines improvements (if they were to add an effect for the hydralisk hitting Dirt, they could do a simple Find-and-Replace on the string "HydraliskAirAttackImpactReactionDirt")
However, one reaction in particular references data that actually exists. The "Flesh" reaction is "Blood Target Impact." As we would expect, this is a Model (go look it up if you want to see). And it makes the target bleed like we want.
I realize I didn't actually show you how to do anything, but hopefully by talking you through the Hydralisk attack and telling you how it makes it's blood will help you understand it enough so that you can look through the actors for your own attack and add the necessary stuff.
Actually, you did. And it was helpful. I do have blood impact now. I just realized that it's not as common as I thought originally.
Anyway, thank you! I hope I can figure this out later when I make his Psionic version of the spine model.
Opps, wrong topic, sorry BTW, using the model of psi blade (cut it =)) ) is not a bad idea for Psionic Spine though, and please reupload your map to another host (mediafire). I couldn't download your hero to learn more thing about it :(
Why? Does the wiki have problems? I can download it fine.
And how would I cut the Psi blade out?