EQEmu Admin Tool 4.8

[Windcatcher]

AT LONG LAST!!!!

Version 4.8 is up. It's compatible with EQEmu 0.5.1, and has support for some tables that are new to the emu.

I just uploaded it, so it should be available in the SourceForge download area shortly. Enjoy

P.S. OpenZone 2.6 is coming very soon, and it's going to be magnificent. I'll also be releasing a ton of new textures and a few full-scale sample zones. The only thing holding it up is how fast I can create content

[LaZZer]

Woohooo! Yeah! Time to get working!

[Shadow-Wolf]

very cool, but if it isn't too much to ask could you add maybe a script to make houses n' such it would help a lot instead of having to manualy add every wall and the floor and roof. just asking. nice job on eqemu admin.

[Bearik]

3 words:

Oh

Hell

Yes!

You own man. Thanks!

[Windcatcher]

Heh. heh. Way ahead of you. Here's a taste of what's to come (everything you see below is already done):

1. PLACEABLE OBJECTS. You'll be able to export anything you create as a static mesh, and OpenZone will maintain mesh library in a /meshes subfolder. There will be a button that pops up a list and 3D view that lets you select a mesh from the library, and you'll be able to place as many as you like with a single keystroke.

2. TREES!!! You can use the above method to place trees, but there's now a better way. The overhead texture painter will have a tab for placing meshes with single mouse clicks, and it has extra controls for making trees look nice (checkboxes that let it slightly vary the object's size and angle--trees don't all grow perfectly vertical, you know).

3. MESH GRAVITY. All placed meshes with this feature have a "gravity" setting. This means that, when gravity is TRUE, meshes will automatically affix to the ground height (and sink such that there is no gap between them and the ground). They'll also move when the ground elevation is changed. Change your ground elevation, and all the trees you placed will adjust themselves automatically.

4. LIGHT SOURCES. You'll be able to place light sources anywhere, and you can set the light color and radius for each one. One caveat, though: the EQ client does NOT do dynamic lighting; it's all static, which means that OpenZone has to precalculate which polygons are lit and which ones aren't at export time. It does this with some primitive raytracing to try to determine which polygons are lit and which are in shadow. It's not perfect, since it's limited to what the client can do, but the effect is pretty terrific nonetheless. One warning, though: the more light sources you add, the longer (much longer) it will take to export the zone to .S3D due to the necessary calculations.

5. GROUND WALK MODE. In fly mode, there will be a checkbox that, when checked, fixes you to the ground elevation when you move around.

6. PVP AREA SUPPORT. You'll be able to create PvP areas just like water and lava areas; the only difference is that PvP areas don't use textures like the other types do.

7. LIGHT SOURCES INCLUDED WITH MESHES. Meshes in the mesh library can optionally have a light source come along for the ride. For instance, placing the torch mesh will also place a yellow light source. As I write this, light sources have to be created manually in the mesh file, but I plan on making this possible from within the program.

8. MASKED TEXTURES. Think trees: some areas are transparent and some aren't. I do this with 32-bit .BMP files that store transparency in the alpha channel, and I've added a menu item to OpenZone that will convert a .BMP file that has transparency represented as a single color to one of this type. Also, I found that the client will only do masked textures properly if the textures are all in .DDS (not .BMP) format. I found an open-source library that does this conversion nicely, and from now on OpenZone will automatically convert your textures to .DDS format when it builds .S3D files.

9. CONTENT. So far I've created meshes for torches, lanterns, hanging lanterns with a side mount, tents, tiki torches, miscellaneous furniture, and one tree type (I'll try at least one more before I release it). Since you can export anything you create as a mesh, the sky's the limit.

10. TONS OF NEW TEXTURES. Mountainous areas, transition textures between them and grass, lava (which looks infinitely better than the EQLive lava), and many other textures. I've also created some crappy-looking fire textures, but I found that the client automatically uses its built-in fire textures for any "placed" mesh objects (that is, objects that go into the <zone>_obj.s3d file). The fire textures I have are therefore just placeholders.

11. ENHANCED SCRIPTS. I've enhanced several scripts to give greater control over how the textures are mapped. This is mostly for creating placeable meshes that look good.


I want to try to create a dungeon zone before I release this so I can tackle whatever problems might arise. I'm anticipating creating some dungeon-specific scripts (corridors, turns, intersections, rooms, etc.) to make it easier.

WC

P.S. This is as you might imagine a ton of work. I'd really really really appreciate it if someone could take care of porting ZoneProxy support over to EQEmu 0.5.1 in the meantime...I certainly don't think I can keep up with doing the port every time a new version of EQEmu comes out, and it's necessary to make OpenZone useful.

[Wumpas]

:idea: Great work and I brainstormed an idea for open zone 2.6


Heres some Inspiration for zone builders

http://ranjoco.150m.com/savage/history.htm

Pre claticlism (spelling) the Continent of Tunaria (present day Antonica)

I am not sure this history page is that acurate to curent eq storyline as I couldn't find any links to the combine empire. None the less alot of good history that could inspire some neat content in the future

[cofruben]

woot thanks wind!!good work,i will check it then.

[Shadow-Wolf]

aww man if i had any skills with programming id try and help with zoneproxy but im like super stupid and dont know anything =/ can't wait until openzone 2.6 comes out, sounds great.

[Shadow-Wolf]

err sorry for the double-post

[Xandyr]

Great tool Windcatcher,

I have a couple of bugs to post (sorry if this is not the right area)

First of all I have started with a fresh 5.1 database and have updated it with information from a world script (one of the rc's but thats not important for this)


First issue is when I load the program iand set the database properties, it responds with Exception: tblNPCTypes: Field 'name' not found. Could this be a old table as the current table is npc_types and yes it does have a name(type memo) column. After it errors it continues.

Next issue (and more important to me) is the Character Tab, it displays incorrect information in the sub tabs (stats, stats2..) when I click on another id it returns with the error as follows:
You have a error in your SQL syntax 'SELECT * FROM inventory WHERE charid=4 SELECT * FROM inventory'

Should also note that tradeskills and objects do not show in the program even though they are in the database

Last note (though this is prossibly not due to this software) The showeq maps do not all show correctly. ie the mobs are all bunched up on some maps and it doesn't display the zones lines as expected. (I had experiened this with showeq last time I used it which was well over a year ago)

All in all I love the tool and it deffinetly speeds up changes than using mysqlfront

Keep up the great work and look forward to your new features.

Xandyr

[Sauron]

It looks like the class numbers in the admin tool are not up to date.

I did some expermenting and this seem to be the cause of some more issues.
After the first error about the field 'name' not found in npc_types. If you close out the admin tool and re-enter it you get no errors initially. However once you go into the npc tab you get an error:

"Access Violation at address 0053A6E3 in module 'FQAdmin.exe'. Read of address 00000000."

Now some of the NPCs that should be showing up in that list have class numbers above 32 which according to the out dated class list would be the max.
Now I could be wrong although I do alot of freelance programming in C++ and Visual Basic my debugging skills are somewhat lacking but I would tend to think that the outdated classes are linked to this.

The classes.txt file in the admin tool directory should look like this:

1 Warrior
2 Cleric
3 Paladin
4 Ranger
5 Shadow Knight
6 Druid
7 Monk
8 Bard
9 Rogue
10 Shaman
11 Necromancer
12 Wizard
13 Magician
14 Enchanter
15 Beastlord
20 GM Warrior
21 GM Cleric
22 GM Paladin
23 GM Ranger
24 GM Shadow Knight
25 GM Druid
26 GM Monk
27 GM Bard
28 GM Rogue
29 GM Shaman
30 GM Necromancer
31 GM Wizard
32 GM Magician
33 GM Enchanter
34 GM Beastlord
40 Banker
41 Shopkeeper
61 Adventure Merchant

however updating the classes.txt file only seems to create more problems because the FQAdmin pulls an error and stops loading all of it's files as soon as it detects that there are more than 32 lines in the classes.txt file.

Anyway not sure if this helps any. Just my insight into one of the bugs. Almost everything else works great though. With how many changes have taken place in 5.0 there was bound to be a few bugs here and there.

[Arley McFarley]

Thanks for the update, Windcatcher.

I'm running into the same problems as Xandyr using TCS_MW_051_052_alpha1.zip database. I figure the tables are there, but I get the error anyway.

"tblNPCTypes: Field 'name' not found"
"You have a error in your SQL syntax "

Since I've been running into these errors, I really haven't been able to use the tool. It crashes, sometimes, when I try to click between characters.

I also wanted to get in and mess around with my old 4.3 database. Is the tool backward compatible, or should I run a previous version of the Admin Tool to play around with 4.3?

On the complimentary side...
I noticed a significant decrease in app startup and access times. I had been using the 3.7 version with my old EQEmu 4.3 server and it took ages to load and consumed tons of system and virtual memory. This one seems to load and run much more efficiently. Thanks!

I appreciate your work on this tool and the recent release to support 5.1.

Kudos!

Arley

[Windcatcher]

I'll get a fixed version out just as soon as I get over this flu. I've been stuck in bed with it for the past week. :(

[Xandyr]

Sorry to hear that Wind. I had a nasty bit of that a couple of weeks ago.. Hope you get better soon.

Xandyr