Changing spell particle effects

[Furinex]

Azxten, you have to take a look at EQMac. This is retarded what we are doing. There's gotta be a way to harness the power over in the EQMac directory. Ive been logged into eqmac for 5 minutes and I already just want to tear apart these files. The spell effects look SO different than what we are using to accomplish the hacked together spell graphics of what classic might have looked like. I cant really describe it so, you gotta check it out.

[azxten]

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

Azxten, you have to take a look at EQMac. This is retarded what we are doing. There's gotta be a way to harness the power over in the EQMac directory. Ive been logged into eqmac for 5 minutes and I already just want to tear apart these files. The spell effects look SO different than what we are using to accomplish the hacked together spell graphics of what classic might have looked like. I cant really describe it so, you gotta check it out.

Send me the spell files then. I don't want to sign up honestly and the only OSX I have is not open for putting games on.

I'm back to the old spells.eff file though. If you go to 0,0 in a zone you can see the initial casting effect. If we can fix the origin data for these spells everything will be 100% classic.

[Furinex]

Emailed you the files. I included some other ones that Telin sent me, and ones I think are relevant as well.

[Furinex]

wow, I went to 0 0 0 in the zone and what do you know all the spells are shooting out there. This needs to be looked into for sure, I think you're right Axzten.

[Furinex]

were you able to come up with anything Azxten? that effect at 0 0 0 is awesome and 100%, that origin has to be somewhere.

[azxten]

Yeah I fixed the origin of casting effects but I couldn't fix getting the effect to follow the caster or show up correctly on hands. I'm pretty sure it won't be possible to fix the old file after all. The engine just doesn't work correctly with it anymore no matter what you do.

[Furinex]

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

Yeah I fixed the origin of casting effects but I couldn't fix getting the effect to follow the caster or show up correctly on hands. I'm pretty sure it won't be possible to fix the old file after all. The engine just doesn't work correctly with it anymore no matter what you do.

Where in the file did you find the origin location? I have an idea.

[Hawala]

Nice work guys. I hope it was easy to implement once you figured out the root of the problem. For once, I feel like I used to feel as a shaman when I played live.

[Furinex]

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

My goal right now is to make the shielding spell effect look classic. I've attached my notes on the spellsnew.eff file. Nilbog mentioned this is where I could change the level that certain effects get activated.

The attached file shows all of the hex for the NPCAegolism V2.ect effect block. It is slightly modified to have the particles show up at the correct levels. Also, its just one long string of hex that I broke into 3 sections.

First is just the spell name. This does nothing except provide a header for humans. It doesn't impact the game at all.

Next is the particle effects that occur while you're casting. This contains 4 emitters. Green left hand, green right hand, orange left hand, orange right hand. Note that if you convert the "Level" section from hex, which is either 0, 18, or 27, to decimal you get level 0, 24, and 39. I modified this so that it correctly shows the orange particles at level 24 while you're casting instead of at level 39.

Problem. There appears to be more space in this "casting effects" block. I believe this is for the next set of particles which should be the blue particles while casting at level 39+. Unfortunately, if I try to copy the previous "templates" into the next area at the appropriate spot it does not cause any additional particle effects to show up while casting.

Interestingly, there is also only NPCAegolism S1-1 (green shielding particles) and NPCAegolismV2 S1-2 (orange shield particles) in the spellsnew.edd file.

There is also NPCAegolismV2 S3-1, S3-2, S3-4. Based on what I observed when changing these they are the "after cast" effects for green, orange, and blue respectively.

I'm thinking that there simply is no longer an effect in spellsnew.edd for blue particles coming from the hands.

There is one major priority we need to figure out now. How can we add additional particle effects to the "source/in casting" NPCAegolism V2.ect effect block from spellsnew.eff file? It has 2 effects, one for each hand, but there is blank space which to me clearly was intended to be used to add more effects for a "being cast" spell. I can't figure it out though.

If we can figure out how to add another 2 effects to that specific part, we then need to figure out how the specific effect in spellsnew.eff is mapped to the particles in spellsnew.edd.

For example, the green "casting in progress" shielding particle is referenced as "3C" in spellsnew.eff. How does this map to NPCAegolism S1-1 in spellsnew.edd? I know that it does, I just can't figure out how.

Hex 3C = 60 Decimal

Also, the next effect is 3D for orange "casting" particles. Then 3E is green "finished casting" circle, 3F is orange circle, 40 is blue circle. This further supports my theory that there is no blue particles from hands effect anymore since these are in order numerically.

60 = green casting
61 = orange casting
62 = green post-cast
63 = orange post-cast
64 = blue post-cast

Where are these values being referenced from? Find that out I can probably manually add a blue "from hands" effect. Then we just need to figure out how to add another set of particles to the effect in spellsnew.eff.

I looked through your notes, and I honestly, couldnt even find your first line in my spell file, Is this NPCAegolism S1-1? Also, where in here did you fix the correct colors and certain levels spot? Also, I remember a time before the new spell effects, where they redid the old ones slightly. I think we might be able to replicate it here using the TGAs. The blue diamonds turned into the spela2.tga, then they revamped them all together. Anyways, I would def like to fix the correct level colors showing in the spell file so we can at least release this again with more fixes. if we cant get it perfect, I suggest we at least make it as good as we can. A lot of effects just need some tweaking which you have found out how to do for the most part. They already look the part. like SoW and DoTs look great, they just need the levels 24/39 reversed. Also, The snare looks good to, same thing tho, levels need to be reversed. The healing and the Shielding are going to be the 2 biggest things.


EDIT: Found it, .eff file..


So tried your notes and such, I even copied it right in, No change, still only have green balls at 24 on my druid. not sure where I went wrong, can you upload your spellsnew.eff?

[azxten]

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Here is a shitty picture showing what was in my notes. There appears to be 3 sections.

A "name" area that is just for organization, you can change it and it does nothing in game.

A "casting" effect section, note that there are 4 effects for this spell in the casting section. Green left, green right, orange left, orange right. The first two are green left, green right and they have 0 in their effect level slot. The next two are orange left, orange right which have 27 in their effect level slot.

This 27 should actually be 18. In hex, 18 = 24, 27 = 39. If you look at the hex there is a lot more blank space after these 4 effects which is why I think it should have been possible to add more effects. However, if I copy paste one of the previous effect lines it doesn't work.

3C 01, 3D 01 in the "casting" effects sectio is the type of particle effect to use.

04, 05, 04, 05 is the origin slot. 4 is left hand, 5 is right hand.

Also effect 1 in my picture should be "green" since its really 2 effects, same for "orange" which is 2 effects. 1 per hand.

Try to keep in mind that this hex is really just one long line and the hex editor wraps it for you. Everything goes left to right.

Also looking at the "target" effect block...

There are 4 effects, green circle, orange circle, blue circle, blue circle radiating out instead of in.

40 = green
41 = blue
3E = blue
3F = orange

02
02
02
02 = origin, center on caster for all

27
18
0 = levels effects show up

Hopefully this clears it up. If we can figure out how to fit more than 4 effects in a single "casting" block we would be able to make the classic shielding effects.

Alternatively you can set the hex directly below FA C4 in spellsnew.edd for NPCAegolismV2 S1-2 to 1 in any of those 4 slots it will cause the particles to be much brighter and also apparently causes the orange particles to look green somewhat. This might be a potential hack work around where we could do that then set NPCAegolism S1-1 to be the blue particle effect. I guess you'd actually want to swap the two effects as well after making these changes.

Of course, then at level 1 you would have orange and green particles but at least then at 39 everything would look classic.