OpenZone 4.4

[Windcatcher]

Quite a few changes and improvements in this version:

1. Imports light sources from .3ds files properly.

2. Walk along ground will work even if your zone doesn't have a ground mesh (e.g. you imported your zone from a .3ds file).

3. You can enter the ground editor even if you don't have a ground mesh, for the purpose of placing meshes, zone bounds, or sounds. Make sure to check the "show other polygons" checkbox in this case to see your zone.

4. The program won't crash if you set a light source's radius to 0.

5. Fixed a crash bug in the ground editor.

6. .SCN and .MSH files will now be saved properly if the program is used with European localizations.

7. When exporting to .S3D, light sources will pass through transparent and semitransparent polygons.

8. When exporting to .S3D, semitransparent polygons will cause light passing through them to change color based on their tint (if any) as well as the average color of their texture. For this to work the polygon must *face* the light source. Therefore if you want players to see the polygons from the outside you should make them double-sided.

9. Object gravity works even if you don't have a ground mesh (e.g. you imported the zone from a .3ds file).

Like all of my tools you can get it here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=41381&package_id=34673

WC

[Shadow-Wolf]

great release now it will be easyer to make floating island zones =)

[KhaN]

I think you forgot Object Auto-Illumination.

/bow at WC

[Xan]

Hmm for some reason when I try to start a new zone with a height map it wont make anything for the ground area. I've tryed greyscale 8-bit .bmp 64x64 and tga greyscale 64x64. If i set size for the north-south, east-west it'll make it flat. Any suggestions?

[Windcatcher]

Yup. This comes up a lot. Make sure the Up-Down size isn't 0. That regulates the overall height of the resulting zone.

WC

[Xan]

Ahhh, duh I should have thought of that. Thanks WC

[Xan]

WC, It seems that when OZ turns the height map into the terrain it dosnt add enough polys on the ground to make the heightmap display right. BTW this is Turelim from the EQA team, just wondering if it would be possable to maybe make it so depending on the bmp image size 64x64 for example would make the terrain 64x64 poly or something like that, it just seems stuff dosnt come out as smooth as it looks on the bmp

[Windcatcher]

That's because OZ converts the heightmap to a ground mesh based on your N/S and E/W sizes, but it makes the zone a grid where each section is 64x64 units across. That's so you can edit the ground mesh's height or paint textures onto it with the ground editor. If your zone is too small to support this then OZ figures out the height where it needs to create grid nodes. It's basically just how OZ is designed. You can always make it smoother by making the zone bigger. For example, if your heightmap is 32x32 pixels then that means that the zone will have 31x31 grid squares (the units in the bitmap represent the elevation at the corners of each grid square). In that case making the zone at least 1984 (1984=31x64) units in both the N/S and E/W directions should exactly reproduce your heightmap.

WC

[Xan]

I see, thanks again. New West Commons commin up soon :D

[Xan]

Alright wind I got another one for ya. Im adding water into the rive/lake of my zone but for some reason its changing the textures on some of my terrain on the ground and it makes this weird GroundMeshUnderwater wich is messin up a lota stuff heh. can i just make water a block of liquid? thats how it looks in the normal EQ zones if you look outside the walls.

Also, a list of features you might take into consideration:

1) Bounding Polys for the top and bottom should be in a differant group than the bounding pollys that you can create around the zone.

2) Zoom out on the ground editor would be nice :wink:

3) Make imported / premade meshes like trees, fire camps, tents ect stick to your ground mesh. For some reason when I added a druid ring it was stuck below my ground mesh on the bounding poly.

4) Make bounding poly changes, size, rotate, location, stay after you close you scene and open it again.

5) Right click in 3d view of the ground editor switchs to mouse look so you dont have to use keys.

6) long shot: dds texture support :P

7) Make OZ so it isnt always on top of all other windows.

8 ) Texture scaleing in ground editor so textures dont look so tiled.

Im sure I'll think of a few more whenever they come up but thats it for now. :D