EQEmulator Forums - View Single Post - Classic Spell Effects Do Not Come Out of Hands

Tabidzukare · #13 04-20-2009, 09:17 AM

Thanks so much Trevius for your insight. I went ahead and did some tests myself, just to see if anything yielded .. well.. anything! Here's what I did..

Quick notes- T.Ed = Titanium Edition, VE = Velious Era, (actual) means not renamed from my first experiement (the T. Ed spells/spellsnew.eff/edds)

TEST 1
Using
- spells.eff --> spellsnew.eff (renamed)
Not Using:
- spellsnew.eff (actual)
Results:
No spell graphics OR sounds whatsoever.
Notes:
Now having observed more closely the file structure .eff appears to be sound storage files... if that's true.. why then does deleting of all things an .eff file restore the old particles.. intriguing to say the least.

TEST 2
Using
- spells.eff (actual)
- spellsnew.EDD
Not Using
- spellsnew.eff (actual)
Results:
Classic Spell Graphics (CSG), Not Bound To Hands (NBTH)
Notes:
Restored the visualization of spells -- whats interesting about that is that, by restoring a .eff (supposed sound archive..) the graphics returned. Making use of the .edd file for the new spells changed nothing readily visible. (Haven't tried a renamed spells --> spellsnew.eff + spellsnew.edd)

TEST 3
Using
- spells.eff (actual)
- spellsnew.edd
- Folder: SpellEffects (VE)
Not Using
- Folder: SpellEffects (T.Ed)
- spellsnew.eff (actual)
Results:
CSG NBTH
Notes:
At this point seeing no direct connection with spells.eff/.edd I started looking closer at the folders. I compared them to what existed back with a fresh trilogy install and now. Many things were missing however they did share (relating to spells) a single 'SpellEffects' folder. While this test yielded no difference. Take a look INSIDE of the folder. There's a 'paths.ini' and inside it details information such as offsets of spell effects and the control of the graphics themselves, it's text based even replacing it with a velious paths.ini though didn't yield anything. I'll be digging into this file later and seeing if I can't change anything with it, but for now it remains an entertaining mystery.

TEST 4
Using
- spells.eff (actual)
- Folder: SpellEffects (VE)
Not Using:
- Folder: SpellEffects (T.Ed)
Results:
CSG NBTH
Notes:
ActorEffects doesn't exist in the Velious install, so I'm thinking it only matters to the 'new spells' as it didn't effect anything visually by removing it.

TEST 5
Using (All Velious Era)
- spells.eff
- Folder: SpellEffects
Not Using (All Titanium Edition)
- Folder: SpellEffects
Results:
CSG NBTH
Notes:
There was an additional Velious file called spdat.eff... I thought it might contain something, so I added it.. sadly there was no effect, perhaps sp here means split paw?? Well.. I'm no professing to be smart here One notable exception here is including spellsnew.eff yielded 'new' graphics for a few spells like Siphon Strength, yet NOT for Lifetap which was changed visually at the same time.

TEST 6
Using (Velious Era)
- spells.eff
- Folder: SpellEffects
Not Using:
- Folder: SpellEffects (T.Ed)
Results:
CSG NBTH
Notes:
Well.. I'm hitting a brick wall (repeatedly!) though I'm sure some more enlightened individuals will note this with sympathy and perhaps a bit of humor as well...

TEST 7
Using
- spells.eff (VE)
- Folder: SpellEffects (VE)
Not Using:
- SPOffsets.ini from Folder: Resources (T.Ed)
Results:
CSG NBTH
Notes:
Another pleasing mystery as paths.ini, this SPOffsets.ini contains information on offsets of spells based on player characters.. it has the ability to alter X/Z if i recall correctly though deleting it had no effect whatsoever on the old graphics. Perhaps altering this while using the new graphics could prove that something internal is using this information (in which case we couldn't alter it .. easily)

Final thoughts
Though my tests were in essence, useless.. I've learned a few things.
The spell particles themselves, appear to be controlled by the text file paths.ini which links the .tga files in SpellEffects together to form an effect based on a line.

The particles in the .tga files don't relate to the graphics coming from the hands that I can see..

Ok - so two separate entities. Now, the curious thing is that .eff files seem to alter the appearance of the graphics despite them also controlling sounds. There remains one set of files in the SpellEffects folder (.dds if I remember correctly) and these could possibly be the hand emissions.

On a side note here. I haven't had time to look at the tool that views spell particles.. but in that video are there hand emissions floating with the various effects?? If not, the first big thing is to locate where these hand graphics are and try to identify a link between them. Even if we can just mess up the hand portion of the graphics we'll at least know what affects them and see about controlling it.

I'll try more on these leads later.. but holy smokes batman did this post absorb 40 minutes of my day..