Content creation

[madborg]

user error -- not at my best at 2 a.m.

[Zamrod]

Here's a couple of questions though. What are the things that can't be changed? Aren't there certain things that are hard coded into the client so it would be very difficult if not impossible to actually change them?

Zone files can definitely be modified, given the right tool, and even new zones added. The spell data file sounds like it can be changed, adding spells, removing spells, modifying what each spell does. Textures on the zones, and well as character meshes and textures sound like they can be modified.

However, I've heard that the character creation screen is client side, so the names, and number of classes in the game may not be able to be changed, as well as the number or names of stats. Is this correct? The mechanics behind the stats obviously CAN be changed, because the server deals with all of that. But what if you wanted to remove Necromancers entirely? Or make it so one server only have, say 6 stats?

I could be wrong about what is hard coded into the client (or about how easy it is to change even if it is hard coded). Does someone know better than me?

Zamrod Amsod

[Megahertz]

Windcatcher,

Have you been able to locate where the texture names are stored? or in what form they are in? Might be just a texture id. If possible could you also export the name of the texture or the id with each polygon in the .obj format or make a .ob2 format or something.

[Windcatcher]

If you run the DZoneConverter and click Export, the textures are all listed in the file, but for some reason everything is always mapped to only one texture. I don't understand why...

WC

[Megahertz]

Ahh, i see that now. Thanks.

Also i noticed the coordinates listed below the texture name, however they dont match up to any of the vertices that get exported in the .obj format. I even tried switching around and negating values to switch between different coordinate systems. No dice. I might have missed something tho.

As for the the actual texture names, yeah that sux. I was hoping that i could parse the file and get the texture names out of it but it looks like ill have to wait a bit until somebody figures it out. I'd offer to help, but I dont have any experience with Delphi. =(

-=[ Megahertz ]=-

[Windcatcher]

Here's what I know (maybe someone can host a FAQ or spec or something--it won't be me though):


Data21
------

The Data21 structure is the main binary tree of the zone. For any given zone, there is only one Data21 structure. I don't know why they use a binary tree, maybe it makes searching easier, but I don't understand how you use a binary efficiently in a three-dimensional space. Anyhow, Data21 contains a number of elements.

Each element is a node in the tree, and either has child nodes or is a leaf node. If it has child nodes, then Index1[0] points to the left node (if any) and Index1[1] points to the right node. They contain zero if there is no such node. If it is a leaf node, then Params2[0] will contain the index of the Data22 structure that this leaf refers to.

Okay, I did some more playing with this. It seems that the tree is used for searching. Basically every node is either a "stem" node or a "leaf" node. Stem nodes contain a vector in the Params1[] array, where the first three elements describe a unit vector (a vector whose length is 1) and the fourth element describes the length of the vector. The idea is thus: the very first node is at the position of a Data22 region (it is a good idea to start at the region closest to the xyz center of the zone). The vector in Params1[] points to another region (probably the closest one). EVERYTHING on that side (the point) of the vector lies on the right half of the tree (that is, originates with Index1[1]), while EVERYTHING on the tail end of the vector (the originating point) is on the same side as the initial region. Thus, each node subdivides zone space into two pieces. Each subnode further subdivides the remaining space into two pieces, and so on, until each subdivision contains only one region. At that point, leaf nodes are written, where all elements of Params1[] and Index1[] contain zero and Params2[] points to the region.

It should be noted that this tree points to ALL Data22 regions, not just the ones that map to Data36 polygons. For instance, trees, braziers, and other "canned" objects are referenced by Data22 regions, but those regions do not point to any Data36 structures.

Data22
------

Data22 structures represent leaf nodes in the Data21 tree. Each Data22 structure represents a "region" in the zone. A region contains EVERYTHING in a cubical area that is 128 world coordinates on a side. So, for example, a zone with an east-west size of 1280 would be ten regions across in the east-west direction. Note that this also applies to height; mountainous zones therefore would have layers of regions stacked on top of one another. It is not necessary that a zone have a "complete" rectangular array of regions; therefore, an irregularly shaped zone need not have any Data22 structures for places where there are no polygons. Perhaps this is the purpose of the Data21 binary-tree format: to save space and memory.

The Params3[] numbers look very interesting but I don't know what they do.

It seems that not all Data22 structures refer to a Data36 structure in the Fragment3 field. Presumably this means that there can be Data22 structures that don't refer to a polygon. Perhaps they refer to lighting? Global objects? It is as yet unknown.

Data36
------

Each Data22 structure may point to one any only one Data36 structure. A Data36 structure contains all of the polygon information for that particular region. The Data1[] array contains a list of polygon vertices. Data1[] is NOT an orderd array; it is simply a list. The Data5[] array is the actual list of polygons (triangles ONLY!!!), where the last three elements are indexes to elements in the Data1[] array. There is also a scaling factor represented by the Size10 value. It represents a power of 2 and is used to create very small polygons. For example, if Size10 contains 4, then each (X,Y,Z) value is divided by 16 = (1 Shl 4) before being rendered. Finally, the Params1[] array in each Data36 structure is an offset point. Therefore, after scaling each vertex, the X,Y,Z value is added to the corresponding Params1 element to form the final vertex.

Presumably the Data36 structure should contain texture information, but this is as yet undiscovered. I strongly suspect that the Data4[] array refers to textures somehow but I have been unable to decipher it.

Data2[] appears to contain two signed 16-bit values for each vertex in the master vertex list. I don't know what they represent. Could these be texture coordinates? From what I've seen, most BMP textures are either 128x128 or 64x64 in size, so maybe these are fixed-point coordinates? My guess is that texture coordinates have to be accurate to a fraction of an actual texture pixel to prevent artifacts.

Data3[] seems to contain three signed 8-bit values for each vertex in the master vertex list. My hunch is that they represent normal vectors for Phong (or is it Goraud?) shading, but I haven't tested it. If I remember correctly, Goraud shading uses normals to each polygon whereas Phong uses normals to each vertex, but it's been years since I delved into that stuff.The current thinking is that Fragment1 points to a texture list (a Data31 structure), and that Fragment4 points to a texture, but I'm not convinced of that as of yet. This definitely needs more inspection.

The function of Params3 is as yet unknown.

Important note: Polygons NEVER cross region boundaries. If a polygon spans two or more regions, it appears that it is ALWAYS subdivided into multiple polygons such that each polygon ends at a region boundary.


Data03
------

This appears to be a direct reference to a BMP texture file. It seems to be the lowest-level of texture referencing.


Data04
------

This seems to point to one or more Data03 structures. Perhaps it involves some sort of texture mixing or alternation?


Data05
------

This seems to point to one and only one Data04 structure.


Data30
------

Edit: These do in fact point to Data05 structures. The reference to the Data05 structure shows up as "FRG(-1)" for instance because the Data05 structures generally don't have a printable name. The -1 means that the index of the Data05 structure is -1 plus the index of the current Data30 structure (i.e. the Data30 structure is pointing to the structure immediately preceding it).

Params2 looks a lot like an RGBA color but it could also be a coordinate or vector.


Data31
------

This seems to be a master texture list, and points to all of the Data30 structures in the zone.


Data29
------

In every file I've seen so far, this is the last structure in the file. There can actually be more than one Data29 structure, but the reason is unknown. It appears to point to one or more Data22 structures, where each element in the Data1[] array is an index of a Data22 structre. It appears to detail special areas, like PvP regions, water, and zone points.


Data2A
------

Seems to have something to do with lighting. I haven't investigated this, but it seems similar to Data29 in that it looks like it contains a number of indices to (presumably) Data22 or Data36 structures (I'd guess Data22).

WC

[Stud]

Just in case its of any use to any one, here is a fairly light weight graphics converter that will allow you to open the DDS texture files without a plug-in and with out Adobe Photoshop. You can save as BMP's to import and export.

http://dl.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?s...s/gph_conv.zip

[madborg]

Discreet doesn't want people to export from gmax to some other format. That is the position as stated by their product manager. They what the gmax tool to create objects for the gamepaks that game companies may develop. The dev kit is very pricey and not for mere mortals.

So you can import from a few formats and save as gmax format.

That's it.

[madgamer2000]

Sounds like gmax prolly isnt the solution then. Have you tried downloading any of the other free 3d editor tools that are out there? Anyone got any suggestions on what else you could possibly use that would be a 3d editor available to anyone who wanted to try making their own content?

[Mr Bitterness]

I am an accoplished Cstrike mapper, and if you can convert the .wld to .maps or .rmfs then i can work wonders, and im not kidding =) i also can model and skin decently. I have 3dMAX 4 and Milkshape to work with, so if you guys need any help, feel free to ask.

[Zeitgeist]

/me looks around for WC heheh...

[madborg]

Originally Posted by madgamer2000

Sounds like gmax prolly isnt the solution then. Have you tried downloading any of the other free 3d editor tools that are out there?

I also have Blender, but it really confuses me with all those buttons. I haven't even been successful in finding how to get out of a demo without killing the program. This is one that needs some study with the manual. I would have to check the Blender page again but I believe they publish their API set which means a person could write an exporter. I also believe that people have written some of the more popular exporters such as 3DS, OBJ, LWO, MD2/MD3. Blender is free.

Hash's Animator is almost free -- low price. Their claim to fame is that's it's fairly easy to create objects. People have written plugins for all sorts of system. Animation is very good.

Milkshape, almost free. I think its about $25. Doesn't have all the bells and whistles that the other tools have. Lots of conversion plugins. A low count poly modeler, can display animation but animation tools are fairly weak. Has SDK for writing plugins.

Truespace. There is a free version available -- or at least was a couple of years ago. Don't know much about their SDK or animation.

Lightwave 6.5 is on a special price of $800 but it is only going to last a few more days. It's a very good price if you were going to buy Lightwave anyway. Well documented file format.

One of the other products, Maya I believe, is going to be free as a personal edition in February. Going to have the same problem as Gmax.

that's it for off the top of my head. Used to be some low poly modelers for Quake, but I don't know if they are still around.

[madgamer2000]

Maya is a realy nice high end modeler. Any idea how/where i could get my hands on that free promotional version? hehe When you say it will be like gmax i would assume you mean in the promo version youll only be able to save the files in it to some proprietary file format made just for it. I still think it would be neat.

[cbreaker]

I like the idea of creating a new world, with a new set of everything, including models and zones, however I feel that it may be too big of a task at this point.

Perhaps the best thing to do at this point would be to simply get the emulator up to quality; complete with easy (gui) tools edit items, monsters, spawn times, loot drops, etc.

I feel that once the emulator can DO what EQLive can do, then would be a good time to start modeling new mobs and new zones.

As someone stated earlier, achieving balance may be very difficult, as it is a very daunting task. Everquest was made by large teams of in-office people working on different aspects of the project, and years after release it's still not perfect.

Creating a whole world complete with new models, items and zones could take many years, in which everquest could even be down, obsolete or even completely different in so to obsolete the emulator.

It's not to say that a whole new world cannot be done here, I think it really can be done, but it may be worthwhile to simply work on recreating at least some of EQLive before attempting to model your own world.

If you get a court order to stop, then would be the time to begin work on new zones and models.

Of course, it would be WONDERFUL to be able to actually manage a dynamic world, unlike EQLive. You could set up changes in the economy, attacks by monsters, new and dynamic quests, etc. The way EQLive has been documented on the web takes out any excitement. And the world never changes, besides weak GM 20 minute events that seldom happen and very few benefit.

-CB

[madborg]

Originally Posted by madgamer2000

Maya is a realy nice high end modeler. Any idea how/where i could get my hands on that free promotional version? hehe When you say it will be like gmax i would assume you mean in the promo version youll only be able to save the files in it to some proprietary file format made just for it. I still think it would be neat.

February:

http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Com...ce/index.html;