EQG Weapon Model Importer v0.1

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by knowom

Cloud Strife's Buster Sword...in all it's EQ glory!

And now you know why they went with it: distinctive while using very few triangles ;p

One model's worth of experience helps a bit:





Last from me... hopefully.

[Weldarr]

Played around with blender some the past day or two and ended up here:



and eventually here:



Obviously not great, but I will admit, I had a blast learning about the different techniques and methods to do stuff!


- Vaion
The Hidden Forest

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by Zaela_S

Last from me... hopefully.

I lied.



Crappy flat texture and I put the attachment point too low (seems to match up with the top of the hand rather than the center). But, you know, nostalgia points.

It's too bad this stuff will probably see hardly any use. Someone with just a little artiness and the patience to put together textures from photo-quality sources could make some pretty sweet weapon models. A sword made of floating, glowy fragments would be first on my non-rip-off list if I could do non-rip-off stuff.

[vsab]

That last one would probably sell in the Marketplace in EQLive. Plenty of stuff being generated by Player Studio on EQ Live is not as good as that!

It's the bane of pretty much any open source game I've looked into. The ratio of programmers to 3D artists is about 10,000:1, however seeing as there's 10's if not 100's of player created items in EQ Live marketplace, there *are* people out there... I don't know if you've used Player Studio? I've not used it since it's not available outside of the US (probably for copyright issues).

[Nydosa]

Could you use any of the available 3D Printing/Additive Manufacturing sites and download weapon models there?

I know yeggi.com is a nice one... here's a few example weapons that might be "easy" to texture.
http://www.yeggi.com/

Skull Axe

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:164345

Light Saber? Heh...

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:321812

Another cool sword here:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:192098


May find some time to play with it this weekend.
~Reppots (from SoD forums)

[Zaela_S]

Originally Posted by vsab

I don't know if you've used Player Studio? I've not used it since it's not available outside of the US (probably for copyright issues).

Hadn't heard of it. I'm not in the US either though.

Interesting that they say they expect specular maps on the site, though. I can't seem to find any specular maps (or the exact name of the property for it) among any of the extant weapon models.

Originally Posted by Nydosa

Could you use any of the available 3D Printing/Additive Manufacturing sites and download weapon models there?

Probably waaaay too detailed. None of the extant weapon models I've looked at even reach 1000 triangles -- probably more than that just in the grip of that axe, with all those smooth curves.

[Zaela_S]

I put up a new minor version at the download link.

Now that I know my way around a bit better, this tool now also supports importing from .obj (Wavefront) format. It's somewhat more complicated to use than .ply, but .obj encapsulates separate materials and objects (i.e. different sections of the model) from Blender (or whatever) rather than just the geometry. This enables things like having one part of the model be shiny and another not, or different parts of the model having different source textures (inefficient, but may be easier to work with for UV unwrapping), and may just generally save a little time if you're setting things up properly in your modelling program.

The process is pretty much the same as with importing from .ply:


When you have your model ready, find the option to export to Wavefront (.obj).


There's more export options to consider this time. As in the image, you'll want to be sure to have these options selected:

* Apply Modifiers
* Include Edges
* Write Normals
* Include UVs
* Write Materials
* Triangulate Faces

"Objects as OBJ Objects" probably isn't needed, but it doesn't hurt. Remember that you may need to set the Forward and Up directions to weird values to make your model show up right-way round in-game.


Aaaand then select Import Model > From .obj in the tool.

Provided you have all the relevant files (the .obj and .mtl files from the export, and any image files for the material textures) in the same folder when you import, they will all be loaded in for you. The image files will automatically be flipped (and converted to .png if they weren't already).


Note that only diffuse and normal map textures are recognized for the materials; other values captured during the export are mostly unused by the client. You'll have to add any other properties (like shininess) in the tool.

[Burningsoul]

Holy shit, I don't routinely stalk a thread for a few days, and somebody posts A FRELLING BUSTER SWORD?! I love you guys. I love that after 10 years* EqEmu is a source of both learning and laughter. <3 you all.

[Zaela_S]

Mmh. Maybe I should just keep trying to make models myself and put up a custom .eqg full of my work for any custom servers that want to use 'em... Probably a lot easier than trying to make another fully custom server myself while still finding time to make more. Weapon model overrides would have made a cool donator perk, though.

Shouldn't be any issue since it would be a fully custom file with no company-owned content in it. Could whip up a quick patcher program too.

Dunno. Still much better at the programming part than the modelling part :| Still need to get the hang of particles too!

[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.

[knowom]

Here's a example involving swapping katta zone textures into unrest zone. I highlighted the textures for both in bold. Don't worry about the extension changes from .dds to .bmp textures you can rename a .dds graphic file to .bmp and it'll work fine as a .bmp file.

katta.s3d katta_hrock01.dds replaces entryway.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d katroof03.dds replaces roof.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d katroof03.dds replaces 1roof.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d katcathwindow_s.dds replaces interiorwall.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d kattagrass.dds replaces xgrasdir.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d kattagrass.dds replaces xgrass1.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d kattower01.dds replaces floor.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d katta_hrock03.dds replaces newbrickwall.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d katvampfloor01.dds replaces block.bmp unrest.s3d
katta.s3d katvampfloor02.dds replaces stoneblocksn.bmp unrest.s3d


Is it possible to create a patch program that could load a similar config file which the mod maker would create and a user would load to patch. In this situation loading katta .s3d files textures renaming them and overwriting them to the specified unrest textures a bit like example below.

load katta.s3d katta_hrock01.dds rename to entryway.bmp copy and replace into unrest.s3d

[Zaela_S]

Yeah, I understood the concept. And as I said, writing the program would be the easy part. I just think it would tend to produce ugly, homogenized results. I'm not sure how interested anyone else would be in it. Quite, quite niche. If you want it, maybe you should make it yourself.

I'm also not sure what it has to do with a thread about custom weapon models and the making thereof.

FYI, renaming a file from "whatever.dds" to "something.bmp" doesn't change it from a DDS to a BMP. It's still a DDS file. File extensions are just hints for humans; they don't mean anything to machines.

[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.

[Uleat]

On making zone lines match up..just remember that you'll need to take into account the hard-coded zone lines of certain zones.