EQG Zone Importer

[Zaela_S]

The model viewer now supports alternate "heads"/model parts (H key to cycle through them, if any) and texture sets (more or less -- T key to cycle through those).

I took a little time out to change how I was doing things a bit (LuaJIT's FFI is pretty nice) and re-wrote most of common code for my tools to be nicer. Should hopefully make it easier for me to expand and fix things in the future.

Related to that, made a new version of my S3DSpy replacement which now has an "Export as PNG" option to convert DDS images coming out. Also fixed a bug where having an s3d or eqg file open in multiple tools at the same time (i.e. EQGExport + one of my importer tools) would make changes made in one tool overwrite those made in the other; EQGExport (and other tools, as I get to them) will now check if the s3d/eqg file has been modified and reload if necessary before doing any Export or Import operations.

Originally Posted by Bonehard

Nice work Zaela!

Here is a link to a great 3d library i using in my projects:

http://assimp.sourceforge.net/

It supports alot of 3d formats. For none programmers there is also a nice viewer for 3d models on the website.

There also some api bindings for other language.

"There is a C API as well as bindings to various other languages, including C#/.net, Python and D."


Hope to see more of your nice work.

I might look into that, but I'm pretty happy using Irrlicht for now. Loading standard formats doesn't matter too much for these tool since they're mostly concerned with going to/from EQ's weird formats.

[Gnomish1987]

Originally Posted by Zaela_S

Related to that, made a new version of my S3DSpy replacement which now has an "Export as PNG" option to convert DDS images coming out. Also fixed a bug where having an s3d or eqg file open in multiple tools at the same time (i.e. EQGExport + one of my importer tools) would make changes made in one tool overwrite those made in the other; EQGExport (and other tools, as I get to them) will now check if the s3d/eqg file has been modified and reload if necessary before doing any Export or Import operations.

Speaking of your newest version of EQGExport, Zaela, I am unable to get it to run. Previous versions open just fine for me, but attempting to open the one you've linked in the above quote gives me the following error:

Runtime error:
.\lib\zlib.lua:11: cannot load module 'zlib1': The specified module could not be found.

I'm eager to see your latest additions, but this is preventing me from opening the program. Interestingly, I also get an identical error with your EQG Model Importer, though not with your EQG Weapon Model Importer. Am I doing something wrong?

EDIT: I might also inquire about the "Export as PNG" option. What becomes of the DDS image's alpha channel when this is done? I've found one of the biggest problems with converting DDS files manually to a more manageable format (always BMP in my case) is that an alpha layer can mess up the entire process unless I remember to remove it prior to conversion. Also, given that BMP is the standard format of pre-Luclin textures, is there an advantage to being able to instantly export PNG instead?

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by Gnomish1987

Speaking of your newest version of EQGExport, Zaela, I am unable to get it to run.

Hmm, I'm not sure what's up there. They work out of the box on both Windows machines I have access to (running 7 and 8). zlib1.dll should be a built-in system file since XP, I think; not sure why it might not be able to find it for you.

Originally Posted by Gnomish1987

EDIT: I might also inquire about the "Export as PNG" option. What becomes of the DDS image's alpha channel when this is done? I've found one of the biggest problems with converting DDS files manually to a more manageable format (always BMP in my case) is that an alpha layer can mess up the entire process unless I remember to remove it prior to conversion. Also, given that BMP is the standard format of pre-Luclin textures, is there an advantage to being able to instantly export PNG instead?

Not sure! PNG has an alpha channel so I imagine it just gets converted over as-is.

I didn't have any particular use in mind when I added the PNG export option, I just know I get annoyed when I run into DDS files since I don't have anything to edit them with. There's no reason not to use PNG, at least, since EQ will load any of the common image formats for any purpose. I prefer to use PNG since BMP is a bit of a space-hog.

[Shendare]

I don't believe zlib comes preinstalled with any version of Windows.

You can easily download zlib1.dll from the official website and drop it into the same folder as the program that needs it, and everything should work fine.

The current version is 1.2.8:

http://zlib.net/zlib128-dll.zip

Or you can always check the home page for the latest version:

http://zlib.net/

[Gnomish1987]

Originally Posted by Zaela_S

I didn't have any particular use in mind when I added the PNG export option, I just know I get annoyed when I run into DDS files since I don't have anything to edit them with. There's no reason not to use PNG, at least, since EQ will load any of the common image formats for any purpose. I prefer to use PNG since BMP is a bit of a space-hog.

I fully agree about BMP being a space-hog. However, don't you end up having to convert your final work to BMP eventually anyway if you're dealing with a pre-Luclin zone (when all textures were solely in BMP format)? If one did use a PNG in lieu of a BMP, could one delete the parallel BMP files and the PNG ones would be loaded in their place even with an old zone/model? (For instance, if I wanted to make a brown Old Froglok to overwrite the base Old Froglok texture.)

As for the difficulty of opening DDS, I see what you mean. I managed to find a plugin for GIMP that allows me to open them with relative ease, so I don't mind as much these days. There may be a similar plugin for your image editor of choice.

Originally Posted by Shendare

You can easily download zlib1.dll from the official website and drop it into the same folder as the program that needs it, and everything should work fine.

Thanks! I believe this was the initial problem, as both programs now open just fine.

However, while I can get full use out of the Model Viewer, EQGExport still doesn't want to play nice. It simply opens, prompts for the S3D directory, populates the list of .s3d files, then does nothing further. I'm able to select a given .s3d file, but nothing comes up on the next column. Right-clicking does nothing.

I may simply have to make do with v1.1 for the time being. Didn't mean to hijack Zaela's thread and turn it into a troubleshooting session!

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by Gnomish1987

If one did use a PNG in lieu of a BMP, could one delete the parallel BMP files and the PNG ones would be loaded in their place even with an old zone/model? (For instance, if I wanted to make a brown Old Froglok to overwrite the base Old Froglok texture.)

Yeah. The client has no expectations about what format a particular image will be in. Any BMP or DDS file could be replaced with a PNG or JPEG without problems. It just looks at whatever's there, sees if it can figure out the format it's in, and sends it off to the correct decoder for that format.

The only caveat is that, due to internal references in the .wld files, the name of the image file needs to be exactly the same as the original one you want to replace, including the extension. So if you wanted to replace "frglg0101.bmp" with a PNG, that PNG would need to be renamed to "frglg0101.bmp". The extension doesn't really matter. I'm pretty sure some of the official texture updates for older zones are actually DDS files even though they have a ".bmp" extension -- changing the names inside the .wld is a bit of a pain.

Originally Posted by Gnomish1987

However, while I can get full use out of the Model Viewer, EQGExport still doesn't want to play nice. It simply opens, prompts for the S3D directory, populates the list of .s3d files, then does nothing further. I'm able to select a given .s3d file, but nothing comes up on the next column. Right-clicking does nothing.

Now that I'm really not sure what to say to :( Both tools are pretty much identical up to the point where it decides exactly what should show up in the second column. Right-click should bring up a the menu regardless, too... I re-uploaded my most recent files just in case that helps (zlib is now included too).


Maybe I should actually make a thread for EQGExport ;p