[FIX][ANIMATION] Soul Steal

[Terresquall]

Introduction

Soul Steal underwent a great remake that unlocked many tactical possibilities for Terrorblade. However, as great as the remake was, the visual simplicity of the old Soul Steal was not properly translated over.

What's Wrong?





Above are two photos of Soul Steal in action. The first photo shows Terrorblade transferring health to an ally, and the second photo vice versa. If you think the lighting looks a little awkward--it is. In both photos, the green stream of life goes in the recipient's crotch and ends there abruptly.

Compare this to the old Soul Steal's visual: less awkward, and the lightning doesn't just "stop" once it reaches the recipient of health. It splashes around a little.



What I want to do here is to restore this old animation.

The Fix

...Is really simple to achieve. Note that Soul Steal is now cast by a dummy unit.

• Change the dummy unit casting Soul Steal on the target to have a model of Abilities\Spells\Other\Drain\DrainCaster.mdl. This model is basically the splashing effect that you see on Terrorblade in the old Soul Steal, and it makes it so that the stream of life doesn't end abruptly as it does now.
  
• Set the dummy unit's fly height to 100 and its Projectile Launch Z Offset to 0. What this does is position it at the overhead of the target who is receiving health from Soul Steal, so that the stream of life goes there instead of crotch.

Fixing The Interface

When casting Soul Steal on allies, you also get an extra ability to End Soul Steal:



Instead of being placed on a separate slot, the ability should replace Soul Steal, much like what Morph's Replicate does now, instead of assuming a new slot. It should also share a hotkey of [E] with Soul Steal, i.e. End Soul Steal. This makes using the skill more intuitive (how would you know the hotkey of the skill the first time you see it if its different from Soul Steal?), and it also makes the entire interface cleaner.

There are many ways to achieve this. Soul Steal can either be disabled or removed for the duration of the spell to free the slot.

Check out the testmap here

[ZΣD]

Nice,T-up!

[dominator02]

.

[ZΣD]

I checked the testmap now
It's awesome.I like all visual update in your test map
gj man!

[Distracting]

Very nicely presented and well thought out.

A big T-Up from me!

[Schremba]

I think it is a nice improvement, so I support it.

[teStud0]

Terresquall delivers again!

[D4rKAv3nGeR]

Nice! I didnt even notice that.
Such subtle changes path way for greater ones. T - UP!

[ResQ]

I don't see any difference in the 2 pictures and the 1 below.

[godzbane]

Terresquall has no life.

[jvt619]

T-up

[teStud0]

Originally Posted by godzbane

Terresquall has no life.

Or he's just that good w/ WE tinkering.

He's also the proponent of Stifling Dagger btw.

/salute

[FlaMe]

T-up xD

[Monsterlord]

T-up, we don't want TB blasting green juice from his crotch.

[GrigorevAlex]

Yeah,it can be very useful.T-Up

[CoGGii]

Does this include flying units? For example, what would happen if you drain from Batrider in Firefly?

[thoby123]

Damn this is like crynoob's loli-Finger all over again. T-Up!

[Quiesce]

The thumbs on my hands go UP UP UP!

[Orichalcum]

hardly t-downable.

easy t-up.

[DemonicTrashcan]

Hell yeah. T-up.