Considering the creations of BorgDragon, myself and Kueken531, an ultralisk with 6 leviathan like tentacles seems rather tame in hindsight.
That's sounds a little bitter, eh? Especially when you consider that my tutorial(s) on attachments laid the foundation for your "creations."
The saying "I was making attachments when you were still learning how the editor worked" seems appropriate.
The point of this tutorial was never to show off what I can do, but to show others how to create what they'd been wanting to since Blizzard's reveal.
@Everyone else
I'm almost done with the revamp of this tutorial. It will address some of the problems many of you are having as well as better answer questions that keep coming up despite me answering them multiple times. Hopefully it will be easier to follow and make more sense :)
Yes, the Rocker functions like any other SOp in that attachments will roll with it. The only time the attachments wouldn't follow is if you didn't allow them to through the Hold Position/Rotation check boxes.
So what would cause for effects to not show in field options for other effects? When going to select the value for Effect: Impact Effect within Impaler Tentacle L1 (Missile), I see no option for Impaler Tentacle L1 (Damage). I had this problem with another tutorial as well, where Site Operation (Local Offset) effects I created, were not selectable in the fields where other Local Offset effects could be chosen. I see Immortal - Phase Disruptors (Damage) and then Infested Marine - Infested Gauss Rifle (Damage), and Impaler Tentacle L1 (Damage) should be right inbetween them.
I have followed the tutorial verbatim. My map is like any map loaded with default dependencies. When creating effects, I only change what is suppose to be changed. Is this some sort of bug or am I not configuring the map the way I should be? It's kind of frustrating to not be able to finish a tutorial, let alone know that my own custom creations will be thwarted by this problem.
Do you have all 5 buttons enabled at the top of your editor?
How do you alter the pitch, yaw, and position facing for units attached to other units using this method.I am trying to attach Leviathan tentacles to the back of an Hydralisk yet I am having trouble attaching the tentacles in a position where it would look more natural.
Or in other words how would you apply "Explicit (Static) Rotation" to this tutorial... Also in the editor the leviathan tentacle reduces to the scale I set it however in game it is its original size. Also when I change the scale or try anything to alter the leviathan tentacle the tentacle reverts to its normal scale until I alter the base units scale. @_@ then it goes back to the scale I set for it. Seriously blizzard should have made attaching units to other units easier since they were bragging about being able to do so before its release. :O
You can adjust Pitch/Yaw/Roll with Explicit and Variance SOps. Forward and Up Vector SOps also do this but are limited to facing and axis of rotation respectively. To attach an Explicit Rotation SOp simply make it with the desired facing/axis adjustments and add it to the Host - Site Operations field for the attached tentacle. You would need to make sure "Local" is enabled and that it is lower on the list than the SOpAttach[whatever].
There are multiple fields on an actor that cause it to inherit properties from its host. Play with the Scale and Model Scale flags on the attached actor near the bottom of the fields under Inherited Properties and Accepted Properties.
One question: How can I turn this into a levelable ability for a hero, i e the uberlisk starts as a normal ultralisk and then gains the spine crawlers one by one as the player levels a passive ability which grants them?
By creating a system of buffs and validators. You'd start with all weapons disabled and with one behavior and validator per tentacle. Each validator would check for the unit's passive level. When it passes, it would enable the associated buff which enables the associated weapon. You would tie the tentacle's actor creation to the buff's activation. Rinse repeat for each tentacle.
I tried to subtitute the spine crawlers of the Uberlisk to spore crawlers.
It seems to work but the spore crawler missile doesn't show up. Other
proble that I've noticed is that the spore crawlers only attack when the
uberlisk is still.
Spore crawlers are different from tentacles in that you don't need half of the things in this tutorial. If you followed it exactly, chances are you have invisible missiles being shot from the spore crawler. This is the source of your problem.
All you need to do is attach the spore crawlers and then create launch Site Actors. You don't need return movers or signals because they aren't tentacles.
Also, it sounds like you don't have move while firing enabled on your weapons.
1. Is it possible to use the Leviathan tentacle model instead of the
Spine Crawler?
2. I'm having an issues where I'm trying to stick a tentacle to a
Baneling (trust me, it's friggin adorable) but the Baneling is just
flying at his target and dieing as though it were the missile. I'm
positive he's not using a Baneling explode-related ability or something
because a) it's playing the spine crawler launch sound and b) I put the
weapon object on a Colossus and it did the same thing, lol, and c) after
removing the weapon object from the Baneling, he quit flying at his
targets. Any ideas?
1) Yes, very much so. I will be updating this tutorial to reflect that and other changes from recent patches.
2) Depending on how you set this up, your baneling could actually be attached to the invisible missile which IS being launched while something in your signals or Hosted Attachments + isn't correctly setup. This is causing the banelings to "shoot" themselves despite your tentacle just wiggling.
Hmm. I'd like to create a unit ability - basically a tentacle that grabs
a target unit and never lets go. The target is immobilized until the
caster is killed.
Refer to the Infestor's Neural Parasite. This is almost exactly the same thing. The only difference being the target is mind controlled until the Infestor is killed.
whenever I try to insert my Uberlisk into a map, the editor crashes. I have tried new maps with
no luck. Anyone know what would be causing an editor crash with the unit?
This typically happens when some part of the Uberlisk is setup incorrectly. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what this issue is because sometimes it's only crashing because your GFX card can't handle the results of the bug or your CPU was forced to do an infinite loop it couldn't handle or it's just one of those fields that causes crashes. You're going to have to comb through everything to find the problem.
With the suggested items checked while duplicating the Ultralisk unit,
the Ultralisk model and Head Attack Damage Effect did not copy and do
not exist on the Uberlisk unit. What could cause them not to copy & how
can I add these?
Under Missile Actors, you suggested to open Events + and add event
UnitBirth.ImpalerTentacleL1, but it is already there, so I take it I
don't need to add it again, correct? You also said to add
MotionPhaseStart - Motion Phase (Term), but in MotionPhaseStart, there
is no option that even resembles "Motion Phase (Term)".
I continued with the rest of the tutorial, and the Uberlisk and
tentacles are attacking, but the graphics don't show them attacking.
The duplication process has been altered through patches. I will be updating the tutorial to reflect this.
For the events, you are correct, but I mention everything you need regardless because I expect everyone to delete all events before creating the ones on the list. Motion Phase (Term) refers to the Term (different from an Event) called Motion Phase. You create these separately.
For the lack of animations check Hosted Animations +.
Unfortunately, now the game is crashing as soon as
the Uberlisk starts attacking enemy units. This is strange because that
wasn't happening before, and the art is the only thing I changed. I also
noticed (now that the art is correct) that the spine crawlers are off
center. All 6 of them are on the right side of the Uberlisk's head,
rather than 3 on the left and 3 on the right. They are in the correct
"V" formation, but slanted off to one side.
For crashing, this is either a problem with your weapon's search area launching missiles at everything (including other missiles) to create an infinite loop or a problem in one of the actor fields. You will need to check both.
I don't know why the tentacles would suddenly be offset. You might need to adjust their SOps to compensate for this.
...
I'm also having the problem of Tentacles. They're attached
correctly, they deal damage correctly, but they don't stretch and I
don't know why. My Baneling also doesn't produce any sound, from both
the tentacles' attacks and from death.
Not stretching is usually a problem with Hosted Attachments +
For sounds, that depends on whether or not the baneling was created from scratch. If so, you need to pick the sounds you want to occur and either create actors and events for them or attach them to the unit actor.
...
Ok this works fine, the high templar sitting on the ultralisk and I am
able to use abilities and weapons of the high templar.
First: I want the ultralisk to move (=play it's walk animation) when the
high templar moves. But the ultralisk-model actor doesn't seem to react
to the actor event "UnitMovementUpdate.*.Walk. If I use another random
-test event it correctly plays the animation.
Second: I want the ultralisk to play it's attack animation when my unit
uses the ultralisk's weapon (this weapon should be added by the
behavior)
Third: Right now, the local offset is attached to the high templar's
origin point and then locally offset. This results in a high templar not
moving at all when the huge ultrallisk's shakes and runs. :D The problem
is that I can't simply use another attachement point which moves with
the unit and offset from this point, because this will be the
attachement points from the templar. The result is a weird looking
ultralisk and a normal moving high templar.
Is there any way to "switch the roles" and make the high templar the one
that gets offset from an attachement point of the ultralisk?
If I understand what you're wanting to do, you're going to want to change to a morphs setup otherwise you're going to require a lot of complex signals and such or possibly triggers.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to have the "mount" ability trigger 2 things. A morph and a buff. The buff will identify the unit that is mounting and the morph will change the unit into the Ultralisk. Once morphed into an Ultralisk, you can tie events to create attachments of each of the units corresponding to the buff the unit currently has. This will allow you trigger animations normally because the Ultralisk IS the unit. Then you can tie the animations to abilities cast by the morphed unit (for the attached High Templar and such)
My only two issues now, are that the spines just wiggle rather than
strike when they attack, and that I cant figure out how to rotate the
spines.
Wiggling is usually a problem with Hosted Attachments +
As for rotating them, you'll need to create a Site Operation (Explicit Rotation) for each one that will be changed. This is covered towards the beginning of the tutorial.
You need the Site Operation to attach it, the Site Actor to offset where the missile launches from and any additional Site Operations to rotate/offset from an attachment point.
If this isn't working for you, it's also possible to ignore Site Actors and use "Launch Site Ops +" instead of Launch Site. The difference is that the missile would shoot from the host unit instead of the attachment and require additional SOps to offset from the host to that specific launch location. It's a backup plan that is more involved, but it works when you can't get the Site Actor to work how you want it to.
Also, you may want to check the Missile Attack Actor for the following things:
Art - Missile: Make sure you have the right actor and NOT a custom value. This is the most common problem that causes launch from origin.
@mihai14 - I purposely associate Action Actors with Attack. Thus it's not a mistake to say Attack. It's intentional. However, you can specify attack directions under the turret actor/object. You have arc on the weapon, yaw arc on the turret object and yaw start (original facing). Through these 3 fields you can restrict turret attacks to a particular area.
@Wolf1322 - you can have as many objects attached to the same point as you want. My Uberlisk attaches multiple Spine Crawlers to the same point. Do you have sites for each of the turrets and are your Launch Site Operations setup to shoot the missiles from said sites?
I'm assuming you're talking about a projectile that is firing from the unit's origin. This typically means one or more fields on the many parts of the missile is set incorrectly. Start with both Attachment Query fields on the Attack Actor, then the actor events on the same. Then check that you don't have an extra SOp linked. Also, you need to have at least one launch/impact sound or model connected to the Attack Actor (stupid, I know) before it launches properly. Check that you're using the correct mover on the missile itself.
There are a lot of other things you could check, but start with these things. They've been the most common problems I've dealt with.
Well that would explain a lot about your Overseer lol Xp I assumed both were made using my tutorial which is why I referred back to it. It IS possible to launch missiles without using attached Spine Crawlers. You still need the various SOps for return, but you would reference points on the Overseer instead of the Site Actor or Spine Crawler. You could also ignore the ::Supporter events that reference the Spine Crawler. You will still need the various movers and the Signals, but these signals would be sent to the Overseer instead. Instead of triggering animations on the Overseer, they'd server as phases for the tentacle that break up the attack into segments that transition smoothly rather than the curled up tentacle you currently get.
Also, I'm not saying that the self-attacking tentacles was a mistake on your part, but is something I didn't cover in the tutorial. I made this a while ago and I haven't encountered the problem you've experienced until you brought it up. I don't actually get the same behavior you described with 1v1, but if a 3rd Uberlisk wanders by the tentacles do start to misbehave. Thus the two methods of fixing this are my suggestion for how you might adjust your units so that they don't exhibit this behavior.
At some point I might update the tutorial to include steps for how to allow multiple units with these attachments to launch tentacles at each other without ill effects. It might just be easier for me to make a tentacle missile tutorial that covers tentacles specifically given this tutorial is more about showcasing the Uberlisk than it is about covering any one topic in detail lol
There were quite a few issues with the test map you sent me with regards to not following the details in the tutorial. That being said, it would likely be easier for you to just walk through the tutorial again than for me to list off every change you should make given that I'd just be quoting parts of the tutorial. Don't change things like movers (Why Stalker?) or cut out Site Operations unless you know exactly why they were being used. While you can skip a few of the SOps for the Overlord, you can't cut out half the SOps for the Overseer's Return fields.
So in order to fix the Overseer, you need to treat it exactly the same as the Uberlisk tentacles, but only change where the Site Actor is attached (the center). You don't have one at all which is what prevents the tentacles from animating how they should. By including the SOps you left out, this should fix the tentacle curling I saw when they attacked.
Now for the Overlord, part of the problem is that the tentacles launch from a Site that both the attacking and defending unit have. This is causing the missile to launch from the Site Actor closest to the target so that it appears to be attacking itself. This is the same for any unit that attacks another unit with the same Site Actor.
To fix this you need to either make validators for the Site Actor and the Missile Actors that tie the Site Actor to a specific unit (preventing it from being shared by attacking units) OR use the Host fields to set scopes that check for the Caster/Source of an effect.
The validator method will say "launch from the Site Actor that is attached to the unit this fires from"
The scope method will say "launch from the unit that created the effect specified here __"
i can't download the map you uploaded so I can't help with either problem atm. If your Uberlisk is encountering problems when faced with another tentacle unit then something is wrong with the Uberlisk. I say this mainly because the test map has Uberlisk vs Spine Crawlers (two tentacle units) and experiences no issues. You should try to find an alternative method for uploading your map so that I can take a look.
@BluefFacedGit - the link was broken when the tutorials section was moved. Just click on the link in my signature and find the attachment tutorial in my archive. There are several tutorials in it that could help you with attaching that turret.
@Eonfuzz - I can't download the map. It links to a screen of meaningless symbols and wingdings.
@TheOvermind9 - Yeah. . . there are a lot of touchy fields. It's to know you figured it out on your own though :D
That's sounds a little bitter, eh? Especially when you consider that my tutorial(s) on attachments laid the foundation for your "creations."
The saying "I was making attachments when you were still learning how the editor worked" seems appropriate.
The point of this tutorial was never to show off what I can do, but to show others how to create what they'd been wanting to since Blizzard's reveal.
@Everyone else
I'm almost done with the revamp of this tutorial. It will address some of the problems many of you are having as well as better answer questions that keep coming up despite me answering them multiple times. Hopefully it will be easier to follow and make more sense :)
lol I need a bit more to work with than that.
Can you not see them in general (not attached)?
OR
Are they disappearing when they attack?
OR
Are they attached, but tentacles don't launch for the attack?
Yes, the Rocker functions like any other SOp in that attachments will roll with it. The only time the attachments wouldn't follow is if you didn't allow them to through the Hold Position/Rotation check boxes.
Do you have all 5 buttons enabled at the top of your editor?
You need to have all 5 buttons enabled on the right half of the editor. If you only see one Effect - [Blah] Field then you don't have all 5 enabled.
You can adjust Pitch/Yaw/Roll with Explicit and Variance SOps. Forward and Up Vector SOps also do this but are limited to facing and axis of rotation respectively. To attach an Explicit Rotation SOp simply make it with the desired facing/axis adjustments and add it to the Host - Site Operations field for the attached tentacle. You would need to make sure "Local" is enabled and that it is lower on the list than the SOpAttach[whatever].
There are multiple fields on an actor that cause it to inherit properties from its host. Play with the Scale and Model Scale flags on the attached actor near the bottom of the fields under Inherited Properties and Accepted Properties.
By creating a system of buffs and validators. You'd start with all weapons disabled and with one behavior and validator per tentacle. Each validator would check for the unit's passive level. When it passes, it would enable the associated buff which enables the associated weapon. You would tie the tentacle's actor creation to the buff's activation. Rinse repeat for each tentacle.
Spore crawlers are different from tentacles in that you don't need half of the things in this tutorial. If you followed it exactly, chances are you have invisible missiles being shot from the spore crawler. This is the source of your problem.
All you need to do is attach the spore crawlers and then create launch Site Actors. You don't need return movers or signals because they aren't tentacles.
Also, it sounds like you don't have move while firing enabled on your weapons.
1) Yes, very much so. I will be updating this tutorial to reflect that and other changes from recent patches.
2) Depending on how you set this up, your baneling could actually be attached to the invisible missile which IS being launched while something in your signals or Hosted Attachments + isn't correctly setup. This is causing the banelings to "shoot" themselves despite your tentacle just wiggling.
Refer to the Infestor's Neural Parasite. This is almost exactly the same thing. The only difference being the target is mind controlled until the Infestor is killed.
This typically happens when some part of the Uberlisk is setup incorrectly. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what this issue is because sometimes it's only crashing because your GFX card can't handle the results of the bug or your CPU was forced to do an infinite loop it couldn't handle or it's just one of those fields that causes crashes. You're going to have to comb through everything to find the problem.
The duplication process has been altered through patches. I will be updating the tutorial to reflect this.
For the events, you are correct, but I mention everything you need regardless because I expect everyone to delete all events before creating the ones on the list. Motion Phase (Term) refers to the Term (different from an Event) called Motion Phase. You create these separately.
For the lack of animations check Hosted Animations +.
For crashing, this is either a problem with your weapon's search area launching missiles at everything (including other missiles) to create an infinite loop or a problem in one of the actor fields. You will need to check both.
I don't know why the tentacles would suddenly be offset. You might need to adjust their SOps to compensate for this.
Not stretching is usually a problem with Hosted Attachments +
For sounds, that depends on whether or not the baneling was created from scratch. If so, you need to pick the sounds you want to occur and either create actors and events for them or attach them to the unit actor.
If I understand what you're wanting to do, you're going to want to change to a morphs setup otherwise you're going to require a lot of complex signals and such or possibly triggers.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to have the "mount" ability trigger 2 things. A morph and a buff. The buff will identify the unit that is mounting and the morph will change the unit into the Ultralisk. Once morphed into an Ultralisk, you can tie events to create attachments of each of the units corresponding to the buff the unit currently has. This will allow you trigger animations normally because the Ultralisk IS the unit. Then you can tie the animations to abilities cast by the morphed unit (for the attached High Templar and such)
Wiggling is usually a problem with Hosted Attachments +
As for rotating them, you'll need to create a Site Operation (Explicit Rotation) for each one that will be changed. This is covered towards the beginning of the tutorial.
You need the Site Operation to attach it, the Site Actor to offset where the missile launches from and any additional Site Operations to rotate/offset from an attachment point.
If this isn't working for you, it's also possible to ignore Site Actors and use "Launch Site Ops +" instead of Launch Site. The difference is that the missile would shoot from the host unit instead of the attachment and require additional SOps to offset from the host to that specific launch location. It's a backup plan that is more involved, but it works when you can't get the Site Actor to work how you want it to.
Also, you may want to check the Missile Attack Actor for the following things:
@mihai14 - I purposely associate Action Actors with Attack. Thus it's not a mistake to say Attack. It's intentional. However, you can specify attack directions under the turret actor/object. You have arc on the weapon, yaw arc on the turret object and yaw start (original facing). Through these 3 fields you can restrict turret attacks to a particular area.
@Wolf1322 - you can have as many objects attached to the same point as you want. My Uberlisk attaches multiple Spine Crawlers to the same point. Do you have sites for each of the turrets and are your Launch Site Operations setup to shoot the missiles from said sites?
I'm assuming you're talking about a projectile that is firing from the unit's origin. This typically means one or more fields on the many parts of the missile is set incorrectly. Start with both Attachment Query fields on the Attack Actor, then the actor events on the same. Then check that you don't have an extra SOp linked. Also, you need to have at least one launch/impact sound or model connected to the Attack Actor (stupid, I know) before it launches properly. Check that you're using the correct mover on the missile itself.
There are a lot of other things you could check, but start with these things. They've been the most common problems I've dealt with.
Well that would explain a lot about your Overseer lol Xp I assumed both were made using my tutorial which is why I referred back to it. It IS possible to launch missiles without using attached Spine Crawlers. You still need the various SOps for return, but you would reference points on the Overseer instead of the Site Actor or Spine Crawler. You could also ignore the ::Supporter events that reference the Spine Crawler. You will still need the various movers and the Signals, but these signals would be sent to the Overseer instead. Instead of triggering animations on the Overseer, they'd server as phases for the tentacle that break up the attack into segments that transition smoothly rather than the curled up tentacle you currently get.
Also, I'm not saying that the self-attacking tentacles was a mistake on your part, but is something I didn't cover in the tutorial. I made this a while ago and I haven't encountered the problem you've experienced until you brought it up. I don't actually get the same behavior you described with 1v1, but if a 3rd Uberlisk wanders by the tentacles do start to misbehave. Thus the two methods of fixing this are my suggestion for how you might adjust your units so that they don't exhibit this behavior.
At some point I might update the tutorial to include steps for how to allow multiple units with these attachments to launch tentacles at each other without ill effects. It might just be easier for me to make a tentacle missile tutorial that covers tentacles specifically given this tutorial is more about showcasing the Uberlisk than it is about covering any one topic in detail lol
There were quite a few issues with the test map you sent me with regards to not following the details in the tutorial. That being said, it would likely be easier for you to just walk through the tutorial again than for me to list off every change you should make given that I'd just be quoting parts of the tutorial. Don't change things like movers (Why Stalker?) or cut out Site Operations unless you know exactly why they were being used. While you can skip a few of the SOps for the Overlord, you can't cut out half the SOps for the Overseer's Return fields.
So in order to fix the Overseer, you need to treat it exactly the same as the Uberlisk tentacles, but only change where the Site Actor is attached (the center). You don't have one at all which is what prevents the tentacles from animating how they should. By including the SOps you left out, this should fix the tentacle curling I saw when they attacked.
Now for the Overlord, part of the problem is that the tentacles launch from a Site that both the attacking and defending unit have. This is causing the missile to launch from the Site Actor closest to the target so that it appears to be attacking itself. This is the same for any unit that attacks another unit with the same Site Actor.
To fix this you need to either make validators for the Site Actor and the Missile Actors that tie the Site Actor to a specific unit (preventing it from being shared by attacking units) OR use the Host fields to set scopes that check for the Caster/Source of an effect.
The validator method will say "launch from the Site Actor that is attached to the unit this fires from"
The scope method will say "launch from the unit that created the effect specified here __"
i can't download the map you uploaded so I can't help with either problem atm. If your Uberlisk is encountering problems when faced with another tentacle unit then something is wrong with the Uberlisk. I say this mainly because the test map has Uberlisk vs Spine Crawlers (two tentacle units) and experiences no issues. You should try to find an alternative method for uploading your map so that I can take a look.
Updated many outdated steps to the new patches.
@BluefFacedGit - the link was broken when the tutorials section was moved. Just click on the link in my signature and find the attachment tutorial in my archive. There are several tutorials in it that could help you with attaching that turret.
@Eonfuzz - I can't download the map. It links to a screen of meaningless symbols and wingdings.
@TheOvermind9 - Yeah. . . there are a lot of touchy fields. It's to know you figured it out on your own though :D
@OverpoweredZ - Then check my Attachments Tutorial. I "think" this will have enough of what you need without the extra stuff that can be confusing.
@Mienk - I just updated the tutorial :)