DUSC - Texture Swapping In-Game

[Toadcop]

This demo shows the possibility to change units (models) texture in game to any desired other texture (!)

HOW IT DOES WORK ?

well ofc it's not simple at all. but this is waht you need to do it.
1) edit needed model via MDLVis or model editor and replace the desired texture with
Image "",
ReplaceableId 31,
it's very important cause otherwise it will not work.

2) the second step is to create destructables (trees) with needed "Art - Replaceable Texture File" (for example "Textures\Illidan.blp" ;) ) you will need this to change the texture.

3) you need to use (mode a bit before) the Nigth Elf (Mountain Giant) "War Club" ability. it's the keys for the texture change.

4) what now ? you will need to create the "trees" in game and also order the unit to use the ability on that "tree" so after cast
your unit will change the texture for the "Replaceable Texture" on the tree :P

well ofc it gives some limitations but you can do some work arounds.
1) attack index
2) number of attacks (but isn't actually a problem)
3) you unit will get upgrade animation tag... so for example town hall will get screwed...
4) ofc it's a spell cast so in cases where the unit cast point isn't 0 it will take some time to change the texture.
5) maybe some others...

To mention the original idea etc. is by ©2008 Dron[XGM]
xD
well gl i hope you will find use for this ;)

[Rising_Dusk]

That's seriously badass. You have no idea how many awesome things this opens up for hero development. Mad props, no lie.

[Toadcop]

well i know xD Dron should be blessed ^_^

[Flame_Phoenix]

Weerrmmmm why shouldn't people just use Morph ability to change a units model inside game ?

Anyway, I will now check map !

[Anitarf]

Very smart. It doesn't have many uses (since it only starts paying filesize dividends if you have three or more textures using the same model, and in how many maps does that happen?) but it is a very valuable discovery for the few maps that could use this.

[Rising_Dusk]

Because this allows having N>2 textures associated with a single model without constantly reimporting the model. This only saves space when there are more than 2 textures associated with a single model, but after that the amount it saves is silly.

I'm going to go ahead and approve this. To samples it goes. I also edited the thread title to tell a little more about what DUSC does.

[AnemicRoyalty]

Wow. I know nothing about code, but I know how incredibly valuable this system is. Always wanted something that could do this :D

+rep

[Shade987]

Wow. This is just sweet.

[Ammorth]

I thought the mpq compression reduces most of the file-size from redundant models?

[Rising_Dusk]

Squishing does that, but the MPQ has no way to associate two individually imported models with one another for compression's sake.

[Ammorth]

When its creating it's dictionary, wouldn't most of the second model (minus the name and texture path) be redundant and become a dictionary reference?

[Rising_Dusk]

Hate and odium still each have two entries in the English dictionary even though they have the same contents. Analogies aside, the answer to your question is "I am pretty sure they don't."

[Ammorth]

I realize this is going off-topic, but I want to point out that it was not intended to be an analogy. zLib, the compression software used in .mpq files is based on DEFLATE, which uses a "dictionary" to store redundant data. for example:

Code:

"The program not only compresses, the program decompresses". - 57 chars

could be compressed into the following dictionary and output:

1 "he program " - 13 chars (including index)
2 "compresses" - 11 chars (including index)

"T1not only 2, t1de2" - 19 chars

input = 57 chars
output = 43 chars
compression = 75.4%

This is one of the basics that compression programs do. Look for patterns and stick the patterns into a library to reduce the size. If you were to think about a .mdl file and the amount of redundant data between 2 models with different paths, the data will mostly become dictionary references and the data will be compressed.

[Rising_Dusk]

Okay, great, so you know more about it than I do. Why the hell did you see fit to ask the question in the first place, then?

[Ammorth]

Although an amazing hack, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.