Anyone interested in client development?

[steve]

Thanks for keeping us updated! It is interesting to read about progress being made on this project. Though I am not able to help myself, I look forward to whatever is accomplished by your efforts!

[erde]

Hi,

maybe this helps

wlddoc.pdf

greetings Stefan

[PixelEngineer]

Originally Posted by erde

Hi,

maybe this helps

wlddoc.pdf

greetings Stefan

It definitely has. So has azone and any old source I could find. My three main goals for this project:

1. Learn about engine development.
2. Add to the knowledge base of the EQEmulator (and yes, there are areas where Windcatcher wasn't always clear)
3. Supply a cross platform client which people can use/modify/learn from.

Cheers!

[Packet]

I have worked with WindCatcher's zone builder tool which gave me a lot of options. Unfortunately s3d's format lacking so many things, it would be very nice to work with eqg considering it supports shading, raytraced materials, bump mapping, etc. Since you're digging so far, it probably wouldn't be so difficult to implement added support to other formats. It would be a lot of fun to re-create classic zones the way they should look rather than the bastard child that sony created. Ever see the most recent freeport? It's not original in the slightest.

None the less, I imported a few of WoW objects into a couple of zones for fun a long time ago... couldn't go too far with s3d format considering the severe limitations.

[PixelEngineer]

Wow, that's some awesome stuff there! I'd love to hear more about that stuff. Windcatcher did some truly amazing stuff and pushed the boundaries of what you can do with the EQ engine. My only sadness is that he coded in languages I have never used like Pascal. But again, his contributions have been invaluable.

I've seen that the whole development of client side stuff has slumped a bit here so I am hoping to pick it up again so that everyone can contribute.

Send me a PM. i'd like to hear more.

[Packet]

My availability varies so it's best to email me.. I pm'd you my info.

[PixelEngineer]

Got a question for the EQEmu community if anyone knows. In the 0x30 reference, there is bit that is set if the texture is masked. The only thing missing is information is about what color the texture is masked with. I know for items it's pink and for trees in Greater Faydark, it's green but there doesn't seem to be a field in the file.

Thanks!

[Leere]

I think I've always just used the alpha channel of the texture file itself, which seemed to work reasonably well.

[PixelEngineer]

Thank you again Leere.

[Mitchell]

Would be awesome to see a native Linux client. Keep us updated.

[Tyen05]

The work you guys are doing is awesome, sent all of you PMs so I can locate animations, lol~

Trying to get this browser based in Unity Engine.

[PixelEngineer]

The nature of the EverQuest format makes it a bad candidate for most of the engines out there, sadly. That's not to say it cannot be done but the way the zones are formatted is not quite ideal for the way Unity and Unreal handle level data. Now I may piss some people off but to be honest, the EverQuest zone format is a hack job of the Quake 3 file format and they are very similar.

I will have this engine's main rendering stuff squared away in a couple of days and you all may have a look and tinker around as you wish. The main hold ups in development have been the fact that I have learned as I went which is obviously much slower than simply writing code. If I could start over with what I know, it would take me a day or two to do most of the rendering stuff. The other hold up is that while Windcatcher and the azone developers have done a tremendous job of documenting, there are still major gaps in what we know and I intend to flush them out.

Cheers,
Pixel

Edit: Noticed your screenshots. That's was about as far as I got in Unreal. I must ask, how many frames per second are you getting?

[PixelEngineer]

Not really an update, just a question for anyone who might have some insight into the EQ file formats.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/sho...162#post205162

Post in that thread if you can lend any knowledge to the matter.

Cheers!

[PixelEngineer]

Here goes nothing. Here is the link to the code for my project I titled Lantern. Lantern is an open source cross platform (not yet) EverQuest client.

This is not a release, it's just a link to the project source. If you are looking to explore zones and such, I would recommend holding off. There are a ton of bugs I am fixing and a few zones that simply won't yet load. In addition, there are a number of problems with my code but it's a start. I am happy I was able to get this far and I will continue and the codebase will continue to get more solid and fine tuned. If you are interested in developing, I have included everything you need.

The license is very straightforward:

Let's keep this simple. You are allowed to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, and distribute this source and software. You are however NOT allowed to create closed source variants under any circumstances. Knowledge should always be free and open source.

If you are interested in developing, the client is written in C++ on Visual Studio 2010 although I am always open to adding support for more IDE's. I write code on this client every single day and look forward to the possibility of more people getting involved. Again, this client is going to be a huge learning experience for me and whoever would like to partake.

Also, you must own your own copy of the zone files. I am not going to distribute anything of the sort. Furthermore, if you see an error in my code or a way I should have done something differently, please correct me. I am not an arrogant developer. I am here to learn and will help anyone who wants to learn as well. Please not also that there are areas that I just have not fixed up yet.

If you have any questions, please let me know and I look forward to making some serious progress in the coming months. I will continue to add more documentation in the next few days to make it easier for people who want to help.

Cheers!

http://www.assembla.com/code/lanterneq/

[PixelEngineer]

My apologies. Here is the link: http://www.assembla.com/code/lanterneq/subversion/nodes