Spell visual swap 1.21.1 [NEED HELP!]

[Tonydew]

So, I'm kind of new in this modding stuff for World of Warcraft. I presently am fooling around with the Vanilla version of the game, trying models swap etc and succeeded to swap some stuff.

But right now I would really like to learn how to swap spell visuals. For exemple, for the Hunter class, when the bow shoots an arrow, instead of seeing the arrow shot, you would see a frost bolt being shot instead.

Unfortunately, I found very little to no guide that gave enough detail to do something like this.  

In a nutshell, I want to change the visual/appearance of some spells, with the one of other spells.

I already know how to use the WoW model viewer and open MPQ files and stuff, but that's about it. DBC modifying was quite complex to learn.


Can anyone help me with this Please?  :|

[Neyo]

So, I'm kind of new in this modding stuff for World of Warcraft. I presently am fooling around with the Vanilla version of the game, trying models swap etc and succeeded to swap some stuff.

But right now I would really like to learn how to swap spell visuals. For exemple, for the Hunter class, when the bow shoots an arrow, instead of seeing the arrow shot, you would see a frost bolt being shot instead.

Unfortunately, I found very little to no guide that gave enough detail to do something like this.  

In a nutshell, I want to change the visual/appearance of some spells, with the one of other spells.

I already know how to use the WoW model viewer and open MPQ files and stuff, but that's about it. DBC modifying was quite complex to learn.


Can anyone help me with this Please?  :|

Get a good DBC editor, preferably this one viewtopic.php?f=59&t=782

Using a decent MPQ Editor (this time not MyWarcraftStudio), open all of WoW's MPQs as a whole file. Find a file called Spell.dbc and extract it somewhere.

Open the DBC file using the editor in the link. Find the spell ID of your Hunter's spell. Find the spell visual row. You'll see that every row has a number or some kind of text attached to it. In the case of spell visuals, you are looking for a number (just like the ID of a spell's name, but this time it's the  ID of the visual animation).  

Afterwards find the spell whose animation you like. Copy it's visual ID number and repalce it with the visual ID of the hunter's spell.

Save the newly edited DBC file. Close the program and open up MyWarcraftStudio this time (sometimes other MPQs tend to crash for older versions of WoW). Create a new MPQ in your Wow's Data folder and add the new Spell.dbc file there (make sure the path is the same as in wow's original MPQs otherwise the game won't detect your new patch).

If that doesn't work for you, google "wow spell swap guide" . The first few links that appear are for WOTLK but the idea is pretty much the same.

Additionally there is a tool made by Stoneharry which can edit spells really well, but it's for 3.3.5a and I've never used it, so I can't tell you how it works exactly. Here's a link viewtopic.php?f=59&t=7850

Good lunk

[Tonydew]

Thanks a bunch for replying man!

[Tonydew]

Open the DBC file using the editor in the link. Find the spell ID of your Hunter's spell. Find the spell visual row. You'll see that every row has a number or some kind of text attached to it. In the case of spell visuals, you are looking for a number (just like the ID of a spell's name, but this time it's the  ID of the visual animation).

How am I supposed to find the spell visual row?? All I see are numbers on the top line. Do you have any clue how to find it!?

[Neyo]

Open the DBC file using the editor in the link. Find the spell ID of your Hunter's spell. Find the spell visual row. You'll see that every row has a number or some kind of text attached to it. In the case of spell visuals, you are looking for a number (just like the ID of a spell's name, but this time it's the  ID of the visual animation).

How am I supposed to find the spell visual row?? All I see are numbers on the top line. Do you have any clue how to find it!?

Looks like it doesn't say which colum for what purpose is, but I still managed to find the one you need.

Check this out:



Column 1 (ID) represents the spell's name and ID to learn it ingame.

Column 116 (marked with red as well) represents the ID of the spell visuals. These are the IDs you need to swap to make visual swaps. So for example, almost all stealth spells have a visual ID of 184. This is what makes stealth look transparent inside the game. If you edit that number to 0 (which means no animation), stealth won't be transparent anymore. Of course you have to do this for all ranks of the spell you're trying to swap visuals for. If you click on "Edit" there's a few fast ways to do that. You can tell the DBC editor to replace all XXXX numbers in any column with another XXXX number. That way you don't have to manually go through each spell.

[Tonydew]

It works GREAT! But there's one more thing. Now my character doesn't shoot with it's bow, but instead does the casting animation. The arrow has been succesfully replaced by the Frostbolt, but the character doesn't do the bow animation, but the magic casting instead.

What should I do?

[Neyo]

It works GREAT! But there's one more thing. Now my character doesn't shoot with it's bow, but instead does the casting animation. The arrow has been succesfully replaced by the Frostbolt, but the character doesn't do the bow animation, but the magic casting instead.

What should I do?

Hmm... I think if you are trying to replace just the normal arrows themselves, then I think you need to look for the model of the arrow and replace it with the frostbolt model. That should work, however I think it will make everyone who shoots arrows, shoot frostbolts instead.

[Tonydew]

Hmm... I think if you are trying to replace just the normal arrows themselves, then I think you need to look for the model of the arrow and replace it with the frostbolt model. That should work, however I think it will make everyone who shoots arrows, shoot frostbolts instead.

That I don't mind. I will try that. Thanks

[Neyo]

Hmm... I think if you are trying to replace just the normal arrows themselves, then I think you need to look for the model of the arrow and replace it with the frostbolt model. That should work, however I think it will make everyone who shoots arrows, shoot frostbolts instead.

That I don't mind. I will try that. Thanks

The frostbolt model should be in a spells folder or something. Model files are .m2 files (in your case), so just find the frostbolt model, extract it  and rename it to the arrow model (make sure names are correct). Then create a new MPQ and follow the same path as the arrow's model, but inside place the frostbolt model renamed to the arrow. Then it should work