Hey guys I am looking for a particular effect. I want an observer which is following a unit via the Move Location trigger to be getting healed by a shield battery to create that blue sparkle. From the players point of view he will see this unit with sparkling blue on it, how can I go about doing this?

Also I am looking for a trigger that is used to simulate earthquakes. I've seen it done before I belive it is two locations side by side and being centered very quickly between the two. I am looking for something like this only dynamically, as in anywhere on the map not just at set points, how could I do this one??

Thanks in advance, Oh_Man.

Don't know about the first part.
About the second. You cant play the effect at the place where the screen is. For this you should detect position of the screen. But you could try to guess where the player looks at the moment. For example if you have a hero in the map you can play the effect near the hero. After choosing the place you're creating two air units there, placeing two locations one on each unit, removeing air units and playing the effect. The player still won't be able to move the screen while effect is playing.

The only type of unit that I can think of with a "blue sparkle" would be a Terran SCV when it is mining. I have no idea what type of sparkle you are looking for but you would have to make it "messy" for it to look decent. I would say just create a hallucinated burrowed unit (Zerg Zergling) underneath the place where you want this to occur. Then all you have to do is kill it. This will bring out a blue puff of smoke. It also makes a neat sound.


I don't know how you would make this work for multiple different areas instead of just specific areas. My guess would be to instead of using two locations, use three. Then instead of back and forth, you could simulate the triangulation of the screen and go up and down, left and right.

This is how you would move the locations: (sloppy)

Once you have the location where you want this to happen, simply create nine Terran Battlecruisers in one location. (center of screen would be nice) Then center your right location first using the "Move Location" trigger. Then remove 3 of the Terran Battlecruisers. Then center your top location by using the same method as mentioned before. Then remove 3 of the Terran Battlecruisers and center you last, left, location above it and then remove all of them. (one) This will give you a raw set up of your locations. Then all you would have to do is make a few "center screen" actions in a trigger, or series of triggers that would either randomly or in order, center the screen over top of the locations. The only part about this is you have to first know where it is going to be created. You could just do it over the main unit that the player will be taking control of.

what no im talking about the blue sparkle units get wen they are getting healed by a shield battery! im just wondering if i can make an observer have this blue spark while having it following a unit adn being no where near a shield battery.

I think you could be able to do this just by moving it near a shield battery while it has lower shield points then its max. I don't think the shield batteries heal when you just walk up near them, you have to either have the unit selected and then right click on the shield battery or you have to select it manually from the shield battery itself. I'm sure that there is some crazy AI Script that would do this for you. It the observer going to be owned by a computer? If so, the computer might do this by itself, granted the conditions of the scenario are decent.

Ideal conditions: (not a trigger)

The Protoss Observer is owned by a computer player.
The Protoss Observer has less shield points then its max.
The Protoss Shield Battery is powered by a Protoss Pylon.
The Protoss Shield Battery is within range of the Protoss Observer.
The Protoss Shield Battery has energy which to heal Shield Points with.

I think these are good conditions. The only thing you should be worried about is the constant "Move Trigger" or constant "Order" trigger that will not allow the observer to roam away and heal itself. It might though, I'm really not sure...

Ok thanks guys I'll put this info to good use!

I hope so...

Okay, I know these have already been pretty much answered, but I wanna clarify a bit.

The first problem I see with this is that the observer will constantly be causing an ugly blur over the player's unit, which IMO is not very desirable. The second problem is that you cannot force a shield battery repair, sorry, but I think you'll need to find a different effect, perhaps a protoss explosion of some kinda, or a kakaru death?


Well, based on the first question, we can assume that you have a hero unit, therefore ally you would do is use a mobile grid(This has a Test map pack that has a good mobile grid tutorial) and once the locations are placed around the unit, simply move it back and forth between those two locations. Note that this will run into some glitches if you are near other air units, or the edge of the map.

Even if the conditions were right? I thought that if the shields were lower that it owned by a computer it would try to heal itself granted a few variables that would need to be true.

You can get the shield battery to run the repair, it's possible, and I'm doing it in my map, though the observer is stationary. What you do is constantly set the observer shields to 0, shield battery energy to 100%, and run a Protoss Campaign (Easy Normal or Insane) script at the location of the shield battery. However, if the obersever tries to Move or is moved by a trigger, the shield repair gets cut off. And the observer and shield battery should be owned by the same player. I don't think you'll be able to pull it off on a moving observer, but hey, if you time it right maybe you can.

As for the earthquake, what these guys said.

Mabe you can move the observer to the shield battery execute the AI script to get it start replenishing shilds and playing the effect. After this you're moveing it back while the effect is still playing. Repeat this several times in a row. However need experiments to be held to say for sure.

Hmmm much more explanatory thanks guys. Anyway I used the observer because the unit is "crippled". I don't know if you guys have noticed but if a unit is constantly being teleport moved onto another unit via the move location trigger it will halve that units movement speed.

SO i have my hero cast a spell on the enemy
the enemy gets this little blur, and his speed is decreased. Hence crippled!
I was going to use the shield battery for added effect, but I think I am going to replace that with dying scourge, as that is more resembles a crippled unit. I still plan on using the shield battery effect for healing though.

Thanks guyS!

PS faulkoner i get page cannot be found errors wen i try to DL ur maps!

You can use burrowed units if you don't want the blur. Just move them to the unit, rather than creating them on it.

The blur is nice, it simulates a heat leaking core.

But you'll have to move a shield battery whereever the unit goes or the obs won't get healed. THAT looks ugly.
Also, as already said, you cannot constantly move the obs or the healing will be interrupted. So the obs would lag behind. Also counter productive.

It seems you have to screw the sparkling effect. Or, if you're not offended by the presence of a shield battery, use the sparkle only if the unit is not moving.

Maybe you can use dying hallucinations to simulate smoke?

I have an idea of nice effect, but I'm not sure it's possible to do. You create a medic and make it restore the unit. I don't think it will works, but if it could, it would be nice.

Medics will restore nearby allies, especially when the comp owning the medic runs a melee ai. But you have to cast some bad effect on the target unit for the medic to restore it.
Every bad effect I can think of right now would cause a weapon animation impact on the target unit, which is probably not desirable.