How to get EQ zones into 3DSMax

[Kaiyodo]

Now, I know you've always been able to get EQ zones into 3DSMax using Hackerquest's ZoneConverter by importing as an obj file, but that threw away all the texturing information leaving you with a lot of work ahead if you wanted to make some fancy renders of zones. Yesterday I modified ZoneConverter a little and wrote a big chunk of maxscript which imports zones into max while preserving all of the texture mapping.

Needless to say this is very 3DSMax specific, most of the heavy duty work is done in MaxScript. The process you need to go through to import a zone only takes a couple of minutes once you're used to it, but it takes a while to explain and makes use of a few different programs along the way. I'm only going to post the quick start section of the read me and the binaries you need to be getting along with, the source is available on my website if you want it).


Importing EQ zones into Max
----------------------------

Requirements:

Everquest Data files.
Modified ZoneConverter.
New EQModelViewer.
3DSMAx 4+ with DDS texture support (plugin available from http://developer.nvidia.com/view.asp...ression_plugin) Comes with Max5 as standard.
ZoneImporter.ms MaxScript file.

Quickstart using field of bone example:

1) Unzip EQModelViewerBinary.zip, ZoneImportMaxScript.zip and ModifiedZoneConverterBinary.zip into the same directory.
2) Load up EQModelViewer, choose EQ directory (if it's the first time it's been run) click on 'fieldofbone.s3d', click on 'Load S3D' then 'Save S3D files'
3) A directory called 'FieldofBone_Data' will have been created. Rename all extracted BMP files to DDS
4) Load up Zoneconverter and import fieldofbone.wld from the fieldofbone.s3d_Data directory. Wait until it says the logfile is saved then quit (it may crash on exit, doesn't matter)
5) Load up 3dsmax and set a map path for the 'fieldofbone.s3d_Data' directory
6) Load up the ZoneImport MaxScript and click import, select the 'Zonelog.txt' in the fieldofbone_data directory.
7) Wait a while. Done.

I'll post the three binaries and readme you'll need in a minute. For now, here's what the Arena looks like rendered from Max with a gratuitous sky slapped on by me

K.