Custom items, here they come~

[KhaN]

Hola~

After months of works, brainstorming and testing to implement custom weapons in EQEmu, i finally succeded yesterday, AYE~ Right now, the process is still in early beta, and still bugged, the weapon doesnt not appear correctly in hand (There must be an entity reference somewhere in WLD structure), but at least, now, custom weapon show up and move with the characters.
If some are interested in having custom weapons i will post the process when i will have bugs fixed, but inc screenshots im sure many are waiting since a long time.

Ingame
www.worldofalkora.com/users/khan/EQ000187.jpg
www.worldofalkora.com/users/khan/EQ000188.jpg

Weapon Render
http://www.atralumen.com/artworks/co...s/ILDT01XX.jpg

[mangoo]

That's awesome Khan, nice work.

[Windcatcher]

I believe the xyz origin has to be at the end of the weapon (near the hilt). Then I think the weapon will appear correctly.

[KhaN]

Nope, i can move the weapon at every XYZ coords i want, weapon in PC hand, wil appear in "XYZ middle coords" (i dont know how to fully say it, just look at screenshots).

[RangerDown]

So.... will this allow me to dual wield 10lb trouts?

[Windcatcher]

I did some checking...the problem is in OpenZone. I'm going to have to add an option to convert directly from .3ds to .msh. I'll try to get it working tonight and get an update out.

[KhaN]

Also, change the way OZ rename objects (add a number at the end), because it make it hard to make items name

[Windcatcher]

Okay, I'll have it only add a number if it has no choice to avoid a duplicate.

[Shadow-Wolf]

Very nice work khan. Whats the polycount on the sword? Starting to model a sword that I wouldn't mind pluging into EQ so is there a limit amount of polys you think I should use?

[KhaN]

Polycount on the sword is 946, its very high polycount compared to EQ weapons, which are around ~50-250. But this sword wasnt made with EQ Client in mind, its the reason its so high polycount.

EQ Client dont have limits in term of polycount, when i was testing OpenZone / EQClient before starting to model, i loaded 1000000 poly models with >4096 textures, your only real limit is your config.
But, and there is always a but, objects (all the models in *_obj.s3d files, like weapons, helms, barrels, crates, ...) in EQ have a limit in term of polycount, i cannot really remember why (WC explained me a long time ago), this limit is ~16000 poly MAX (Maybe WC could confirm the number, im really not sure).

Its the major reason i dont use objects (*_obj.s3d) and directly 'stick' all the models like trees, crates on the landscape (other reason being no one can rip my objects).

[Windcatcher]

Actually the limit is a lot lower than that -- it's down around 1500 polys. The reason is understandable -- the objects aren't in the normal BSP tree (so they would have to be placed in the tree at what might not be leaf nodes) and from the standpoint of collision avoidance having more polys can become really expensive.

[Shadow-Wolf]

Ahh that is great news. So far the sword I am making is only 444 polys(It looks good to me for a model with only 400+ polygons, not much detail though.)

Preview:
http://www.geocities.com/kiniyen_holyblade/sword.bmp

Model based upon:
http://www.geocities.com/kiniyen_hol...rd_134_161.jpg

One more question: have you successfully created a weapon with normal mapping?

*edit* and another question, how large/small does my sword have to be to fit in eq properly?

[KhaN]

Actually, OZ only handle a few of 3DS properties, so, you can forgot about most of the 3D l33t technics (BumpMap, NormalMap, ...). I know OoW / DoN zones/models use them, but as its new EQ format, i have no idea if it can be integrated to OZ zones (which are S3D).

As for the dimensions used in EQ, so far, i can say that 4mu = 1m (yeah sorry im european and use meters ...). Personally, i use a cube of 8mu/2mu/2mu as character reference to check size of objects in my zone.

[Shadow-Wolf]

So khan any progress lately you dont mind showing off?

[Windcatcher]

Shhh....don't bother him. He's my OZ 5.6 test subject If it works I'll put out an update as soon as I hear from him.