Auras
Author: Kenoli (stardepot.org)Tags: beginner data behavior aura  
Source: http://www.stardepot.org/Added 12 years ago 



An aura is a behavior that affects nearby units. The Mothership's cloaking field is an example of an aura.


Parts of an Aura
The essential parts of an aura are:
For this tutorial, the goal will be to create an aura that heals nearby units. It will act like
the Fountain of Health from Warcraft 3, healing nearby units for 1% of their max HP per second.


The Effect
Make a new effect. Name it "Fountain Heal" and set the effect type to "Modify Unit".

This type of effect can modify the health of a unit. Open the field named "Vitals" and set the "Change Fraction" to 0.01 for "Life".


The Search Area
A search area is, itself, also an effect. Its function is to search an area for units and apply other
effects to them. In this case it will search the area around the source of the aura, and
apply the "Fountain Heal" effect.

Make a new effect. Name it "Fountain Search" and set the effect type to "Search Area".

Open the "Areas" field and add a new value. Set the effect to "Fountain Heal" and the radius to 5.

In order to prevent the search from targeting non-biological units, open the "Search Filters" field and
set "Biological" to "Required".


The Behavior
Make a new behavior. Name it "Healing Aura" and set the behavior type to "Buff".

This behavior will activate the search area periodically. Set the "Effect - Periodic" to "Fountain Search".

The value in the behavior's "Period" field is the duration, in seconds, its periods last. Since
the healing effect is supposed to occur every second, set this to 1.

At this point the aura is ready to be given to a unit and tested.


Other Effects
Auras can do many different things. Instead of using "Modify Unit" as described above,
try using other types of effects, such as "Apply Behavior", to give units an armor bonus.


Example Maps
A simple healing aura, as demonstrated in this tutorial:
http://www.stardepot.org/tutorials/auras/HealingAura.SC2Map

A more complex damage aura ability with visual effects:
http://www.stardepot.org/tutorials/auras/FlameAura.SC2Map


Additional Tutorials
Video tutorial by Akkibifuu:
http://www.stardepot.org/30/aura-abilities

Video tutorial by OneTwoSC:
http://www.stardepot.org/62/healing-fountain







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