Unleash Your Weather!

[WindexIsBack]

Let's first show off some images of modified weather I made in 10 minutes. I vastly increased the em-rate to 400+ which creates a much denser rain/snow. I probably should have made a snow environment for the blizzard, but oh well..
Also, thanks IMAGESHACK for making it even harder to use your images in forums. Your pre-made scripts work on a handful of sites only 40 year old soccer moms use.

Spoiler

This tutorial should help out users creating more immersive environments with weather. Ever since seeing wc3's weather, I always hated it. It was wimpy feeling. That blizzard? Ya, you might get an inch of snow from that in an hour.

Major Features​

• Change it's height
• Modify emitter rate
• Change how many particles can exist at one time from the weather
• The angle it comes down
• How long each particle lasts
• Acceleration
• It's color, shape, and size at 3 different stages (start, medium, end)
• And much more!!

__________________________________________________________________________________

The first thing to do, is to download the tools you'll need. (http://www.thehelper.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=26937&d=1227319982)

After unpacking, you'll be greeted with 2 files.

War3SlkEdit​

This dandy little program is simple to use; no installation needed. Simply double click, find any .slk file you need and open.

The bar on the left are weather types. At first, they don't make too much sense. The very first one is RAhr. If you're still confused, you can use 'name' value found in the right box.

• R = raining
• A = ashenval
• h = heavy
• r = rain

Weather.slk​

This is the file where the magic is done. When you first open it, don't be too confused because it's very organized and easy to read when you know how to.

This image again; yours won't look exactly like it because I've modified my weather.slk already. But don't worry about that.

This list should help you guys out a little. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on a variable.

effectID : This is the ID the game uses to call the effect; you can create custom weathers, but I think you'll need jass to use it
name : I'm not sure on this one; I think it's the name wc3 WE uses
texDir : Texture folder it uses
texFile : texture name it uses
alphaMode : I think it will the textures transparency if it has one
useFog : Boolean; 1 = you can see it in the fog of war 0 = you can't
height : The height above the terrain the particle spawns
angx : it's rotation on X remember you can use negative
angy : it's rotation on the Y remmber you can use negitive
emrate : how many images it spawns every second; the higher the number the more dense weather will be
lifespan : how long the particle lasts; remember that particles dont die when they hit the ground, only when the timer runs out
particles : how many particles can exist at one time from each particle-system. Generally, emrate X lifespan is a good equation
veloc : how fast on it's angle (angX angY) it moves. Positive numbers = up negitive = down
accel : adds the set number to the veloc every second
var : not sure, it seems to do with slowing down/reversing direction however

Those are the major ones. Near the bottom, you will also see a color, followed by either Start (instant particle spawns), Mid (lifespan / 2), End (instant it dies). This is a smooth conversion between the 3, so it doesn't change instantly.

Installation​

After making your changes, save Weather.slk

1: Open your world editor
2: Go to import manager, and import 'Weather.slk'
3: Very Important: set the FullPath of the file to "TerrainArt\Weather.slk" (without quotation)
4: Save and exit the World Editor
5: Copy 'TerrainArt' folder which contains Weather.slk (modded slk btw) and paste it in your wc3 home directory
6: Open your world editor again, and your new weather should work.

Step 5 is not required for weather ingame; but it allows you to view your edited weather. Congrats! You have now modified how WC3 Weather behaves!

Hopefully this will help people out, and point them in a good direction. Happy terrain editing!

​

 

[saw792]

Looks good... I'd like to see some examples of settings that you would use for different effects such as thick snow, more visible rain, etc.

 

[WindexIsBack]

Images added.

 

[UndeadDragon]

Can you add a screenshot of how it looks ingame? It sounds good though

 

[WindexIsBack]

It would look the exact same as it does in the world editor. I did make the post about adding images a few minutes before I actually did, perhaps you haven't seen them.

 

[UndeadDragon]

Looks nice. I will try it later. +rep

 

[Furby]

I was looking for this so many times. Thanks
+rep :thup:

 

[thewrongvine]

Cool. I like the screenshots.

Good job! Easy step-by-step... steps.

 

[Builder Bob]

The weather on those screens look really good. The tutorial looks clean and easy to follow. I'm bookmarking this page for later use.

Good job :thup:

 

[Romek]

The subheadings and the numbers on the 'steps' part are much too big IMO.
Also:

collem > column
You might also want to rephrase some things. I read over it briefly.

Overwise, good job. I've never thought about modifying weather! Good Job.

 

[WindexIsBack]

Thanks for the kind words.
I removed the column part, as it didn't have much to do with the tutorial.

Unless I get enough complaints, I probably won't redo the tutorial. it's not as clear as it could be, but it gets the job done.

 

[hunterrravyn]

Looks really intresting and confusing to thoose with small minds (i.e me!)

but yer good job:thup:

 

[WindexIsBack]

Any other complaints?

 

[Vestras]

Really nice. +rep.

 

[Viikuna]

Damn this is cool. :thup:

I wonder if there some other nice slk -tables out there, other than this and lightnings and ubersplats.

 

[WindexIsBack]

Unless I've missed some, I don't think so. You can check yourself by opening any of the main mpq in the wc3 folders.

 

[WindexIsBack]

Bump

 

[Romek]

I'll try this out once you lower the size of those massive subheadings and numbers...

 

[WindexIsBack]

Done

 

[Daskunk]

You should add "Scale Start" "Scale Mid" and "Scale End", which is for changing the size of the particles to the list. (Start is how big they start, mid is what the change to at the middle of thier lifespan, end is how small they get towards the end)