EQG Weapon Model Importer v0.1

[knowom]

A patch program I'd absolutely love to see is one that could mod patch texture swap EQ's own textures locally. Like taking all of Innothule's textures and apply them to other zones via a patch program with a quick patch config files that you could share to load for users to locally patch. This would among other things allow remolding seamlessly zone lines between zones which never belonged together without them look out of place just fix the zone in and zone out textures to match presto looks normal and intentional as if it always belonged together. There is a lot of potential for it because a lot of the Luclin and beyond textures are flat out better looking plus all the neat zone line immersion remixing trickery that could be done. This also could be handy for 3D model textures as well of course especially with your earlier program that allows you to add new ID's.

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by knowom

A patch program I'd absolutely love to see is one that could mod patch texture swap EQ's own textures locally. Like taking all of Innothule's textures and apply them to other zones via a patch program with a quick patch config files that you could share to load for users to locally patch.

I don't have much experience with zone textures, but that seems like it would be pretty tedious to work with. It's not like you can just swap one zone's textures over another's and expect to get something coherent. I'm pretty sure they aren't standardized or anything; deciding which textures should replace which would take a lot of care. And even then, one zone might have 6 or 7 textures for "grass" while another has one or two or none. And some textures get stretched out a lot more than others, or expect to be stretched a certain way (I'm thinking of paths in parts of gfaydark and butcherblock and such, for example).

Actually setting up such texture swap patches that don't look totally awful would take much, much more work than writing a program to make the swaps.

edit: Let's not forget transition textures either, like when a zone has a grass texture and a dirt texture, and then a third texture where grass transitions to dirt in a nice, clean, edge-hiding way. Can't expect such things to be equivalent among different zones. And just ignoring transitions in a zone that normally has them would presumably give you some rather stark changes, clearly pointing out different sections of geometry in the zone. Etc etc etc.

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by knowom

This would among other things allow remolding seamlessly zone lines between zones which never belonged together without them look out of place just fix the zone in and zone out textures to match presto looks normal and intentional as if it always belonged together.

Having thought about it a bit more, I want to point out that this is pretty silly.

Wanting zone lines to look like they connect together is about the most minor concern a player or developer could have. Plus, if you actually look at the "proper" zone connections, you'll find that they pretty much never look like they belong together, at all. Walk a few steps from the edge of a swamp and bam! you're in a leafy, viney jungle. Go in some random cave in a watery, rocky place and bam! haunted mansion with a manicured lawn. Find some book on a pedestal in some random place and bam! PoK.

My advice would be just to connect zones however you want. Players won't bat an eye if a random shop door in Kelethin leads to the Plane of Fear (if anything, it would turn into a server-wide in-joke as soon as it's discovered). They don't expect them to make sense. And they'd probably rather see the Unrest they remember connected to an underwater shaft in Kedge than see it as some sterilized Luclin-looking zone.