Zone Building

lakedoo23 · #1 03-12-2015, 10:01 AM

I just wanted to wrap my head around zone editing / building. So in my mind I need to do the following:

1. Find an editor like Blender to open the zone that is loaded client side?
2. Edit the zone in blender and save the zone to .s3d and export to a .map file for the server?
3. The .s3d should load on the client as normal with changes made?
4. The .map should load on the server as normal with changes made?

lakedoo23 · #2 03-12-2015, 09:17 PM

Ok so I was able to use Zaela's tool to export the .obj file for a zone and the materials. Now how do I recombine it back to a .S3d file?

lakedoo23 · #3 03-12-2015, 09:21 PM

nm I figured it out, can someone delete this post?

ghanja · #4 03-12-2015, 10:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lakedoo23

nm I figured it out, can someone delete this post?

Or... post your solution to those lurkers that have evidently (based on times read) read your post and may be wanting to know the same thing. Share the knowledge.

lakedoo23 · #5 03-13-2015, 10:31 AM

Hey Ghanja, I am still working on the process, so far I do the following:

1. Use Zaela_S EQG Zone Importer Tool to extract the .Obj and other textures out of the .s3d file.

2. Using Blender to load the .obj file and modify the geometry.
* I need to find a better tool, Blender can not be the best editor for this, I have been playing with MeshLab and it renders everything nicely but that tool is laggy as crap!

3. Use Zaela_s EQG Zone Importer to load the .obj and textures back into a .EQG file format.

4. I plan to use the Azone2 to extract the triangles for the .map file for the server.

So things I have noticed after dropping it into the client and testing, all the spawn points and zonelines are f'ed up after being edited. Now I think this is ok since I will be doing extensive zone modification anyways and the zone line and spawns will need to move anyhow.

I need to do a little more research on the specs for the s3d and eqg files if anyone has that information that would be awesome. I want to see if I can somehow preserve the spawnpoints and zoneline information in a newer tool or if I am missing something with Zaela_S tool or doing something wrong altogether.

lakedoo23 · #6 03-18-2015, 03:52 PM

Haha so now I see why people dont talk about editing zones much on here... I'll just leave it at that.

**Akkadius** · #7 03-18-2015, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lakedoo23

Haha so now I see why people dont talk about editing zones much on here... I'll just leave it at that.

I personally stay away from it because it is grounds for cease and desist. We typically stay away from directly modifying non-text files.

Zaela is the one who has done the most work with editing geometry though as of late.

Zaela_S · #8 03-19-2015, 02:37 PM

I'm not sure why coordinates get offset during the transition from s3d-based (WLD) to eqg-based (ZON/TER). I'm pretty sure I made it write the raw vertex coords from the s3d to the eqg, and as far as I've been able to tell there are no global offset values in the WLD data (maybe hardcoded... or I missed something somewhere). You can set global coordinate offsets for the eqg-based result in the tool (the models or objects tab (whatever I called it) has an entry for the "all the geometry in the zone" model and you can set its "position" there), but trial and error would be pretty tedious for that.

Zonelines work differently in eqg-based zones, iirc they are cubic areas you can specify in the "regions" tab. Not sure how they line up to what the client sends to the server, though... Probably easier to use scripted zonelines. I never tried transcribing the zoneline data from the s3d-based source or anything like that, because WLD format sucks.

I'm surprised you even managed to edit a zone, the mass of geometry was pretty intimidating whenver I opened one up in Blender myself ;p I figured it would be easier to make something from scratch following a tutorial or something and getting textures from the web.

I thought there already was an old tool for working with s3d-based zones without converting them to eqg, which might be what you'd want instead. I couldn't be bothered to learn about generating BSP trees and breaking the geometry down into little logical regions based on that like s3d-based zones require... eqg formats are much more straightforward.

Other than that... there's not a lot of interest in this stuff in general, I don't think. Too much work.

lakedoo23 · #9 03-19-2015, 04:48 PM

Yeah I think your right, I will probably be better off starting from scratch on the zone geometry. I was able to find a copy of Open Zone by WindCatcher is that the s3d tool your referring too Zaela_S? I think I was wrong in my assumption that editing the zone messed up the zonelines and spawnpoints I think those are driven by the database from what I gather from the tables in the mysql database, I may be wrong on this though.

Zaela_S · #10 03-19-2015, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lakedoo23

I was able to find a copy of Open Zone by WindCatcher is that the s3d tool your referring too Zaela_S?

I think that's the one, never used it myself though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lakedoo23

I think I was wrong in my assumption that editing the zone messed up the zonelines and spawnpoints I think those are driven by the database from what I gather from the tables in the mysql database

Yeah, that's right (for spawns at least, zonelines are... weird). It's the zone that "moved," the spawnpoints are still at the same coordinates.

lakedoo23 · #11 03-19-2015, 09:03 PM

I took some screencaps of the zone loaded, I used the zone importer and converted the .s3d to a .eqg file. I just copied the .eqg into the eq game folder is there something I am missing? The textures look a little weird too.

Spawns
Zone Line To North Qeynos