Classic Spell Effects Do Not Come Out of Hands

[Tabidzukare]

Hi Steven,

Thanks so much for your information. I checked out the site and the first mention I'll give is to how professional it looks! What a great project and thanks for sharing it. I looked at what files they require to play, lo-and-behold they utilize a patcher. I didn't want to patch myself to find out but luckily they did have a manual download for the files.

They are using a hacked PoP client, so i'm assuming they're using the 3.8-4.3 era EQEmu. I could be totally wrong but when I downloaded the patch they had older Dx8.dll's eqmain.dll and an eqgame.exe. When I loaded up the game to the connection point it was an old PoP login screen. Beautiful to see though I didn't patch the rest of the files or register with them to test their spell graphics.

Can you post a screenshot with the old hand graphics working??

Now that that's covered I'll go ahead and cover some other general to ideas I've had regarding this issue as well as some general inquiries in case anyone knows, I'll be on holiday for about a week so I won't have time to test things myself and in preparation for the holiday have been too busy on other projects to do much save for some quest work:

Ideas:

• Spell editing: I downloaded two versions of a spell editing program, one was WindCatchers spell editing front-end, the other's from GeorgeS's site is Ailia's spell editor. I noticed that there are two entries for spell effects a new number and an old number. I wonder if deleting the 'new' entries and putting an appropriate 'old' number in will do anything positive? This one feels like scratching at a wall, but hey what can you do?

• EQInside SDK: I've heard whispers of this SDK in posts in various archives. But apparently it was a .dll or set of tools that facilitated open the various file type archives of EQ. If we can get INTO the .eff's and see what's been changed perhaps we can patch original spells.eff to make it sync properly with the client (if it is indeed 'hard' coded). Has there been anyone that anyone knows of to have opened or patched .eff's? I'm learning OpenGL now in hopes that I might one day be able to make my own solutions but with all the darn math involved it's going to be almost a year or more before I get to any sort of developmental level with it. If we could get our hands on this SDK it could possibly give us a set of tools to begin extraction of those archives and modding them.

• General Tests: The first idea I had is just to check the ability to alter at least the Z positions of the hand graphics by changing races and casting spells and seeing if the hand particles change height.. Another 'general knowledge' answer I don't have and haven't looked into is, do the new spell graphics make use of hand particles or are they centered around the body?

I think the most important element here and now is to be able to bust open or view the spell graphics themselves. I had thought that Ailia's editor had this feature but I've not been able to get it to do that. Without having access to at least open and view those archives I think we have very little in the way of problem solving tools at this point. I still have other 'throw myself against a wall' kind of ideas but we need more input than just my own efforts to try to solve this problem. I've got an extremely narrow range of knowledge and skills though I'm never lacking in enthusiasm or dedication!

*cough* Sadly in this instance for at least another year that enthusiasm and dedication won't yield any results.

With hope,
and as always,
Kindest Regards~~

[Tabidzukare]

Hi everyone!

I apologize this issue has rested for so long! Indeed I've been busy programming and learning everything I can about programming to affect some greater changes in this community.. Difficult stuff really!!

Consequently I haven't had much time to work on this, however, recently I did make a character on Tallon/Vallon Zek. Guess what.. renaming arena.eqg, nektulos.eqg and lavastorm.eqa to .old + downloading their spells_us.txt file fixed the old spell graphics to launch properly out of the hands.

What is interesting about this is that I did NOT erase my spellsnew files at all! Yet old graphics for buffs, leech effects etc show up now.. This btw is from an absolutely fresh install of Titanium, I just changed what was mentioned above and began to play.

Regardless of where I play (any other server) the old spell graphics stick except for some newer effects which might not be linked to older style graphics internally.
I have not tested:

• • Removing the spellsnew / naming spells.eff
  • Playing with the original spells_us.txt to see the old graphics still work without it
  • Renaming the eqg files back to normal.

This can lead us to two possibilities:

• 1. Spells_us.txt controls the 'problematic elements' of classic spells 'misfiring'
  2. The eqg files somehow factor into spell graphics.

Once we figure out what is really affecting the changes all we need to do is institute those changes and everything should work flawlessly. If it is in fact the spells_us.txt files (I didn't back up the original one from install so I can't see it.. ) then the question arises as to how they edited it.. Not that it matters at this point since it works and the only important thing is saving it or downloading it for use on your own server. Also, if someone has a fresh spells_us.txt, can you open it up in a plain txt editor?? Does it display plain text for you or is it all jumbled crap? The T/V Zek spells_us if all garbage and voodoo while spells_en is plain English.

Either way, the solution is a few steps off, and when I get the time I'll do these myself, in the mean time if some industrious individual decides to try post your results here please!

With success close at hand,
Kindest Regards~~

[steve]

The EQG zone files shouldn't have any effect on the spell graphics. Those are only loaded when you're visiting those particular zones.

You can rule that one out

[nilbog]

Finally figured this out.

You can get the old spell effects by a combination of *not* deleting your spellsnew.eff and .edd files and changing the value of particle effect. (field is labeled as particle effect in spell editor and spellanim in spells_new table.

Once again, a GeorgeS tool has saved my sanity
http://wizardportal.dyndns.org/eqemu/eq.html

The Spell Encyclopedia and media file includes a folder of high quality video avis. The correct spell particles for symbol of pinzarn according to these videos is 86. In the spells_us.txt file, it is particle 10. Watching the videos, you don't see the hand-casting effects because they are instantly being cast. Actually casting the spell with a casting delay looks great.

Changing your db entry and/or spells_us.txt file for the desired particle effect you are looking for + having spellsnew.eff and spellsnew.edd in place = classic spell effects coming out of your hands.

Late, but well worth it.

[nilbog]

Well maybe I posted too soon! After getting to that step, I assumed that would take care of the rest of the issues.

Classically, your spells would change/improve graphically the higher level you were.

Symbols, for example, would start out green, then around 24 the blue effects would be added to it. After 40 (i think? ) it would also include red particle effects and give you the nice tri-color buffs.

The only other issue I have found so far is that the spells don't actually *shoot* out of your hands, they just float from the top of them.

Anyone have further ideas about how particle colors can be level based, or how to effect the velocity/gravity of spell effects?