Drakethos
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Making Models Ghostly
Introduction
Introduction
Have you ever wondered how to make models look ghostly, is there a certain unit that would look great as a ghost in your map. Then this tutorial is right for you.
What you need:
Mago's Wc3 Model Editor Getting Started:
First, open Wc3 Model Editor. Then go to Windows/Mpq Browser
Then select file, if you want a Reign of Chaos model then select Wc3.mpq, if you want Frozen Throne model, then select Wc3x.mpq, and Wc3Patch.mpq contains any model added in the patch such as the hero “Tinker”. For our example we will use a Footman. So we’ll go to Units/Human/Footman , if you want something else just find its race and search for the unit. Now double click the unit and close the Mpq Browser. You will see the unit in the War3 Model Editor window.
Editing the Materials
Now the first thing we want to do is hold (left, right wont work) crtl and click the unit. It will glow once, this mean it has been selected in the geoset manager, and the material attached to that geoset that you have just selected. Remember how to do this because later we will have to select every part of the unit that you want to make Ghostly. Now that we have a geoset selected go to Window/Material Manager. Now double click the selected Material, or right click and select edit. You will see a layer, double click it, note: some materials have multiple layers, so don’t forget to change all of them. Now we are going to change the filter, this is what is going to make the model ghostly. We can either select additive or alpha, but additive is best because it is not as bright, and white. So we will select additive and press ok. If you did this right the unit should be ghostly, Like this:
Wait a minute, its not completely ghostly is it, and ghosts don’t leave corpse when they die, do they? First well delete the corpse. Remember how to select materials, and geosets, if not review the beginning of this section. Now we will select the corpse and click the Geoset Manager. Then right-click and select remove. If you seen a Message Box saying something is attached to it, click yes. No we want to make the rest of the body additive. First change every part to additive except the once with team color, or hero glow. After that is done, we will select the team color material. Select it in the material manager, you may see more than one layers. Click one, if it says replaceable ID 1, then change it to the texture of the unit. In our case it would be Textures/Footman. Then change the filter to additive. Then select the other layer if there is one, and change the filter to additive. If every thing is right, it should look something like this:
If you’d like you can view you unit, animated, by going to Window/Animation Controller then select and animation and click animated.
Congratulations! You’ve made your first ghostly unit; if you want you could just make a weapon ghostly or a helmet. Now to save it go to file/save then make it something like Ghost, and make sure you type “.mdx” without the quotes, other wise you may get an error, saying unknown extension. My file name says, Ghostfootman.mdx
Now open world editor, import the model, and change a unit’s model file to the newly imported file, then test!
Using Triggers
If you would like, you can use triggers to make a similar ghost effect, but it does not look as good. Open up the trigger editor. It doesn’t matter what the event it, if you want it to be transparent at map creation then map it for the transparent effect
you can make it from 40-60%, 100% is invisible.
Check the below for the attached Footman File after the editing
Editing Particle Emitters
Introduction
What is a particle emitter. Well it is a device in 3-D models that puts out several particles that have a color and texture. A well known particle emitter in wc3 is the fire models.Introduction
Editing a Particle Emitter
Go to the MPQ Browser and open up a model with a particle emitter. This could be fire which is under environment, or an ability such as cloud (note: it is located in wc3x.mpq). For my example i will be using fire that ill make purple. As you see, theres nothing there, but not to worry, it will show up if you go to the animation. Now to edit the particle emitters, go to windows/node manager. The particle emitters have a blue arrow -> before the name. Double click, or right click and select edit. Bellow is a chart i made, i tried my best to explain as much as i can. Feel free to experiment with the settings.
Since im making purple flames, ill edit the colors of the emitters to purple. Ill get rid of the smoke emitter by right clicking and removing it in the node manager. I will also reduce the life length, to make the fire shorter, then make it wider, then Vala, we have ourselves an owning purple flame.
If you want you could find flame strike, and make it purple. Then save it and import it in WE with path as Flame strike, save the map, and you'll have and owning purple flame strike
. Some other ideas are: edit cloud and make a smoke screen, change the color of plague, (red looks pretty cool), make your own purple flame, and edit projectiles with emitters, like fire balls and what not. Play around with the particle emitters, and remember, fires note the only kind. If you want to make fire from scratch, check the fire tutorial under Help. Removing Weapons
Introduction
Introduction
Have you every wanted to add an attachment to a unit but it wouldn't look good because it already has a weapon in its hand? Well then read this tip.
Removing the Weapon
First get your model that you want no weapons on. Select the geoset in which the weapon is on. If the weapon is the only thing in the geoset (usally in non-blizzard models) then you are in luck. All you have to do is go to Windows/geoset manager and right click the geoset and remove it. How ever if there is more than the weapon on the geoset then you have to remove it the hard way. Save the model with a .mdl at the end of the name. Then open it up with oinkerwinkle's vertex modifier ( can be found here) Now open it up. Its going to look weird, the model has no 3d look its just a bunch of lines. If you have never used this program i suggest you read the tutorials on oinkerwinkle's site. Now if you do not see the weapon keep switching the Geoset via file/switch geoset until you find the weapon. Then select the vertexes of the weapon and then click delete. Save the file then open it up with Wc3model editor, if you are not please with the results edit again with the vertex modifier until it looks as desired. Then save the file in wc3model editor as .mdx alternately you can use other programs to convert it to .mdx
If you want to add a weapon you can use geoset merger on onikerwinkle's site in order to add a weapon to the unit, but you still need to position the weapon.
