OpenZone 4.6

[Windcatcher]

I know it's only been one day but I've been really busy:

1. Added support for vertex color values instead of color values for entire polygons.

2. Added support for separate opacity maps. This is most useful when importing from .3DS files and allows for masked textures (like tree leaves).

3. Fixed some bad bugs in the ground editor.

4. Fixed some bugs in the .S3D export code when dealing with polygon colors.

5. Added support for .JPG and .TGA textures.

6. Added basic capability to import Quake 3 maps. THIS IS BY NO MEANS PERFECT. To use this capability you *must* create a "quake3" folder under your "\library\textures\" folder and extract all of your .PK3 files there (PK3 files are really just ZIP files). OpenZone cannot read directly from .PK3 files at this time. You're still better off converting your Quake 3 maps to .3ds and importing those but this provides a much quicker way to test your zone if you're still working on it and just want to do a quick test. The Quake 3 engine is very different from the EQ engine and has a lot more capabilities so it's unlikely that importing Quake 3 maps will ever be perfected.

You can get it here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=41381&package_id=34673

I plan to take the next few days off and spend some time at the gym now...

WC

[Windcatcher]

There was still a problem in the way lighting was handled when exporting to .S3D and it was nagging at me so I decided to fix it. I whacked OZ 4.6 and re-uploaded it at 1:04 AM EST. If you get it now and export Quake3 to S3D the lighting should be perfect (though textures that use complex shaders will still have problems). This fix to lighting also affects zones imported from .3DS files.

WC

[Xan]

Ok so in order for the textures to show up you have to keep the file structure that the pk3's have all in the library/textures/quake3 folder? If so then you would have to put your textures in library/textures/quake3/textures/texturefolder/texture.jpg

Edit: ok so i messed with it a little. I dont use textures that are PK3'd because its a hassle to edit them when needed but if you already have textures extracted to your baseq3/textures/texturefolder/texture.jpg you can move them to the directory stated above. Just thinking this might confuse someone that dosnt know how pk3's work and they had textures thart arnt in a pk3 already. BTW wind thanks for adding this, should saves me lots of time instead of UVWmapping everything over :D

[killspree]

Hm...I'm gonna have to look over my file structure again because textures weren't loading for me.

[KhaN]

WindCatcher, Maesked Texture importation is working great so far, now, my grass is no more a single flat textures, and i was able to add flowers and such to the ground, which add a lot to the zone ambiances.

On the new version of Astral Plane (And Final) im making, i got waterfalls to work, bascially, you see the water moving from islands to island, with animated waterfalls, the render is great, but i was wondering if you add any clue on how to handle particule effects. Using your software S3DSPY, i parsed eq textures and found nothing, i believe textures are located in ".../SpellEffects/", '.../RenderEffects/", ".../EnvEmitterEffects/" *shrug*, but my WLD knowledge is around zero, so i was wondering what was my hope to see one day OZ handling particule effect, because its one of the last thing with animated objects that are really missing in OZ.

[Windcatcher]

I just found a bug in OZ where it wasn't exporting masked textures to .S3D properly when they have separate opacity maps (like the leaves in that tree you posted). I just whacked OZ 4.6 and uploaded a version with a fix.

At this point I have no idea how or where particle effects are stored so I can't say. It's sort of beyond the scope of OZ since that is really intended to only make zones. If we ever figure it out I think a more generic modding tool would be more appropriate.

WC

[KhaN]

Now AP is done under max, i decided to move the zone under OZ, but i ran into a lots of problems.
1. I have around 35 waterfalls in the zone, moving all of them by editing coords is a real pain (I could move them directly but its FAR from being precise), honestly, i dont know if i will be able to make it one day, plus if i want to edit the zone one day (and it will happen for sure), i will have to redo all. I was wondering if the button i suggested you were possible, because, if this button could move an object by 0.1 each time, it will be way quicker to move objects in a zone and would save a lots of time. As 3DS dont support animated textures, i think the button solution is the easiest and fastest way ... but maybe you have a better solution.
2. Animated Textures, what separator should i use ? Example of one of my lines
TriangleTex 0.278938293457031, -17.0000019073486, 147.615127563477, 0.278938293457031, 16.9999942779541, 147.615127563477, 1.95011138916016, 16.9999942779541, 147.791046142578, 0.015625, 2, 0.015625, 0, 0.00390625, 0, APWTRF01|APWTRF02|APWTRF03|APWTRF04|APWTRF05|APWTR F06|APWTRF07|APWTRF08|APWTRF09|APWTRF10|APWTRF11|A PWTRF12|APWTRF13|APWTRF14|APWTRF15|APWTRF16, false, true, true, $00C14646|$00C14646|$00C14646, True, 0, false, 0, false, false, false, true, -0.250962823629379, -4.07273681446441E-8, 0.967996776103973, -0.396091848611832, -3.86326846069096E-8, 0.918210923671722, -0.104685850441456, -4.18426857606846E-8, 0.994505345821381
3. As waterfalls move from islands to islands, there are small rivers on those islands, the problem is as in OZ you can add only square ir ellipse water, and as my islands are neither square or ellipse, i have to add a bunch of mini water zones to prevent water ffrom apparing our of islands. I was thinking maybe i could add the water in 3DS, name the object "WATER", and during importation, OZ would reconize all objects named "WATER" and convert them to water, we could use this too for lava, pvp zones, ...

Main problem actually, and i know it, is because my zones start to be VERY complicated, and as OZ is atm limited, zone edition start to be a real pain, im not a programmer, but im sure solutions can be founds.

Thanks :)

[Liscadipesce]

Great Release Wind.

Got a question for you. What would be the easiest process to take meshes from zones and texture them. I know how to take the model themselves out, but when I go to view them their black in-game. Thanks :0

EDIT: P.s. Their was a bug I found that when you import a 3ds in flymode the camera pans out to birds eye view and you can't rotate the landscape. You have to change view again to get back to fly mode.

[KhaN]

Got a question for you. What would be the easiest process to take meshes from zones and texture them. I know how to take the model themselves out, but when I go to view them their black in-game. Thanks :0
Best way would be to add an "import WLD" to OZ, but i dont think WC will ad it one day, as people will use it to modify EQLive zones, which is completly illegal :/

[Windcatcher]

That's why I didn't add the capability to import .WLD or .S3D into OZ...someone somewhere would try to use it to cheat and I don't want SOE going after OZ (rightly or wrongly) because of this.

For OZ 4.6 I had to expand the texture naming syntax in .SCN and .MSH files to support separate opacity maps. The syntax now is:

texture1;texture2;texture3;...|opacitymap1;opacity map2;opacitymap3;...

Opacity maps are optional so if you don't have any (and 99% of the time you won't) then don't put in the pipe character ( | ) or anything after it.

Before I go to the gym I'll see what new features I can add to OZ. Don't expect a release for at least a few days...

WC

Edit: North/south/east/west/up/down/movement buttons are mow in my OZ 4.7 beta. Each click like you suggested moves all selected objects by 0.1.

Using Del to delete an object would be nice, but I already use it for strafing right. I can change the strafe keys to Shift-left and Shift-right instead of Ins and Del. How does this sound?

[KhaN]

I have some problems with importing 3DS masked Objects. When i import the zone into OZ? all is ok (OZ dont show good the treeleaves because they are either 512 or 1024 text, but leaves are showed), but when i import into S3D, it look like the textures for the leaves arent in S3D file !?

[Shadow-Wolf]

Wow windcatcher i am in love with this release, ten times easyer to make a dungeon now. It imported my Q3 dungeon Cleanly(ok not cleanly but those were mistakes i made while designing the zone although players wont be able to see em). Although the textures dont seem to render to smooth, in GTK it looks smooth and find but when i look at it in Openzone i can see individual pixels....

[Shadow-Wolf]

it appears i spoke too soon....lwhen i try and open the ground editor while its loading textures i get a stream reas error, I also get this on Dungeon builder when i try to set textures.

[Windcatcher]

The both of you should probably re-download OZ 4.6. There were some bugs I found soon after I released it and I re-uploaded it a couple of times.

WC

[KhaN]

The EXE version is "Monday 2 august 2004", my masked textures are showed well under OZ, but like i said it look like during the S3D process creation, the textures arent added to the S3D because i see the mesh where textures should be white.

[Xan]

Ok so this is probably something i should have noticed erlier but when you export your zone as a 3ds after importing it from a bsp, the textures show up fine if you have your file structure right for the textures but when you export it to s3d and open it up with eqinside you'll notice that the textures have been saved to a path inside the s3d instead of just being in there. For example:
textures/Photorealistic_brick/brick052.bmp should just be brick052.bmp

[killspree]

Haven't had a problem with this myself. Or did you mean importing directly from bsp to openzone?

[Windcatcher]

I found the problem with the paths and I have it fixed in my 4.7 beta (as well as a lot of other changes and fixes). There is also an issue where OpenZone's .SCN file format doesn't support some of the on-the-fly things I have to do to Quake textures to support Quake shaders, so it means that to get a "proper" S3D from a Quake map you'll have to import and immediately export (saving to SCN and reloading it later loses the changes). Look for a release of 4.7 sometime this weekend. You're still better off using another program to convert your Quake maps to 3DS first, but 4.7 will do a better job of importing Quake maps than 4.6.

WC

[KhaN]

WindCatcher, OZ keep crashing (what i will call crashloop), when i want to build the S3D, the importation is fine but during S3D creation process, something (i dont know what, my zone look fine, especially when OZ load it) make it crash, plus masked texture dont look like to be build during S3D too.

Crash is during : Creating Regions and region tree.

It would be cool if you could say me when you will have time to popup on IRC and see this, thanks :)

[KhaN]

After some investigations, it appear OZ cant create a S3D when there are more then ~200 meshes (objects) into a 3DS (and it prolly crash too if i used MSH system, since its correct for OZ, but crash during S3D creation).
When i attempted to merge my zone (Well actually, its tunnels from floating islands), S3D creation succeded (Mesh is around 59k poly).

It appear to me OZ is barely limited to 200 mesh during the S3D creation process, i know im the first one to really use OZ, and that for sure a bug of OZ, and not a limitation of the software ...

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/coregn/EverquestAnthology/Temp/AP027.jpg
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/coregn/EverquestAnthology/Temp/AP028.jpg

[Shadow-Wolf]

i know im the first one to really use OZ

incorrect the first one to use it was i believe rogean or one fo the devs, then I started to work on my own world after wind told me of some of the tricks he was using to make his, after a bit i had about 5 zones done I had my own server up and the zones were up for download but noone would log in and play in them so i took it down. well then I lost my zones when i got a bad virus made me reformat my hardrive and I lost my work.......

[Xabob]

and if i member right i have seen one of his zones b4 he lost it and i saw it LONG b4 i even saw u posting on the fourms

[KhaN]

Shadow Wolf, i dont say im the first one, in my sentence, the word "really" change the meaning of the sentence, well in french it is, maybe my translation is bad. What i wanted to say is im the first one to "fully" use OZ, because my zones start to be somewhat complex (not 50 mesh / 5.000 faces in one ground mesh~, but more like 500-750mesh with 450.000 faces).

[killspree]

khan, has astral plane been designed fully in openzone(other than what OZ can't do atm)?

[Shadow-Wolf]

Khan thats using importation not openzone itself, what you are doing is taking objects from SoE zones and using them in yours(wich is btw illegal) wich is not really reaching to Openzones potential but 3dsmax and the potential oh the people who work at SoE.

*edit* correction Jay was the first person to really use OZ besides windcatcher.

[KhaN]

what you are doing is taking objects from SoE zones and using them in yours(wich is btw illegal) wich is not really reaching to Openzones potential but 3dsmax and the potential oh the people who work at SoE.
Yes, some objects are from EQLive, i might have like 20 EQLive objects converted, but it look like you never understood why. What the main problem when making zones ? The problem is the zone have to look EQ, when you are in, you have to feel that you are playing EQ, not another game, so yes, my zones are being builded, so i have EQlive objects like barrels and crates in random places to see if the integration is correct.

Have you tried to convert EQLive object ? Well i have convert some, does it worth the effort ? Honestly no, its a damn fucking long job, you have to extract the object, import mesh, convert the textures, remap mesh, re export mesh, and pray to have it load into OZ (Shami know what i speak about). Lets say it, the time you convert one eqlive object, you would have the time to make 2 from your own, plus you will never be able to convert some LDON / GOD models.

Lets imagine one thing, one crazy guy convert all EQLive models and release them, so all would have all eqlive objects to make zones, what that would change ? Objects is only a minor part of a zone, bigger one is the zone itself.

Dont get me wrong Shadow-Wolf, i pretty much estimate you like all the great guy here that are always have a hand to help you, but dont come say i rip all the SOE work when i use like 0.01% to test my zones, you dont have see the gnomish airships i have done, neither desert of ro or commonlands, or freeport ... Now i should maybe stop to continu to work on the oz tutorials im making because yes they use some EQLive objects, or i will just stop to show what OZ can do, because yes, Shadow-Wolf, you think the coolio latest addition you are using in OZ like transparency, masked textures and more were submitted to WC by Santa Clauss ?

And im quite sorry Shadow-Wolf, but yes, importing 3DS, Q3 zones, or Dungeon Builder zones really show OZ potential, dont get me wrong, but real potential of OZ is you can import different format to then build S3D (well, it will need some tweak using OZ before), im hoping next release of OZ will make the zone edition easier, but there are still some work to do on this side :p

khan, has astral plane been designed fully in openzone(other than what OZ can't do atm)?
My zones are created under 3DSMAX / MAYA, then imported into OZ where i work with lights / sounds / MSH like all would do.

[killspree]

Ah cool, I've had a problem importing ground meshes from other programs is why I ask. That and I can't seem to get heightmaps working correctly(using a heightmap to create the zone that is).

[KhaN]

For ground importation be sure its "poly editable", i dont use "Import as ground mesh" since "import as 3DS" have now the same options (Gravity and co).

If you still have problems, mail me your mesh at khan@everquestanthology.com, i will have a look at it.