Particle Overload

[Zaela]

Out of the blue I remembered screwing around with some of EQ's particle data 2 or 3 years ago. Decided to give it a quick revisit -- always fun to take particle effects off the rails a bit.

Funny how the sedate shaman epic particle looks probably the most epic when put in motion:

http://i.imgur.com/3xajX9F.png

Looks neat actually in motion (https://youtu.be/vsmVLD_N8oQ), too (even with classic-style low video quality...)

Made a little tool for messing with particle data for classic items: s3d_particle_editor (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70648819/downloads/s3d_particle_editor.zip). Open source, code is just lua scripts.

All the pre-luclin particle weapons are in gequip.s3d. The tool automatically makes a backup copy of the original before you edit anything; easy to play around a bit and revert later.

edit: forgot to mention: all the item names are gonna be pretty unfamiliar to most of you. The epics are in the "IT140" to "IT160" range. Some of them have helpful names like "DRUID_PCD" and "MAGEPOOP_PCD" for the names of the particles.

Most of the neat things you can do are packed into just a few fields. The main things are particle lifetime (how long particles stick around), the emission delay (how long it waits before spewing out another batch of particles), and whether the particles follow the item that emitted them (think war or shm epic) or trail behind, sticking to the point in the world they were emitted at (think mage epic).

There are a few other fields, mostly related to how particles move: their velocity, vector (direction of movement, although it's not used much), spherical radius that causes the particles to be emitted at a distance around the emission point rather than directly from it. And there are a few high-level modes that influence everything as well.

Few more things, like an aura of songs (https://youtu.be/hs9FX2SzXRM); smoldering with notes of passion (https://youtu.be/yHo5fR1k5uE); a portable forest (https://youtu.be/KliZjBrS1sE); leafblower of the gods (https://youtu.be/2uFQeSvZkQw); monk epic is nice an open ended: how about armageddon fist (https://youtu.be/Q4sjOQocOdA), a dragon streamer (https://youtu.be/c617qPYEcVs), or supernova sun disk gravity wave wheel (https://youtu.be/YHx8shyoypc)? And of course, war epic has something (https://youtu.be/WYmsuynjTbU) to prove (https://youtu.be/XMNWC29Oei0)...

[Llandris]

I enjoyed this, thanks Zaela.

Leafblower was my favorite :)

[Qtip]

Thats pretty damn cool. Thanks on for sharing. Monk and shaman epic look nice.

[Sage Truthbearer]

Got one for Rogue? Their epic has such a tiny particle effect that I wonder what it would look like cranked it up.

[Tasslehofp99]

Got one for Rogue? Their epic has such a tiny particle effect that I wonder what it would look like cranked it up.

I can barely see the rogue epic particle effect on p99, am I the only one?

[Sage Truthbearer]

I can barely see the rogue epic particle effect on p99, am I the only one?

The Rogue epic has a particle effect but it's very small. That's how it was on live, too.

[Llandris]

The Rogue epic has a particle effect but it's very small. That's how it was on live, too.

Could be my foggy memory, but wasn't the poison dripping a green or yellow color?

[Zaela]

The rogue epic particle is a pretty odd case.

Rather than having the particle spawn at the tip and then move down along the edge of the weapon (doable), the particle stays still and follows an invisible animated piece of the model that does the dripping motion. It also seems to be hardcoded in some way -- I can't get it to do anything other than drip a lot the first time it's supposed to drip (a 0.4 second window after 1.5 seconds) and then stop altogether. I know in the past I made a tool to increase the frequency of the drip by editing the timing of the animation, but understandably nobody bothered with that.

Worth noting that the rogue epic has the lowest model id number of all the epics (IT140) so it was probably done first. The other epics I've mucked with don't seem to have any such restrictions (other than the ranger epic lightning not being a particle at all, presumably it's a texture animation). A few particle weapon models pre-exist the epics though, so it's not the very first one they ever made.

I realized what the last major field in the particle data does: it's an angle in degrees to make a directional/stream effect disperse in a cone shape. It's what makes soulfire's flames lick about -- an 18 degree cone. Here it is amped up to a 62.5 degree spray (https://youtu.be/UJ7UGeuhx94).

There are a few flag fields that don't have clear effects yet; either they are really subtle or they are conditional somehow (just as the cone angle only does anything for directional streams) so I haven't noticed the difference with or without them. There are also 5 unknown fields that don't seem to have any extant examples of weapon models using them with non-zero values, even in the luclin and PoP+ stuff. I haven't tried any of them -- I assume they are fields that were used in the ancient spell particle system, which the item particle system presumably piggybacked on top of.

If you have a particle weapon it should be really easy to play around yourself! For posterity these are the settings I used for the awesome shaman epic (they were proving too awesome for me to change, couldn't try other things...):

http://i.imgur.com/xfzw2en.png

[Sage Truthbearer]

Could be my foggy memory, but wasn't the poison dripping a green or yellow color?

Aye, it was a green poison that dripped every so often. I remember you couldn't even notice it unless you went into first-person and looked at it up close. Poor Rogues got hosed on that one.

[Llandris]

Aye, it was a green poison that dripped every so often. I remember you couldn't even notice it unless you went into first-person and looked at it up close. Poor Rogues got hosed on that one.

That's what I thought. Its a grey color on P99, right?

[Zaela]

Its a grey color on P99, right?

It's greenish-yellow. I believe the particle is the same one used for some old spells (the lifetap and shrink bubbles).

I was a little wrong about the particle before: it seems like you can do some stuff with it, but it's hardcoded to only appear if the camera is really close up to the weapon. It also seems like everything about it scaled way down (presumably to make the originally-decent-sized particle look tiny). Example here (https://youtu.be/dPu-dLuWXFU).

Unrelated: some of the PoP-era stuff use a negative velocity value to make particles appear to be drawn in toward the weapon (https://youtu.be/ga0eHlzJCr8). Neat.

[Cecily]

Aye, it was a green poison that dripped every so often. I remember you couldn't even notice it unless you went into first-person and looked at it up close. Poor Rogues got hosed on that one.

Why does everything think that particles magically make weapons look cool? Rogues got exactly what they asked for, a nice looking weapon that isn't flashy. The Burning Rapier used to have a big light source effect, I think, which made quite a few rogues angry and they complained about it to get it changed. Ragebringer obviously was designed w/ that subtle RP rogue sensibility in mind and it's my favorite weapon design.

[Zaela]

SK epic with the little skulls reinterpreted as a flame-like spray (https://youtu.be/AcpZosWfAmY).

Blowier leafblower (https://youtu.be/Id49BTWCho8).

There's a mostly-lame mode that lays the particles out along a plane; the orientation of the plane depends on the rotation of the emission point (all old weapons with particles necessarily have skeletons, the particles emitters must be attached to a bone). For most things, the flat of the plane runs up the length of the weapon and out the sides. Perpendicular to the length of the weapon would seem neater, could make sort-of encircling halo effects. But in any case here's an example of how it is (https://youtu.be/M6kykRprU5Q). Seems to be a bit unstable; the partcles there were set to have no direction or velocity.

Annnnd that's about the point where I lose interest and wonder why I blew a morning working on the tool to edit these.

[Nirgon]

Aye, it was a green poison that dripped every so often. I remember you couldn't even notice it unless you went into first-person and looked at it up close. Poor Rogues got hosed on that one.

yeah that easy as shit to get ridiculously strong weapon, poor bastids

[Sage Truthbearer]

yeah that easy as shit to get ridiculously strong weapon, poor bastids

It's almost like I was only talking about the particle effects, the topic of this entire thread.

[Qtip]

SK epic with the little skulls reinterpreted as a flame-like spray (https://youtu.be/AcpZosWfAmY).

Blowier leafblower (https://youtu.be/Id49BTWCho8).

There's a mostly-lame mode that lays the particles out along a plane; the orientation of the plane depends on the rotation of the emission point (all old weapons with particles necessarily have skeletons, the particles emitters must be attached to a bone). For most things, the flat of the plane runs up the length of the weapon and out the sides. Perpendicular to the length of the weapon would seem neater, could make sort-of encircling halo effects. But in any case here's an example of how it is (https://youtu.be/M6kykRprU5Q). Seems to be a bit unstable; the partcles there were set to have no direction or velocity.

Annnnd that's about the point where I lose interest and wonder why I blew a morning working on the tool to edit these.

They should replace the sk epic with the one you did.

[Zukan]

Hey Zaela I saw some of the stuff you posted on the Shards of Dalaya forum. All great things.

Does this particle editor allow you to play with spell effects as well? =)

[Zaela]

Does this particle editor allow you to play with spell effects as well? =)

No, spell particles use a different format, at least since whichever client brought the Great Spell Particle Changes (PoP..?).

I did make an editor for the newer format a couple years back, though: download link (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70648819/downloads/EQEmu%20Particle%20Editor.zip). Can't vouch for the quality of the code, but it seems like it still works.

Spell particle data is in spellsnew.edd, as far as I'm aware. Weapon model particles also use this format starting from Omens of War (I think); those are in ActorEmittersNew.edd.

The newer format is a lot more complex -- there are 80 different fields, around half of which were unclear to me when I was poking at them way back when. Telin probably knows a lot more about it. The format makes it easy to change the images that are used for the particles, at least: they are loaded from folders inside the EQ folder, and there's a field to specify the filename. (You could do this for the classic weapon particles as well by overwriting the images in gequip.s3d; I'm not sure where the filename associations are made for those, though.)

http://i.imgur.com/PZtZmkW.png

edit: obligatory super-non-classic master sword brimming with hearts
http://i.imgur.com/8vZ59Uy.png

[thewrush]

omg that SK epic effect, WANT!

[Zaela]

omg that SK epic effect, WANT!

If you really wanted it, you could enable it yourself using the tool (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70648819/downloads/s3d_particle_editor.zip)... It's all local file stuff.

1) File > Open > [navigate to your EQ folder] > gequip.s3d

2) Model: IT145_HS_DEF

3) Particle: SKULL_PCD

4) Settings:

Mode -> 3 ("Stream Dispersal")
Simultaneous Particles -> 3000
Lifetime -> 1250
Emission Delay -> 10

Cone Angle -> 15.000000
Dispersal Velocity -> 10.000000
Vector Z -> 1.000000

5) File > Save changes

http://i.imgur.com/wVeF4lA.png?1

If you don't want it any more: Backup > Restore original file

[Zukan]

Sadly I do not have an epic and likely never will have one. Even if it were possible, I play enchanter and there is no particle. =(

[thewrush]

So how did you achieve the master sword with hearts? Edit an existing weapon and make modifications?

Also, does editing these files put you at risk for ban?

[Zaela]

So how did you achieve the master sword with hearts? Edit an existing weapon and make modifications?

The model is something I made from scratch to test a weapon model importing tool I made.

The particle data was copied from some existing and much later (OoW or above) weapon with the particle image replaced with a heart.

Back before editing the GlobalLoad file was blocked, I replaced the basic Club model with it (using the original particles) to make my newb druid look less newb for the one day that I played her:

http://i.imgur.com/j41wDFj.png

Wouldn't be able to replace existing models in the same way now on p99, simply because gequip.s3d is listed before any of the *.eqg weapon model files in GlobalLoad.txt, and whichever model is loaded under a particular id first wins.

Replacing a model in gequip.s3d directly would be possible, but the format is more annoying to work with, especially where particles are concerned...

Also, does editing these files put you at risk for ban?

Maybe? I wouldn't think so. I guess you could theoretically get a pvp advantage by making people with particle weapons stand out more, but it would be a pretty small advantage since particle weapons aren't that common.

PvE it shouldn't matter, it's purely cosmetic. And if they wanted to prevent it they could do a checksum on gequip.s3d to prevent playing with edited files rather than banning people.

[khanable]

You're amazing zaela