Hello, everybody. Firstly, I would like to say that the units in this guide cannot move, be selected, or perform anything. They can only stand around in the first frame of their birth animation. Units cannot actually walk on top of buildings, but they can appear to stand on them. That being said, this guide is also about more than just making units stand on top of buildings. A LOT more. I've been wanting to keep this trick a secret until I released my next scenario, (then everybody'd be like ZOMG HOW'D YOU DO THAT) but seeing as there are few designers left, I might as well help them in any way I can. XD



About
I figured this trick out while making patterns for AoM Danmaku. My problem was that I wanted non-projectile units for projectiles. After some playing around, I found this holy gift sent from god: Wadjet Spit. That and Nottud's ytriggers and Attach triggers. You'll need those. Oh, and his Transform trigger too. Heck, just download everything by Nottud. XD. Anyways, as I was saying, I found Wadjet Spit to be this miraculous gift. It is one of the few units in the game where when you attach something to it, no garrison flag appears. It is also the only unit in the game where you can attach something to it and have that something appear in-game with no garrison flag. So here is that previous pattern but using Wadjet Spit instead, and I attached Vortex Finish Linked to them to give a beautiful and deadly effect.

Great. You can make pretty patterns in AoM, Zeno, but lets get to the point. How does this relate to making units stand on buildings?

Well, as I stated before, Wadjet Spit is the only unit in the game where you can attach something to it that will appear in-game without a garrison flag. Therefore, you can use the Attach Unit trigger or Nottud's ytriggers to attach units to wadjet spits. The cool thing about this is, Wadjet Spit is a projectile. Therefore, units can walk through those attached units, which can create other really cool effects.



Examples
Here are some examples of what you can do.




Here, you can see that villagers are standing on bridges. What's more, units are walking underneath those villagers and those bridges. The way I did this was by attaching shrunken-down bridges to wadjet spits, teleporting them to their proper locations using Hail's Transport in Circle triggers, and then using a trick from AoM Danmaku to deploy numerous Wadjet Spits, attach villagers to them, and teleport them to their desired locations.
This is an arena scenario that I've made and don't really have much use for. It'll be up in the downloads section sometime or another for anyone who wants it.




As a projectile, Wadjet Spit can be teleported to any elevation. This can create cool effects such as units rising from the ground and maybe even flying buildings and whatnot.




If only eyecandy gods like Oscar were still around. I can only imagine what they'd make with this. Probably massive towering buildings that units could also walk into, because the walls have no unit occlusion.




Of course I had to include this. :3




CURSED STUBBORN BOULDER ROLLINGS RAAAAAIG. These, Boulder Walls, rock sprites, and other terrain objects refuse to be moved to any elevation other than default. This is because, (i think) they are stuck as terrain textures, and therefore impossible to move to different elevations above or below ground. (I was gonna make boulder rolling units smash out of the ground or fall from the sky, but THEY REFUSE)



How To
What I normally do is deploy some unit, or use an already existing unit on the map. I then either use Nottud's ytriggers (for units that I deployed in-game) or the Attach Unit effect (for units I've already placed down in the editor) to attach something to that unit. Finally, I transform that unit to Wadjet Spit and teleport it to the desired location using QV Vectors.



A Couple Things to Note
-Wadjet Spit is still a projectile. Therefore, it has a lifespan. To circumvent this, you can just transform some unit without a lifespan into a wadjet spit, therefore keeping the lifespan of the unit being transformed from.

-Wadjet Spits aren't completely invisible. They leave behind unit shadows.

-Units attached are stuck in the animation they were in when attached. I found this out while making random patterns while attaching random units like scarabs to them. As you can see, only the scarab shells are visible because they are stuck in the first frame of their birth animations.



Okay, that's it for the guide. Sorry if someone's posted something like this before, and I hope people find this useful. I will feature this trick in my upcoming scenario. Heck, you guys already saw a screenshot of it. >.> The Arena scenario and the two danmaku patterns will be available for download so you can see some of this stuff in action. I really have no use for the Arena scenario. You guys can use it if you want, just give credit. DL Available

[This message has been edited by Zenophobia (edited 03-06-2013 @ 07:40 PM).]