Guide: Exporting Zones + Textures

Tabidzukare · #1 05-05-2009, 07:19 PM

Hey Orison,

No problem! Post some shots once you get a zone open to render.. my computer is so slow and I have a particular love of FreePort, but I'd love to see some other cool renders of the zones

Kindest Regards~~

OrisonSeven · #2 05-05-2009, 09:38 PM

As it is now working, I attempted to output greaterfaydark(gfay) and found that even though the models themselves exported, the textures did not... also, seeing as i dont have the best PC (old amd machine athlon 64 1.8ghz with 2 gigs ram and an AGP based video card(yea yea yea i know)) I have found that it does take a while to export. Rendering after changing a few more settings did get the textures, albeit the trees were not seethrough (alpha chanels didnt work) though this was to be expected.

Screens will be posted soon.

Tabidzukare · #3 05-06-2009, 10:48 AM

Hey Orison,

Sounds good.. and boy do I hear you on the 'old' computer. Mines a good chunk worse than yours.. I have less than 128MB graphics (built in intel card on my laptop), my 512MB of RAM is shared with that video card, and I have a 1.4GHZ processor... Running 3DSMax and getting a zone open is literally one of those 'order pizza, pop a beer, kick your shoes off, turn on a movie' kind of nights lol. Good times, so don't worry.

The alpha channel that holds the lights actually does exist.. If you noted when extracting the texture it renames them all to .bmp and even some of the .bmps themselves are really .dds's in disguise which hold alpha channel data. If you wanted to tinker with the script or just hand texture them with the .dds's then you could get it to work. This is way over my 3D modeling head, however if you search and read all of 'Kaiyodo' 's posts you'll see that he had gotten around this issue and his improved script/solution may be out there somewhere. If you need help on solving that end of things let me know, right now I've got my head buried in C++ and Math books.. ugg, so any break from that is welcomed.

Kindest Regards~~

OrisonSeven · #4 05-06-2009, 12:55 PM

Let me start once more by thanking you!!!!! and everyone whos effort came to amount to the ability to do all of this.

As for texturing right now, im not so worried about exporting trees as much as I really need to figure out how to makes trees such that 2 sided texturing works. As of right now, we actually double the polys for the trees leaves and then invert the normals so that in essence we end up with two polys taking up the same space just facing away from one another. This does work, but as I have said before, the poly count is doubled when it shouldnt need to be.

The eventaul goal is both to create a whole new game, everything, and i mean everything, along with keeping/modifying the exhisting content to make it our own. We hope to bring back the old feel of adventuring through the lands without haveing a map to tell you where everything is, as well as making it more like you "are" the character exploring the world.

Thanks again.

Tabidzukare · #5 05-06-2009, 09:56 PM

Hey Orison,

You know I got goosebumps a little bit when you mentioned your idea and I couldn't help but throwing this out there. You know Sakrateri is trying to do almost the same exact thing as you.. tired of redesigning an 'emulator' he's trying to recreate the old game using the torque engine and some other things.. you should get in touch.. also, if you all do get in touch and think about merging your projects (even if you don't...) let me know!!

I would love to help with what I can do well at which is namely content / quest / story writing. I'm a history/lore guy and seeing what you've been doing with the size and scale of those trees.. *whistle..* I'm impressed. Let me know if you ever need any content people / other help. You'll have another member!

Kindest Regards~~

OrisonSeven · #6 05-06-2009, 10:36 PM

Hey Tabidzukare,
The idea of merging projects would be pretty cool using the torque engine. As of right now we are still developing alot of content. Using the eq engine with a working server allows us to get a feel for the run of the terrain. I have yet to get in touch with him yet, but, if he is looking at these posts and messages, by all means chime in and leave some imput Sak.

As for content, quests, lore and such, we would love the extra help once we get a little more developed. We are still in the process our selves of developing the plot and actual feel of what we want. As we get more out there, we would be more then happy to have you join us.

After Ferringor, I believe we will be creating an open planes/desert zone, as well as a large number of others already stated for creation. Personally, I have about 5 notebooks as of now that have sketches, notes, and other content based ideas that still need to be both created/textured as well as fine tuned to the eventual goal of a brand new world to explore.

We also plan to have a whole new array of weapon models that will be replacing the old ones. We plan to have both the weapon and the image of the weapon match (not hard at all) but also have the name correspond to the look and feel. For instance, rusty weapons, though basically junk, look like most other basic weapons. We currently have a new set of rusty specific textures and some models that will make rusty weapons... well... rusty. This is both a small and huge undertaking as it means increasing the overall number of possible item models drastically.

The crafting system also needs some revamping as it really lacks in comparison to that of other games as well as to what it "could" be. One of our ideas is to actually make it so that you can create a weapon to look how u want based around hilt blade and so on. By this I mean that we would create a large number of blades, hilts, etc. that when placed within the forge with the proper skill and the right ingrediants could make whatever look you want. This would also increase the range of looks for weapons as well meaning we would have to precreate all the combinations and load them in, which if u think about it, having 5 blades and 6 hilts alone means 30 weapon types and if that is just longswords, imagine now adding shortswords, hammers, 2handed swords, axes, 2 handed axes, staffs, and clubs to start. That would mean 30 x 8 = 240 weapon models for simply crafted weapons. This is where the numbers begin to get crazy. We have ideas that go far beyond this to include weapon types that are custom to mobs around the world as well.

On another note, armor, which we had though would only be a single choice has been taken into consideration in terms of a new idea on how to make many variants. If we could have multiple textures for a single armor type, say plate, which i believe is possible, then we could simply "stack" meshes ontop of one another and simply give all the meshes we didnt want showing an alpha making them invisable so that they would appear not there when infact there would be like 4 meshes interwoven. This then makes it possible to have different armor feels too. (This part is pretty far out there as we are still trying to see is this is possible, tho i know for a fact that having seperate meshes isnt possible as the engine limits the total to i believe 4 (cloth, leather, chain, and plate) with the exception of monk races with have an additional 1 for the monks.

So, as you can see we do have alot on our proverbial plate right now!!!! which is always fun as once we get a "portion" meaning something beyond just ideas, that it should be much easier to see what we are heading towards.

Tabidzukare · #7 05-07-2009, 07:28 PM

Hi Orison,

Sounds excellent, I think you've got a lot of great ideas and it would be great to see collaboration with Sak. When you get to the point of needing content help you know how to reach me, I won't be posting much on the boards for a while since I'm studying the code and will be for - quite some time.

Kindest Regards~~