What's all needed to make a zone?

[JrFaust]

I used DungeonBuilder 1.9. I made my dungeon no objects in it just the dungeon exported it to a .sd3 file. I wanted to see if I could use OZ to place some objects into it but it just crashes when I try. (That maybe the problem)

I placed the .sd3 file in my client directory. Then added it to my zone table in my database gave it an ID of 750 since that wasn't used and safecoords of 0, 0, 0 and the rest of the setting were default. Now when I use #zone to zone over it gives no errors but I don't zone. What part(s) have I messed up?

Thanks for your time.

[Windcatcher]

Are you overwriting an existing zone or using a new zone name? If you are using a new zone then you'll need to use a version of EQEmu that supports ZoneProxy and you'll need to use ZoneProxy 1.4. As far as I know, I'm the only one who ever uses a ZoneProxy-enabled server (0.5.5-ZP). Everyone else just overwrites existing zones. Also, if you're using ZoneProxy, there can be issues if you're within a LAN (make sure that loginserver.ini and boot5zones.bat use *local* IP addresses, but this means that no one outside your LAN can log in).

Save adding an entry to the zones table, you shouldn't have to do anything else to your database. I've made full-blown zones with dungeons and placed objects (with my own zone names), and they work just fine when I use EQEmu 0.5.5-ZP and ZoneProxy. I've even placed mobs and PoK books in them.

When you import your dungeon into OpenZone, I assume you are using File...Import...Import .3DS. What happens when you try to place an object? Have you tried it with OpenZone 6.4? If you are still having problems, I might need a copy of your dungeon so I can test it here to figure out what's wrong.

[JrFaust]

Something is wrong with my first dungeon it takes a very long time to render it. I made a new one and it renders much faster and imports into OZ fine.

[JrFaust]

Oh yeah I was trying not to overwrite a zone. I'll try naming it after a zone and recreate the .sd3 file then try zoning to it again. I'd do the zoneproxy thing but I assume that I'd need to recompile a few things and I'm not sure I'm ready to jump into those waters just yet.

Thanks for the info.

[JrFaust]

I made a zone named it paw and exported it to paw.s3d and did the export for paw_chr.s3d and it made a few others I believe for sounds. I placed it in my client directory. Loaded up EQ and #zoned to paw and there I was in the zone I made.

But I noticed one really strange thing all the textures weren't at all right. They were spotted with white, pink, purple, and black spots. I did use textures from EQ that I exported out of the neriak.s3d file.

I did notice that some of the bmp files showed in s3dspy but after they exported they wouldn't generate a preview, and PhotoShop couldn't open those. So I only used the ones that would open out side of s3dspy.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
Thank you for your time.

[Windcatcher]

1. When OpenZone exports your textures, it converts them to .DDS format (even though they have the .BMP extension). The reason is that .DDS textures preserve alpha (transparency) information, and they have good compression. Actually, it's common for the .BMP textures that come with EQ to actually be .DDS textures in disguise. S3DSpy uses a library called DevIL (Developer's Image Library) that can handle either format (and many others).

2. The client maintains a texture cache and what you're seeing is likely the textures from the last time you zoned to paw (the SOE one). If you turn off texture caching in the client before entering the world, your textures should show up fine. Off the top of my head I believe you turn off caching from the options button before logging in.

[JrFaust]

Well I turned off texture caching in the client and the textures still were messed up. I then tried some sample textures that I believe you provided and those worked fine. I'll try to do some more with it this weekend.


Thanks for your help and all the info.

[JrFaust]

Oh I saw that OZ can make a .map file, is that the same .map file that is needed for agro and line of sight?

Thanks