Adventures In Texture Editing

[Grinkles]

Rest in peace, Troll diapers.

This is glorious, @Zukan. Absolutely Glorious. I like that you used the hi-res custom robe textures from P99. If you're ever looking to finalize this product for use in game (assuming that it's even possible to somehow insert the reference data into the .wld files), I bet you could make it look even more convincing by straightening out the lines below the belt so that they match the ones up top. Is such a thing possible without having to modify the texture files themselves?

 

[Grinkles]

Not sure if this is a model from EQlive or if Marza made this custom, but thought this was really cool

This is indeed a custom texture. As far as I can tell, it's a new take on the Shade model (#224) that most EQ veterans would probably associate with Grieg's End. The textures for it are found in sdpaludal_chr.s3d, which I was told years ago stands for "Slaar Does Paludal." Whether or not @Slaariel himself created the final product seen above, I don't know; it's possible that @Marza or perhaps even Eisley had some hand in its creation. Here are some comparisons between the original Shade textures and those seen on the custom variant in Overgrowth so you can see for yourself how a simple overlay and color tweak can give a whole different life to a familiar NPC model:

Unsurprisingly, sdpaludal_chr.s3d is also where the green Owlbear comes from. (As it happens, that's the monster that sparked this entire thread way back in 2013, and I referenced it in the original post.) Here's a similar comparison of the original Owlbear vs. the green one for those curious:

​

Last but not least, this little gem is also found in -- you guessed it -- sdpaludal_chr.s3d:

I'm sure I mentioned it once before way back, but I find it amusing that this apparent dev in-joke is buried deep in files that the ordinary player would never be able to access. So who was the intended recipient of this "hello" in the first place?!

 

[Marza]

Slaariel did all of the texture stuff for Overgrowth, I think its awesome though! Especially the ground effect textures which really changes the feel of the zone from its original form imo.

 

[Haenir]

I'm sure I mentioned it once before way back, but I find it amusing that this apparent dev in-joke is buried deep in files that the ordinary player would never be able to access. So who was the intended recipient of this "hello" in the first place?!

Are we sure that's hello and not "hellp"?

 

[Fanglore]

I have done it!

Mandolin, Item#22264
Observe that it has a different shape than even the old school lute. Its more oblong. Also, this, like 2 of the lutes I found earlier, does not even count as an instrument. This one is PRIM only.
The item itself seems to have no use on EQLive.

 

[Zaela]

Technically not texture related but I spent my morning making a dumb little particle data editor tool for old particle weapon models. Download link and some (video) examples of stuff that can be done with it here.

 

[Grinkles]

In early 2015, a Shards of Dalaya dev asked me to create three new texture variants on the classic spider model. He requested that they be distinct shades of red, green, and blue, as their colors were to play some special role in upcoming content. However, the content never materialized and the dev vanished without a trace. That was a year and a half ago, so I think enough time has passed that I can safely share them here just so the unused spider variants can finally see the light of day.

​

I suppose they're nothing special, but I enjoyed making them. I was most proud of the red one, to whom I gave the appearance of cracked, molten rock by superimposing a "dried mud" texture from one of the newer EQ zones over the original spider texture pieces.

In case anyone on the staff can think of a use for these, let me know; I still have the relevant files.

 

[LordRayken]

Hey Grinkles, I love the work you've done here and what you've posted.

Do you think it would be possible to map armor textures to The Chetari in the Velious expansion? Or The Ratmen in The Hole?

 

[lucylla]

As a side note, your bmpwad8.s3d worked great on fixing the verticle cutoff of the graphic, yet the horizontal portion is still messed up...

 

[Grinkles]

Hey Grinkles, I love the work you've done here and what you've posted.

Do you think it would be possible to map armor textures to The Chetari in the Velious expansion? Or The Ratmen in The Hole?

Sorry to have failed to reply to this for so long. The two NPCs you refer to share the same model: vrm. I assume this stands for "Vermin Rat Man" or some such, and the model number is 156. The one on the right is the original texture set (00), whereas the one on the left (texture 01 for this model) was added with Velious. This model is found natively in the following .s3d files:

• charasis_chr.s3d
• chardok_chr.s3d
• hole_chr.s3d
• mischiefplane_chr.s3d
• necropolis_chr.s3d
• pojustice_chr.s3d
• vrm_chr.s3d

It's definitely possible to create new armor for this model using Zaela's EQGExport and Texture Adder utilities. The only difficulty I foresee is that this model has no legs, practically speaking; it may only look convincing giving them upper body armor (which is what the Verant devs did anyway). I imagine that yoinking and recoloring some of the beautiful Velious armor textures from global17_amr.s3d, global18_amr.s3d, etc. would be a great starting point for giving them all sorts of colorful vests, tunics, and perhaps even robes.

If you're specifically asking me to whip up something for this model myself, I'll take a rain check on that. "Serious" texture experiments can be time-consuming, and I've not been inclined to tinker with this sort of thing for some time now. However, when I end up looking to get my hands dirty with texture editing again, I'll keep this in mind. Was there a specific purpose you had in mind for new armor on this model? Perhaps you were hoping to make it a playable race on a custom server (à la Ratonga from EQ2) and wanted more than two armor sets to work with?

As a side note, your bmpwad8.s3d worked great on fixing the verticle cutoff of the graphic, yet the horizontal portion is still messed up...

I think that this fix was made obsolete with the new client. I am pretty sure I haven't used it myself for some time now, but my SoD directory is so full of quirks that I can't recall for certain. You've still experienced the loading artwork cutoff problem since the "upgrade" to 2.5 ten months ago?

 

[lemonhead]

I believe he posted in p99 forums about custom content involving a new playable race. I'm thinking he wanted to flesh it out a bit to make it more convincing. P99 staff has mentioned some custom content like once, and people are kinda hanging on that. I doubt they will go very far with it though.

 

[lucylla]

I think that this fix was made obsolete with the new client. I am pretty sure I haven't used it myself for some time now, but my SoD directory is so full of quirks that I can't recall for certain. You've still experienced the loading artwork cutoff problem since the "upgrade" to 2.5 ten months ago?

Yes.

 

[Zukan]

Hey all,

Been a while. I have two questions I was hoping someone might know the answer to:

A guildie of mine mentioned he wished he could have the Bristlebane face. Easy enough texture swap.

Here is the problem I'm unable to figure out however. Which file do I pull & share so that he can have it? I thought it would be "global_chr.s3d" since that's where I switched out the textures in using S3DSpy but I tested it on my laptop and it did not work. I tried a bunch of other files such as the "globalhum_chr.s3d" thinking maybe it was moved there through the P99 shenanigans.

~~~~

My second question is about swapping OBJs. I'm wondering if it is possible to swap the velious helms for the vanilla helms. I am not a fan of the halfling plate velious helm. If I recall correctly Zeala mentioned that you cannot import OBJ's into P99? Maybe my dream is an impossible one. Maybe simply swapping may work? Either way an answer is what I seek for now.

Thanks~

 

[Zaela]

Which file do I pull & share so that he can have it? I thought it would be "global_chr.s3d" since that's where I switched out the textures in using S3DSpy but I tested it on my laptop and it did not work. I tried a bunch of other files such as the "globalhum_chr.s3d" thinking maybe it was moved there through the P99 shenanigans.

global_chr.s3d should be the correct file. No other file contains the halfling face textures (homhe####.bmp). And globalhom_chr.s3d would be for the Luclin halfling models. Maybe you have texture caching on on your laptop, with the old face still in the cache?

The only shenanigans p99 does around models and datafiles that I'm aware of is preventing Resources/GlobalLoad.txt from being edited. And maybe something about hardcode-forcing the original skeleton models to be used for skeletons. No data files get mucked with or replaced (they couldn't do that, as things stand, for a couple reasons: they're noticeable enough that they would definitely get C&D'd eventually if they openly distributed any of the original model data, since that would be covered by copyright; and they don't have any programmatic patching mechanism to get around that by just distributing "instructions" to edit the data their players already have). And they don't do any validation on the data files themselves, last I heard -- I can still log in to my omg-haxxored version of Field of Bone where all the walls are edited to be semi-transparent.

My second question is about swapping OBJs. I'm wondering if it is possible to swap the velious helms for the vanilla helms. I am not a fan of the halfling plate velious helm. If I recall correctly Zeala mentioned that you cannot import OBJ's into P99? Maybe my dream is an impossible one. Maybe simply swapping may work? Either way an answer is what I seek for now.

Should be possible, nothing about p99 should prevent it. There might not be any pre-existing, convenient tools around to accomplish it, though. Ultimately just a matter of replacing one set of vertices, triangles and textures with another. But the formats these models are in is a bit annoying to work with, and it's complicated slightly by the fact that Velious helms are weirdly treated as weapon models, while the original helmets are not. Think they might have to be rotated around and maybe translated a bit to be positioned correctly on the head because of that.