A Reasonable Request for Custom Content: Proper Armor Tinting

[Rygar]

It was in development during Velious and launched on March 19th, 2002. Basically this allows certain parts of armor to be blocked out when tinting.

12/04/2001 (Day of Luclin launch):
We will be polishing up issues regarding tinted items in game. In other words, things that shouldn't tint with a tinted item (e.g. your skin) won't tint when the feature is complete.
03/19/2002:
Added /dopropertinting command. This command allows you to turn on and off the "DoProperTinting" option in the eqclient.ini file. Activating this command should correct most tinting issues (such as armor tint also tinting the character's skin). But if it causes issues you can toggle it off by using /dopropertinting off.

This command should already be in the Titanium Client, so could just be enabled (may need to add some files in for placeholders for the tinting masks... may even be old tint layers from Titanium client). Furthermore, my guess is P99 devs would not need to even add the actual custom tint filters, there is a texture crew that lives for this kind of stuff.

This would not affect encounters in any way, only fashion. Furthermore, it can be left off of Refresh server and only enabled on Blue/Red 99. If people don't like it the /dopropertinting off will show them the classic look.

I made my own KO of a the special ornamentation on the Druid Velious quested armors for comparison (in hindsight I probably would have added the overall tint to the black portions, but didn't feel like redoing it). It really, really brings out the beauty of the armor. The full tint really kills the ornamentation and just looks sloppy. There are a lot more classes where parts of their skin are tinted and it looks horrible.

What say you???

https://i.imgur.com/xxdOV5F.jpg

[aMindAmok]

In before 'not classic' squeal from the unclean masses that is p99 forums.

I think it would be cool. But it would destroy the current FashionQuest meta.

[Rygar]

By destroy you mean greatly enhance fashionquest meta... I agree :)

[aMindAmok]

Indeed

[d3r14k]

Your example looks immaculate. My imagination has begun to boil over thinking about what some other class / race armor would look like with correct tinting.

I definitely agree with your comment about some races having "skin tint". Trolls get this pretty bad when wearing some armor where their skin shows. It's like they're wearing a colored, semi-transparent mesh shirt over their armor.

[Nagoya]

It will not be done but I second this. Good idea! Looks nice.

[Rygar]

My imagination has begun to boil over thinking about what some other class / race armor would look like with correct tinting.


Post a picture of your toon with an UNTINTED armor set and I'll do my best to get around to doing some tints on them with the ornamentation / skin cut away. Be sure no particle effects or transparent weapons / shields cover the armor in the screenshot.

Particularly interested in human Velious Leather (so monks post your pics). The base tint is white and it also shows their skin, so can be pretty cool to bring out the colors.

Can't recall what else is out there, but stuff that has lots of gems and ornamentation would be sweet.

Edit: Even some robes with proper tinting could really tie the room together.

[Argh]

Not classic.

[Rygar]

I remember when this went in on Live. It was cool for a day until you realized everyone who had worked for a unique look lost it overnight.

Kinda like 6 year old character names. So, possible.

Do you really thing the look is lost? You still have a full set of green armor or whatever. Either way, there is a built in command to turn off the proper tinting.

Dear lord... I sound like someone defending custom weapon skins on Agnarr. I feel... dirty!! Still would vote for this though, doesn't modify the base texture.

I suppose when Velious launched, if original EQ team decided, "No new expansion... crap, we almost green-lit CATS ON THE MOON! What were we thinking...? Let's quit while we're ahead, wrap up our 'to-do' list on content and leave the servers locked, can do occasional dynamic world events within the defined boundaries of Norrath", then this would have made it in (along with some other stuff no doubt).

I don't think its such a big stretch, especially seeing as how there are no controls in place to prevent the texture crew from modifying / updating textures. If they really wanted to prevent that, could probably parse certain data points when loading texture to verify nothing was modified.

[paulgiamatti]

If they really wanted to prevent that, could probably parse certain data points when loading texture to verify nothing was modified.

That may actually be a thing at some point because there are fucking elf sim nerds who make the walls of entire zones transparent to have an advantage over their competition, among other possible exploits. Custom texture packages that are kosher wouldn't be entirely off the table, were they to patch in such a restriction, but overall it would be a very bad thing for texture nerds and it's unlikely we'd be able to update any custom textures that are allowed.

[Shrubwise]

The year is 2018; we have an improved client, zone textures, character textures... why not this? I say... Implement!

[Rygar]

Was bothering me, so added the tinting to the black portions of the armor, so only the ornamentation remains untouched. Miles better.

https://i.imgur.com/ZXRdN7L.jpg

[Supaskillz]

I actually think it is really cool that there are armor and items people seek for the sole purpose of having a particular style or look that is hard to obtain or unique. Allowing customization eliminates some of that appeal and a pursuit in game to get unique appearance items

[skarlorn]

I remember when this went in on Live. It was cool for a day until you realized everyone who had worked for a unique look lost it overnight.

Kinda like 6 year old character names. So, possible.

6 year old filthy illegal immersion ruining names which were judiciously deported

[loramin]

There's such a tension in this project between a fanatical desire to "only do classic", and the basic reality that Everquest was never, not in any era, a finished project.

Classic more or less ends with Brad McQuaid right? For instance, if McQuaid had stuck around stuff like Paludal Caverns, The Nexus, or The Bazaar would never have happened, and that's why we don't have them here. But at the same time even if McQuaid had stuck around, he never would have blocked a graphics bug fix ... so why is that "un-classic" (except in the most literal sense)?

In other words, there's a gray area: stuff that's classic by nature, but not by timeline. It's exactly this sort of stuff that I really, really hope makes it in to the Classic+ server (ie. Blue post-Green). Because, no matter what version of classic you picture, there's no version that was a perfect stopping point, and so to me adding "gray area" stuff (post-Green) is really "more classic than (just) classic".

[Gozuk]

Reminds me of Christmas and that's not cool

[Diogene]

I remember when this went in on Live. It was cool for a day until you realized everyone who had worked for a unique look lost it overnight.

Kinda like 6 year old character names. So, possible.

I second this. Tint isnt good. Not classic. And I’ll say thats probably why fashionquest right now isnt meaningless.

[katrik]

No

[Nathaniel]

No thanks.

[putrid_plum]

It's not classic so no, after all you're all about CLASSIC isn't that correct?

[bartm4n]

Yes, please.

[Rygar]

I second this. Tint isnt good. Not classic. And I’ll say thats probably why fashionquest right now isnt meaningless.

I think people are misunderstanding... It doesn't turn all the tinting off if you disable the function, it is just letting you overall tint or only tint in specific areas. It by no means inhibits fashionquest.

[loramin]

To everyone saying "not classic": the devs have already said that there might be custom content someday on Blue after Green is released. If it even happens it won't be for years, but when it does we'll have two servers: Green (more classic than the current Blue) and Blue (classic + custom dev content).

A key part of this whole idea is, if Blue gets custom content years from now ... after we get a truly classic server ... wouldn't a 100% optional graphics improvement (that's not Luclin graphics) make sense for the classic+ server?

[Baler]

I don't feel this was a good play by Rygar. Whom has showed in the past that he wants classic 'bugs' fixed to a T. Yet here he is request a non classic feature.
More thought should go into this than yes/no & Rygar's decision to post this should be a factor in this decision.
To people who want to hound me about flaming. I'm just stating the facts & your feelings are irrelevant to facts.

Not classic at the moment, maybe on a new server that offers custom classic.
---
edit: People can edit textures locally as-is [example] (https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2482). Whats the difference other than ease of access.

[bartm4n]

Is anyone else playing on an Athlon XP with 128MB RAM and Windows 95? Would that make me the most classic?

[Diogene]

I think people are misunderstanding... It doesn't turn all the tinting off if you disable the function, it is just letting you overall tint or only tint in specific areas. It by no means inhibits fashionquest.

Yep yep I understand what it is, but to me color scarcity is key to classic fashionquest.
For exemple, this set of armor has a unique purple tint and is really hard to craft / get. http://wiki.project1999.com/Enchanted_Full_Breastplate_(platinum)
Now if you add tint in game, this particular set becomes less desirable. End of the story.

[Rygar]

Yep yep I understand what it is, but to me color scarcity is key to classic fashionquest.
For exemple, this set of armor has a unique purple tint and is really hard to craft / get. http://wiki.project1999.com/Enchanted_Full_Breastplate_(platinum)
Now if you add tint in game, this particular set becomes less desirable. End of the story.

It sounds like you are describing armor dyes, that is not what i am advocating for. Classic armor is all the same base color, colored sets are just given an overall RGB color value. For example, fine steel armor is a base texture, bronze is just fine plate with an RGB overlay over the entire piece. If portions of your skin showed in the armor, your skin would tint too. This would prevent that (skin would be normal color, gems in armor would retain original color), and be an optional feature (which was added 3 months into Luclin).

And to Baler, i have always been in favor of some custom content, stuff like nerfing mallets which weren't widespread meta at the time and only trivialized agro management.

In this case, it is just visual aesthetic and will not affect encounters.

Furthermore, i would not advocate for this on refresh server, as it wasn't how the experience was back in the day throughout progression. On locked server could even enable custom contents seasonally, much like a GM event, so things stay Classic there as well for at least most of the time


In the end, i don't expect this to be implement but i do hold out hope. I understand the slippery slope argument. This would be but a baby step, not some game redefining feature.

[Aalderon Crystafire]

Is anyone else playing on an Athlon XP with 128MB RAM and Windows 95? Would that make me the most classic?

Yeah but are you running in Glide?

[HomieGSB]

Feel like lots of people in this thread are misunderstanding the OP. It's a fix for the sloppy way armor colors are implemented in the game, not adding the ability to change your armor color.

[bartm4n]

Yeah but are you running in Glide?

God I loved my Voodoo cards for their brief existence back in the day

[Wonkie]

get rid of the titanium client

problem solved

[Diogene]

Feel like lots of people in this thread are misunderstanding the OP. It's a fix for the sloppy way armor colors are implemented in the game, not adding the ability to change your armor color.

My bad then Rygar :D

[paulgiamatti]

I would love to see this implemented, but it won't be for a number of reasons. It wouldn't necessarily be custom content, for one - it would simply be a post-Luclin feature of the Titanium client, much like the ability to toggle Luclin models on or off. The term "custom content" really only refers to things that never actually existed during any era of EQ, casino NPCs being a great example (actually, don't quote me on that, I only played EQ until Luclin was released so something like this might actually exist at some point in the 87 EQ expansions or whatever). So if P99 ever goes full Trilogy client, which I'm sure they'd love to do, this would be a moot point anyway, barring them somehow reconstructing the options menu of the outdated client to add in that feature.

Second, classic aesthetics seems to be one of the main non-negiotiables for P99. Sure, this would look fantastic, but it would be antithetical to the nostalgic experience that P99 is going for, much like custom texture packages in general. It's the same reason why custom Velious helms no longer reflect the color tinting of the armor set they belong to, even though they did post-Velious on live and when Velious was first released on P99. P99 had to manually change custom Velious helms to ignore tint masks and look shittier, simply because it was more classic.

So with me you're preaching to choir - I would love for P99 to devise a way to allow non-classic graphical stuff (except Luclin models of course, those things are horrendous) such as properly tinted armor ornamentation/filigree and custom helms, while keeping that stuff disabled by default. I suppose you could call that custom content - a P99 add-on of sorts that allows the player to reenable some of these out-of-era aesthetic subtleties. The client-side ability to not show your helm, as another example.

[jarshale]

Not classic, etc.

...I would be okay with this though.

[heartbrand]

How about Chardok 2.0 first

[Quinas]

The old 'classic to the letter' vs 'in the classic spirit' debate.

[Rygar]

Some comparisons on Human Fine Plate armor. Here are the tint values you are seeing in the image:

Fine Plate / Bronze / Crafted
Deepwater / Tolans / Paineel Steel
Rubicite / Valorium / Blood Ember

I really like how the Rubicite contrast looks, a bit on the fence with the Tolans / Blood Ember, but the accents look pretty sweet on it. I think it even breaks up the horrible Deepwater armor look.

In each quadrant the left most shows P99 standard tinting (overall), the middle shows just the colored ornamentation cropped out, the right shows colored ornamentation + black chain bits cropped out. I like the middle view best.

Judge for yourselves!

https://i.imgur.com/RjIG4dj.jpg

[Check12345]

Some comparisons on Human Fine Plate armor. Here are the tint values you are seeing in the image:

Fine Plate / Bronze / Crafted
Deepwater / Tolans / Paineel Steel
Rubicite / Valorium / Blood Ember

I really like how the Rubicite contrast looks, a bit on the fence with the Tolans / Blood Ember, but the accents look pretty sweet on it. I think it even breaks up the horrible Deepwater armor look.

In each quadrant the left most shows P99 standard tinting (overall), the middle shows just the colored ornamentation cropped out, the right shows colored ornamentation + black chain bits cropped out. I like the middle view best.

Judge for yourselves!

https://i.imgur.com/RjIG4dj.jpg

Looks great!

[heartbrand]

I really feel bad for people who think custom content is coming to this box before the 2024 presidential election

[bartm4n]

Some comparisons on Human Fine Plate armor. Here are the tint values you are seeing in the image:

Fine Plate / Bronze / Crafted
Deepwater / Tolans / Paineel Steel
Rubicite / Valorium / Blood Ember

I really like how the Rubicite contrast looks, a bit on the fence with the Tolans / Blood Ember, but the accents look pretty sweet on it. I think it even breaks up the horrible Deepwater armor look.

In each quadrant the left most shows P99 standard tinting (overall), the middle shows just the colored ornamentation cropped out, the right shows colored ornamentation + black chain bits cropped out. I like the middle view best.

Judge for yourselves!

https://i.imgur.com/RjIG4dj.jpg

How are you generating the images of the corrected models? They look great btw

[Rygar]

To generate the images i am just finding an image of the base texture (untinted), then manually creating the mask areas in photoshop.

I then apply the RGB value of the armor tint according to ZAM in a new layer (set it to 'Multiply'), and it comes out looking like that.

Thanks for the positive feedback!

[Zekayy]

Post this in the petition forum or whatever and see what happens I think this would be awesome not gonna lie those humans look sweet

[Rygar]

A look at original troll plate. A bit more subtle but I love how the Umbral pops, even the crafted looks pretty nice.

Here are the armors shown:
Fine Plate / Bronze / Crafted
Indicolite / Paineel Steel / Rubicite
Umbral / Blood Ember / Totemic

https://i.imgur.com/6FdlMwK.jpg

[Sadiki]

This should provide me with seconds, if not minutes, of additional things to do.

[skarlorn]

Don't let this happen. First you want more aesthetic pixels. Then you get gingerbread man mercenaries.

[Jimjam]

Don't let this happen. First you want more aesthetic pixels. Then you get gingerbread man mercenaries.

If gnomes can tink clockbots, why can't halflings cook gingerdolls?

[skarlorn]

because halflings are not vain, filthy, godless heathens who try to create AI. we just want to bake shit and eat it and shit it out and make babies and die in the Vale

[vorpal_raddish]

Yes, plz. And fix my chestguard's pinkness while you're at it.

[Nisei]

Titanium client isn't classic, guess you should all uninstall, nerds.