The Lantern Project

[LanternEQ]

Today, after long delay, I am releasing the EverQuest tools I have been working on for the past year. My project is called Lantern and consists of three parts. You can find more information about it at http://www.lanterneq.com/

LantenExtractor
An open source asset extractor for EverQuest files. It has functionality to extract the game data contained within the S3D files. This includes things like textures, sounds and the encoded WLD files. This functionality is very similar to other programs available (EQInside, S3DSpy). The extractor goes a step further with its ability to extract zone, object and character geometry, collision models, vertex animations, lights, sound and music instance lists. You can then use these assets as you wish. Want to use EverQuest assets in another game project? Go right ahead. Want to make a 3d print of your favorite character model? Be my guest. There are a lot of similar projects out there but none of them handles everything correctly and most are several years old. The LanternExtractor aims to fix this.

You can find more information here: http://www.lanterneq.com/extractor/

LanternUnityImporter
For those of you that wish to use the game assets in prototypes or personal projects, I have created a Unity project with a one click importer for EverQuest zones. Unity is an amazingly powerful game engine and allows you to quickly and easily make games. The importer will populate zone geometry, object instances, lights and fix shader and material references. It currently supports Unity 2018.2 and 2018.3 but if you need it to work with a newer/older version, let me know.

You can find more information here: http://www.lanterneq.com/unity-importer/

LanternEQ
LanternEQ is a recreation of the original EverQuest client allowing you to play much as you did back in 1999. The project has been on hold for a few months as I finalized the extractor. It is still in the early stages but the idea is to allow people to play EverQuest (online and offline) long after the official servers are taken down. You can read more about this project and download builds. The functionality is currently limited but the base architecture has been implemented allowing for quick feature implementation.

You can find more information here: http://www.lanterneq.com/builds/

I realize these projects are not relevant to everyone but I hope a few of you find it interesting. Let me know if you find any bugs or have feature requests. Additionally, if you're interested in beta testing newer pre-releases of the LanternEQ project, let me know.