Has anyone figured out the s3d file format yet?

[Solx]

Has anyone figured out the s3d file format yet? I beleive s3d files contain the graphics for each zone (split over several files, one for the zone, two for the chars in the zone, one for other objects in the zone).

[Jay]

I don't think so. I've been waiting on the sidelines for it to be figured out so I can begin making new zones in 3D Max. I've done a little research on the side and asked a few of my fellow friends who also do 3d for a living and we've yet to discover anything new.

I think I read somewhere on the forums that someone managed to make little test zones, but they were quite buggy. If anyone has managed to create a new zone or has any idea how please let us know.

If this aspect hasn't been fully addressed then a group of us should get together and see if we can crack it. EqEmu has come a LONG way and it would really put the icing on the cake if we could make custom zones for our custom worlds.

[Solx]

There seems to be a checksum at the end. It doesn't seem to be a simple sum of the bytes in the file, it will be a week or 2 before I can investigate it further. What is driving me, is that I really want to know for sure what models and textures are in the files, just to make sure we aren't missing out on some of them. But building custom zones that would be neat. Even just cutting mobs out of zones and moving them to other zones would be great.

[DeletedUser]

EQInside opens up some of these files and it will show some of the things inside them.
Textures, .wld, and some others.

http://www.hackersquest.org/downloads/eqinside/EQInside-0.2b-MFC.zip

[a_Guest03]

It would be nice to add all NPC models to each zone, if possible. Theoretically, if we knew where they were stored in the zone file, we could just copy a zone, update that chunk, and suddenly have Nagafen in West Freeport.

[DeletedUser]

There is a way to get all models to work. Lemme see if I can find the site.

[DeletedUser]

http://www.gameroom.com/1010101/Global_Shapes.txt

It was made back in hackersquest days, im surprised the site is still up. You'll need a hex editor to do this.

http://www.gameroom.com/1010101/QeynosGuardOnFear.jpg

[mByte]

It would be nice to add all NPC models to each zone, if possible. Theoretically, if we knew where they were stored in the zone file, we could just copy a zone, update that chunk, and suddenly have Nagafen in West Freeport.

This would only work for your everybody else would see a human npc floating in the air. (If you wanted Nagafen)

This is realitivly simple (if you have the tools) but you need a way to push the file to who ever is on your server playing.

I am sure there is a global file at sony and they just browes and choose what for what zone and import it. If somebody was so inclined to do that it would make what you want to do much more easier.

btw there are over 329 textures in characters alone, you know how long it would take to load each zone if you placed them all in the zone file?

[Windcatcher]

Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but I didn't know how long it would take to make my program into something useful and I didn't want to get your hopes up prematurely.

I do have a program that can make .WLD zone-geometry files, but there are some restrictions:

- it doesn't do placeable objects (trees, torches, and such), since I have no idea how they're stored (it's definitely not in the basic zone geometry file).

- because of restrictions in using .S3D files and in the EQ client in general, it can only create new zone files at the expense of overwriting existing ones. Basically you could create, for instance, another "ecommons.wld" that you'd put in ecommons.s3d, overwriting the original (you would have to use EQInside or something similar to do this). Just as you can overwrite texture files with anything you wish, you can do the same with .WLD files. It's not all bad, since you can still have servers with all-original custom content, but you'll need a patcher program that can put all the new content in the right places to make it convenient. Then users could back up their EQ folders and play on these custom servers using a patched backup.

At the time of your post the program was a bug-filled mess, but I've worked on it nonstop and it's working extremely well now (for what it does, which is a lot--you'll see in the documentation).

It's ready for release. IT IS TOTALLY UNSUPPORTED. Don't even ask me for bugfixes, lalalalalala I'm not listening :D I'm basically washing my hands of it at this point; it was a lot of work and I'm sick to death of it :? I want to put it up on SourceForge, preferably in an area called OpenZone so I don't have to stick it in with the admin tool, where you'll never find it...

Remember, though, that unless you replace ALL the other files in an .S3D archive, you absolutely CANNOT distribute whole .S3D files, since they would contain SOE copyrighted information. You therefore have to go "whole hog" and replace everything in them, or only distribute what you yourselves create (.WLDs and such) and give users a patcher program to put them in the right .S3D files).

WC

Edit: OpenZone 1.0 is up. I've put a post about it in 3rd Party Tools.