EQG Zone Importer

[knowom]

Packet btw I'm using InfranView image effects on some of those screenshots and they look even nicer with a "unmask sharp" between 2-4 applied. Image effect and filters in InfranView/GIMP/Photoshop can really do wonders to enhance textures. Merging two or more textures together to form a more detailed one can be a very nice touch also.

Here's a example of how you can enhance texture detail. This could really enhance some of your textures in a nice way though though they really aren't bad as is. I feel like the wood and rock textures in particular could personally benefit from a bit finer detail touches added to spruce them up.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/arc...-textures.aspx

Very awesome Packet and Zaela for providing the great tool that aided in the creation of it. Could make lots of different kinds of texture variations for your zone Packet. The MOBA design is great and could see it being widely used EQemu could use more custom zones like this. It's not only awesome, but it could actually be freely modded and shared around easily without all the copyright hassles presented with zones owned by Sony.

[knowom]

Would love to see a step by step basic tutorial process on your zone creation Packet this is dope!

[Zaela_S]

The guard falling through the air really sells it.

I put up a new version, now has a mass triangle flag editor window in the "triangles" tab. Can edit flags for triangles based on a sub-range of them, the material they use, or both; and the flags themselves can either be overwritten to the new value or bitwise or'd to set specific bits on top of whatever they had before. Pretty simple. Might add an option for un-setting bits later.

Learned that bit 1 sets permeability/not counting for collision, so that's labelled now too.

[Leetsauce]

Beautiful. Probably the coolest thing I've seen to date integrated into EQ. Can you pretty much map anything? FF7 textures, perhaps?

[Zaela_S]

Making a client would be thousands of times harder than some dinky data editor, both in terms of effort and of required know-how. Would take far better programmers than me! (I made my "attempt" a few months back, good excuse to learn the basics of 3D graphics but not something to waste more than a few weeks on.) Of course, anyone who could work on that would probably be better served doing something for money, or at least, something that isn't trying to simulate a 15-year-old game client.

If someone were trying to make a "generic" make-your-own-MMO client, making it compatible with EQEmu servers probably wouldn't be worth it. EQ has too much legacy crap and terrible decisions that only made sense in ancient times (e.g. giving the client way too much information about enemy positions).

[vsab]

Oh god no, I'm not volunteering to write a new client! But I do need to brush up on OpenGl & Unity3d Let's face it a million people have posted "anyone fancy writing a new client?" and not gone anywhere.

And I think Windcatcher's code was written in Delphi (for which I have no IDE) and the source is hiding somewhere not obvious...

[Scorpious2k]

Didn't Windcatcher have a program that converted a bmp to an image with transparency by adding the alpha layer? I think it came with OpenZone. Maybe it has some clues.

[Zaela_S]

S3D-based zones have a bit flag for texture visibility settings. No direct equivalent in EQG-based zones.

Originally Posted by Zaela_S

The shader does seem like a logical place to look, though.

"Alpha_MPLBasicA.fx" seems like a good place to start. Will test later.

Need to compile a list of shader names at some point, seems like there are a bunch used by zones.

[KLS]

Mat: brnch Alpha_MPLBumpAT.fx
prop: e_TextureDiffuse0 Di_Birch_branch03.dds
prop: e_TextureNormal0 Di_Birch_branch01_n.dds
prop: e_TextureCoverage0 oakcover.dds
prop: e_TextureFallback0 Di_Birch_branch03.dds
prop: e_fCoverageScale0 0.050000

There's the tree branches on the birch trees from Nektulos.

[Packet]

Originally Posted by Scorpious2k

Didn't Windcatcher have a program that converted a bmp to an image with transparency by adding the alpha layer? I think it came with OpenZone. Maybe it has some clues.

It was built-in to OpenZone, definitely. We could use a material which had two textures. One as the diffuse and the other as the opacity map (the black and white cuttout).

Originally Posted by Zaela_S

Yeah you're right, I tried in game myself and it doesn't seem to respect alpha. I have no idea again. Nothing jumps out at me. The shader does seem like a logical place to look, though.

Whoops, laziness. I just put up a quick fix.

Yeah. I was surprised PNG's worked though so that's good. I think I'm going to install a dds plugin for photoshop cs6 so that I can work with the native texture format now that you've confirmed that I'm not insane.

Originally Posted by KLS

Mat: brnch Alpha_MPLBumpAT.fx
prop: e_TextureDiffuse0 Di_Birch_branch03.dds
prop: e_TextureNormal0 Di_Birch_branch01_n.dds
prop: e_TextureCoverage0 oakcover.dds
prop: e_TextureFallback0 Di_Birch_branch03.dds
prop: e_fCoverageScale0 0.050000

There's the tree branches on the birch trees from Nektulos.

Interesting. I'll try this again tomorrow and see if I can get this to come out. I suppose the first step is taking out all of these textures and examine which one is which and does what. The normal is obviously the bump mapping and the diffuse is the actual texture itself. So the only thing left is the Fallback & Coverage. I've seen coverage on materials without any alpha masking so I assume it's the fallback but I suppose we'll see tomorrow. Thanks for pointing this out KLS.

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by Packet

Yeah. I was surprised PNG's worked though so that's good. I think I'm going to install a dds plugin for photoshop cs6 so that I can work with the native texture format now that you've confirmed that I'm not insane.

DDS isn't any different. It's all the same by the time it gets to the renderer anyway.

[Zaela_S]

Finally got the chance to test. Definitely controlled by the material shader:

Opaque_MaxCB1.fx (tool default)


Alpha_MPLBasicA.fx


Maybe not that exact one since it seems to have made the alpha texture further away show in front of the closer one around the middle there. But, you know.

[Akkadius]

This is all crazy shit

[KLS]

Looking at the disassembly for EQGraphicsDX9 it appears keywords in shader names determine the basic render method for the material.

There being a major keyword and a minor keyword that determines what render effect it has.

eg:

WaterFall

Water

Terrain

Lava2

Lava

AddAlpha
	CBSGE1
	CBGG1
	CBSG1
	CBS1
	CB1
	CE1
	CG1
Alpha
	MPLBasic
	MPLBlendNoBump
	MPLBlend
	MPLFull2UV
	MPLFull
	MPLBump2UV
	MPLBump
	MPLSB2UV
	MPLSB
	MPLGB2UV
	MPLGB
	MPLRB2UV
	MPLRB
	C1DTP
	CBSG1_2UV
	CBST2_2UV
	CB1_2UV
	C1_2UV
	CBGGE1
	CBSGE1
	CBSE1
	CBE1
	CBGG1
	CBSG1
	VSB
	CBS1 (applies only if VSB not found)
	CBS_2UV
	CB1
	CE1
	CG1
Chroma
	MPLBasic
	CBSGE1
	CBGG1
	CBSG1
	VSB
	CBS1 (applies only if VSB not found)
	CB1
	CE1
	CG1
AnythingElse (eg Opaque)
	MPLBasic
	MPLBump
	CBSGE1
	CBGG1
	CBSG1
	CBS1
	CB1
	CE1

[KLS]

Mat: ddbrnch Chroma_MPLBumpAT.fx
prop: e_TextureDiffuse0 Di_Birch_branch_bare.dds
prop: e_TextureNormal0 Di_Birch_branch_bare_n.dds
prop: e_TextureCoverage0 oakcover.dds
prop: e_TextureFallback0 Di_Birch_branch_bare.dds
prop: e_fCoverageScale0 1.000000

Here's another branch, it appears Chroma materials also have some sort of blending to them.

Also are those ropes part of the TER or are they a placeable?