Old Classic Skellies

[Huppy]

I was piddling around, to get some brown texture on those old skellies. The global_chr.s3d has both sets of white and brown (13 of each).
Most of the model textures get pulled from there, but the head and hip get pulled from the gequip5. I used the head and hip textures from the global_chr, converted them to dds and I seem to have got the color I wanted.

BUT there's still a glitch to work out. If you look close enough in the pic below, the brown skelly's head is mounted upside down, (his jaw on top of head), haha

If anyone has any ideas, feel free to wing it.

[Tossica]

Getting brown skels back in rof2 would be rad! No skills to offer but I'll cheer you on.

[Silwyn]

The RoF2 client has this race hardcoded to texture 0 for whatever reason. You can get the brown texture working without the head looking weird by NOP’ing the instructions out in the exe with a hex editor and using texture 1.

[Huppy]

Originally Posted by Silwyn

NOP’ing the instructions out in the exe with a hex editor

Thanks, but I'm not interested in going that far just for a brown skellie, lol.

[Silwyn]

Originally Posted by Huppy

Thanks, but I'm not interested in going that far just for a brown skellie, lol.

You had asked if anyone had any ideas so I figured I'd just share the reason why it is the way it is and the "right" way to fix it.

I don't have as much of a grasp on editing the S3D files as I do with EQGs but I believe with the way you're doing it you can also edit the DDS files in GIMP or Photoshop with the NVIDIA plugin and actually change the colors of this or pretty much any other model. Zaela and a few others were messing with this years ago and got some pretty interesting results. There's a lot of information in this thread about it.

If you get the head/jaw thing figured out you should be able to stick it into your own S3D or EQG file and load it with globalload_chr.txt or the regular globalload, respectively. You would have to just then distribute the modded model file as well as the globalload versus just having to distribute the modded exe.

[Huppy]

Originally Posted by Silwyn

You had asked if anyone had any ideas so I figured I'd just share the reason why it is the way it is and the "right" way to fix it.

Myself, I don't care for the looks of the brown skellie, I like the white texture better, but I like helping the "little people", which is why I like piddling around and start threads like this (and others) then hopefully come up with something to "share" for those that don't have the knowledge or resources.

But many of those people "little people" wouldn't have a clue what one is talking about with hex editors, etc., so I'm just going to slowly get this hashed out and then "share" the end game of it all.

[Silwyn]

Oh if its for others I’m not really sure that many people are going to want to sacrifice the original model just to have the brown one, because the original model is used so much more. That’s why I suggested trying to put it into a new file if you’re going to go the file route. Fortunately you can still share it doing it the right way and it may even be easier to share since you’d only need to give out one file instead of 2-3. In this case being able to retain the original model while getting the brown one is key I think.

Even if you decide not to something like this is great for a beginner trying to learn as we know the race ID so the instructions that are hardcoding it to texture 0 aren’t that difficult to find. I’m sure someone will be up to the challenge as we are all here to increase our knowledge.

[Huppy]

Originally Posted by Silwyn

I’m not really sure that many people are going to want to sacrifice the original model just to have the brown one, because the original model is used so much more.

Ok, maybe I am misinformed about something. I've seen various posts around of people making reference to the "original" (1999) skellie being brown in color. I have no idea, what the original looked like, because I didn't start playing EQ until after Luclin release.

But I haven't even been able to find so much as an archived screenshot from that era, of a brown colored skellie, so I have no idea. In one post I read, someone saying "We'll never get the brown skeleton's back, they don't exist anymore.", and making reference to that classic white one as a newer model, but before Luclin.

Too many people, with too many opinions and stories on the internet to find the truth these days, but nobody has any verified sources to back it all up, haha.

[Silwyn]

They were both used in Classic. The brown one is just another texture that was available and was used for certain skele nameds. I believe it was a necro pet at one point too. Screenshots aren't that difficult to find. There is one here. And here.

It is the same exact race ID as the white one just a texture. It is the client that is stopping it from showing up normally because it has some weird hardcoded nonsense in it but pretty much everyone just has it sitting in their files.

[Huppy]

Originally Posted by Silwyn

They were both used in Classic. The brown one is just another texture that was available and was used for certain skele nameds.

Didn't really notice before, but that tutorial.exe on the 99 install disk, I went through that once in the distant past, without noticing, the "evil skeleton" is a brown skellie, haha Just noticed tonight, when I fired up that tutorial again to look at something else. I can't even imagine playing this game with that client, cruising around with a tiny window, in 640 resolution, haha

[Huppy]

I'm aware of the race and texture thing, that's why I was playing with it, but if those white one's were actually part of the original , then I have no need to persue this anymore, I was just piddling around.

I know that going the route of hacking the exe, is a "solution", but I doubt many players would want the file, otherwise they would be PM'ing you right now for yours, haha. People are skeptical of hacked binaries these days and tend to stay away from them, so it wouldn't do much good for a production server, if that's what someone's intentions were. But it would be good for those playing around with private projects.

[Silwyn]

Originally Posted by Huppy

I'm aware of the race and texture thing, that's why I was playing with it, but if those white one's were actually part of the original , then I have no need to persue this anymore, I was just piddling around.

I know that going the route of hacking the exe, is a "solution", but I doubt many players would want the file, otherwise they would be PM'ing you right now for yours, haha. People are skeptical of hacked binaries these days and tend to stay away from them, so it wouldn't do much good for a production server, if that's what someone's intentions were. But it would be good for those playing around with private projects.

Yeah they were both Classic models. You made it seem at first like this change was for you so I only recommended using a hex editor because it would suit your skill level since you said you aren’t really familiar with stuff like this. I personally use my DLL for this specific patch on my server so I wouldn’t have to bother with it myself. The key is that getting rid of those instructions is the right way to do it because it retains use of both models rather than having one or the other. Then there’s the issue of the messed up jaw, etc.

Glad I could help, though. If you ever need anything else feel free to PM me.

[Huppy]

Originally Posted by Silwyn

You made it seem at first like this change was for you

My ex wife will tell you it's never been about me,(she made sure of that) haha, but thanks for all your help anyways. It's appreciated.

[Jahosphat]

Huppy, appreciate your openness to help the community. Been implementing things you've been posting, nexus spire fixes, etc.. Your work not being wasted.
-ish (Karana)

[Huppy]

Thanks Jahos,
Been piddling around with a cheesy fix to use the Sirens Bane ship in freeport. Got lots to do yet. Not sure what others were doing, but I'm simply using 6 of those launcher boats (race 73), spawned in formation to form the solid deck for the ship. Getting them to path in formation will be the easy part.

The distancing and height of them was the most tedious. That "best-z" thing wouldn't let me keep a decimal value to put the surface of the launcher floor just under the deck of the ship, so (as you see by the pic below), the new look will have to suffice. Otherwise, the toon sunk a bit into the ship deck, haha.

If I get this ship up and passenger worthy, I'll put together a query, etc and post it, for anyone interested in it.