Okay, here goes...
1. To create a new zone using a heightmap, open up the new zone window. At the top is a checkbox specifying whether to create a flat zone or one using a heightmap. By default, it's already checked. Then enter the coordinates of the *center* of the zone in the lower left area. Then, in the lower right, enter the *size* of the entire zone. For the output-blah-blah-rotated.tga heightmap that I included, my settings were
Center: 0, 0, 62
Size: 4000, 4000, 400
Then select your textures for the land and underwater areas. I used grass.bmp and barren_ground.bmp. All of my textures are available on the FTP site, and I have them all in my library\textures folder (they're not in a textureset subfolder like \library\textureset\ecommons).
Once you have everything selected, click Ok and you'll be presented with a dialog to open the heightmap file (either .BMP or .TGA). OpenZone will then generate the meshes from that information.
What is a mesh? It's a generic term for a collection of polygons. Think of a screen door or a screen on a window. It's an aluminum wire mesh. A collection of polygons is thought of the same way (though they tend to be triangles instead of squares).
Perhaps this is a good time to discuss what I mean by "textureset". At any given time, OpenZone knows about two kinds of textures: "common" and "textureset". Common textures all reside in library\textures and are available no matter what zone you're working on. However, if you have a lot of textures, you might want to put those textures that are specific to a zone in their own folders so they only show up when you're working on that zone. For example, if you made a bunch of textures that you only use wth ecommons, you could make a library\textures\ecommons subfolder and put those textures in there. When you select the ecommons textureset, the common textures and the ecommons textures will be available on the texture drop-down lists, but textures in any other textureset folders will be hidden. I define "textureset" as those textures that are specific to a particular zone and reside in a subfolder of the same name. It's a way of making large numbers of textures manageable.
There is one caveat to creating a new zone with a heightmap: at this time, you have to have your water settings already set *before* you create the zone. That's because OpenZone first reads the heightmap, creates a single ground mesh from it using the ground texture only, and then breaks it up along all the water boundaries. It's a permanent type of thing. What I do to first figure out where I want my water areas to be is this: create a new zone using *only* a ground texture and then play with my water settings until I'm happy with them. Then, when I'm satisfied with them, click "new" again and re-create the zone with both ground and underwater textures.
There are third-party programs for creating heightmaps. There are two heightmaps (not programs) supplied with OpenZone. I found the first one with a freeware program, though I don't remember where. The other, the output-blah-blah.tga, I created with a freeware program called World Machine. You can find it with any search engine. It's got a steep learning curve but is very good aat creating "realistic" heightmaps. I created mine with this and exported it as 8-bit grayscale TGA. There are others out there as well.
2. See above for meshes in general, but yes, I also refer to them with special meaning in the documentation. Referring to OpenZone meshes I mean this: *all* objects in OpenZone are meshes, that is, three-dimensional objects, but I'm specifically referring to non-scripted objects (ground, underwater polygons, bounding boxes). Technically scripted objects are supersets of meshes: their size and shape are configurable, whereas basic OpenZone meshes can't be changed.
3. Why would you need a .WLD? You don't, not anymore. Before I figured out how to create .S3D files it was the only way to make a custom zone, but now that everything about .S3D's is known, I wouldn't bother with .WLD files.
The reason for GC3 was if you wanted to create .WLD files that *reference* the textures that come with EQ. You can't distribute those textures, but you could distriute your .WLD files and rely on users to insert them into their .S3D files. Frankly now that we can create .S3D files with our own textures, I think the usefulness of .WLD and GC3 is dubious. GC3 can convert the .DDS textures that come with EQ into .BMP so you can see them when you're making your scene file. Aside from that, it has little other use. In my opinion we should simply concentrate on making our own textures, and that's what I'm doing.
4. You only need to worry about XML files if you're dealing with OGRE, which is an open-source 3D engine. You see, OGRE has a file format called OGRE-MESH (yes, I know it's confusing) that is in XML format. XML is very much like HTML, that is, it's a text-based format that uses tags. It's great for transmitting and parsing information. At some point I might convert my .SCN file format to use XML. Anyway, at the current time, it all boils down to the fact that OpenZone can import OGRE-MESH XML files and 3DS-Max .3DS files. They're somewhat equivalent to .SCN files in that they describe geometric information.
5. Texturesets have *nothing* to do with real EQ files: they only provide a way to categorize textures so you don't wind up with a huge mess of textures. OpenZone can work with the common textures and one textureset at a time. However, the *name* of the textureset is used when you export to .S3D; the name of the .S3D and its internal .WLD rely on your textureset name, so realistically your textureset names should be the same as the zone short_names. I have a dream that someday a third-party client will emerge that can load any zone (not just the EQ zones) and then you'll be able to call your texturesets anything you like.
Do you have to create all your own textures? Yes, if you want to distribute .S3D files, since they contain your textures. I use a program called Texture Maker to make mine. It's shareware or somesuch, but I bought the registered version. You can find it on any search engine. It might seem steep at $70 but let me tell you, it's worth every penny. I'm still floored every time I use it.
WC
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:lol: 
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