Spells: Spell Effects going straight up?

[azxten]

I identified the same thing Kanras did I think. The value in red in the screenshot below can be edited to change the direction of the particles:

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Here is a collection of screens I took while testing. Not that 2 is the default "straight up" direction.

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Changing from 2 to 4 seems to roughly recreate the classic particle effects "shooting from the hands." It appears to be slightly wrong and is too far down when hands are up and too far up when hands are down. However, overall I think its a nice change and I'll definitely be keeping it this way on my client.

I then changed the NPCAegolismv2 S1-2 effect as well and had the same results.

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Devs, is it worth attempting to correct all the "shoot spells from hands" spells to use this new direction information? If its helpful I can go through and correct as many as I can and hand the file over. Let me know.

P.S. While I was testing I found out that there is some kind of "effect type" you can change as well. I was able to make Minor Shielding look like the particle structure of Lightning Strike, Calefacation, and E-Bolt but using the shielding particles. I have a suspicion that there may be a different part of these effects that can be edited to change the effect "type" into something else. Essentially, I think the type might be wrong and the direction is just a side effect and I just treated the symptom rather than the cause of this issue.

[Furinex]

Omg, i cant say more than this right now because my wife is glaring at me to get off the computer but... I FREAKING LOVE YOU. What do I have to do to get this on my client.

[Furinex]

Well... I gave this a shot just for that one entry and what do you know, you really are the MAN!!!!!!!!!!! This worked GREAT!!!! Now, is everything in this file an entry for a specific type of spells or is there other crap in here? I feel like changing all these values right now but Im sure I'm gonna mess something up. trying more stuff now [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Furinex]

After some more testing.... I couldn't replicate this for healing spells. Ill grab the spot I was looking at and screenshot it here in a few. I'm mobile right now.

[Furinex]

ok im home and honestly i cant even find where I was in the file again, but the only effect i was able to do this with was the aegolism one. how can I identify the line that needs changing for other spell effects?

[azxten]

how can I identify the line that needs changing for other spell effects?

The methodology I followed was to identify which effect in the SpellEffects file looked like the spell I was going to change. Then I searched through the hex editor for that file name. To determine how I could change the casting direction I actually just selected everything after the spell effect file name up to the start of the next overall effect block for a different spell, copied it, and pasted it over the same area for the Aego spell.

I picked Lightning Shock because I know the particles fell downwards when casting. When I went in game and cast shielding it looked like I was casting Lightning Shock but with the shielding particles. Then I went back into the hex editor and started changing everything back to the way it was before for that spell one line at a time.

Then I'd go check in game, come back and set the next line back to what it was, rinse and repeat until my particles started going up again instead of down. Then I narrowed down the exact spot on the line that was causing the particles to go up instead of down.

Then I set that spot to every possible value 0-F and 4 was the best option.

I'll look into this again a bit later.

[a_gnoll_pup]

I guess I will write a program to change this data in the file, similar to the s3d patcher but for this.

Very amazing work, azxten!

[Furinex]

Originally Posted by a_gnoll_pup [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I guess I will write a program to change this data in the file, similar to the s3d patcher but for this.

Very amazing work, azxten!

Please do! This looks like its a good resolution but the implementation will be difficult for a normal everyday user. A program to automate this process after we can nail down the science exactly.

EDIT: So far the only thing I was able to edit was the aeglism entry you outlined, couple of times I royally jacked the file lol

[a_gnoll_pup]

Originally Posted by Furinex [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Please do! This looks like its a good resolution but the implementation will be difficult for a normal everyday user. A program to automate this process after we can nail down the science exactly.

EDIT: So far the only thing I was able to edit was the aeglism entry you outlined, couple of times I royally jacked the file lol

It is a fixed byte header that reads until the file ends. Each entry, if you notice, has a version in the header, followed by a non-variable byte entry until EOF is read by the EQ client. The beginning of the entry should be the filename.

So, if you write a program to find the beginning of the file entries and scan based on length to edit the byte (the location of the byte you are changing to 0xC4 is base + a certain value) you can iterate through all the entries until EOF is hit, much like the eq client is doing now, writing the bytes to the file as you change them by keeping the entries in a struct in memory as opposed to keeping them in memory and doing nothing with them.

Alternatively, the EQ client could be patched via memory injection to read that byte as 0xC4 always when it reads that entry. To find out the length of the old spell file, cross-reference EQ for Mac's disassembly (it loads as readable code for the most part) versus EQ titanium's strings, find the byte, and force it to 0xC4.

[Furinex]

Originally Posted by a_gnoll_pup [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It is a fixed byte header that reads until the file ends. Each entry, if you notice, has a version in the header, followed by a non-variable byte entry until EOF is read by the EQ client. The beginning of the entry should be the filename.

So, if you write a program to find the beginning of the file entries and scan based on length to edit the byte (the location of the byte you are changing to 0xC4 is base + a certain value) you can iterate through all the entries until EOF is hit, much like the eq client is doing now, writing the bytes to the file as you change them by keeping the entries in a struct in memory as opposed to keeping them in memory and doing nothing with them.

Alternatively, the EQ client could be patched via memory injection to read that byte as 0xC4 always when it reads that entry. To find out the length of the old spell file, cross-reference EQ for Mac's disassembly (it loads as readable code for the most part) versus EQ titanium's strings, find the byte, and force it to 0xC4.

Well... its clear you know what you're doing. Far more than I do. I am looking forward to the results of this. Even if it isnt "Perfect" its pretty damn close and would make the play experience 100x better.