Thanks very much man! but you know the last few frames of the warp-in when the structure is fully shaped but is still somewhat intangible? I thought I would need frames for that.

Those are actually just the normal buildings being displayed with a special texture placed over it.

Oh ok lol now I feel foolish. But I'd like some more help. I downloaded a new working grp for the Ion Cannon from maplantis so I can use it as an artillery emplacement, but it has somewhere around a hundred and sixty frames and only turns around one eighty degrees. Is this normal? and also, I would like help how to edit it's iscript as to give it the attack animation and which frame to use as the Almostbuilt. Also, are there special requirements for zerg buildings being built?

I don't know a lot about GRP's, but I'm pretty sure most of them only show 180 degrees, and the other 180 is just a reflection.

ok thanks for that bit. do you know anything about iscript?

Not much, all I ever did was give air attack animations to ground only units and vice versa. I don't remember a thing about the code.

Ah ok. I just need some help with the ion cannon scripting.

The Ion Cannon only having 180 degrees of rotation frames is normal; if I recall correctly, StarCraft will automatically flip the GRP based on its direction, provided you use playfram to play a frameset, not specific frames. This is also the same for most air units.

As for the iscript, with a completely custom GRP you should really just make the iscript from scratch. However, if the GRP you're describing is the one I think you're talking about, then modifying the Missile Turret's iscript should be fine.

Could you link me to the Ion Cannon GRP that you specified?

EDIT:
I just remember that what I said is not entirely correct. In order for StarCraft to automatically flip and rotate the animation as necessary, the flag "Graphics Turns" must be checked in images.dat.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 3 2011, 4:00 pm by xAngelSpiritx.

http://maplantis.mikelat.com/index.php?mod=111
This one. It looks quite close to the old one, which is good. So would I just copy the Missile Turret's iscript and replace it with IonCannon? I still need to somehow have the graphics directed to it and the new Psi Disrupter grp I got.

No, not directly copy. I would highly suggest becoming proficient in iscript before trying to attempt adding a whole new GRP.

There's a bunch of stuff that needs to be changed. While a fair amount of the Missile Turret's default iscript should work fine, you will need to do at least the following:

* Stop it from rotating when idle. I think this is partially controlled by DAT settings as well. Unless, of course, you want it to rotate when idle.
* Change all (or most) of the playfram commands to be suited to the Ion Cannon's new number of frames. If I remember correctly, the Missile Turret and the custom Ion Cannon do not have the same number of frames, so that will need to be changed.
* Change the attack animation. This is necessary because the Ion Cannon GRP has a muzzle flash that should be incorporated as part of the animation. You could make it flashless, but that's sort of a waste, honestly, since the frames are already there, and all you need to do is write the iscript for it.

I'll write you up a sample iscript if you so desire, but it is really better if you learn these things yourself, since then you won't need to ask us how to do it . Easiest way to learn is to just look at the default unit iscripts, and see what opcode or parameter does what.

Yeah, the only way I could work with the codes was by copy pasting lengths of it that matched and then changing the numbers. Is the muzzle flash an overlay, or is it part of the grp?

It is part of the GRP, so you'd need to use playfram opcodes appropriately to play the correct framesets.

EDIT: (Yes, I am replying to a post below me. Problem?)
When you're using playfram with framesets, you should use them in hexadecimal, as it's more convenient (as framesets are sets of 16 frames and hexadecimal is a base 16 number system). Just a recommendation.

StarCraft will automatically adjust for the unit's direction, so all you need to do is tell it to play a frameset, for example playfram 0x00. This tells StarCraft to play the unit's first frameset. The specific frame it plays will depend on the unit's direction.
EDIT: See my previous two posts.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 3 2011, 4:01 pm by xAngelSpiritx.

I've learned a little bit but I'm not too sure how to make the playframes go. do I skip frames like playfram 3 wait 1 playfram 7 or something like that? I'm not sure how to go about it.