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Unleash Your Weather!
Tutorial By 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.
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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!!
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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!
Click here to comment on this tutorial.
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