Changing spell particle effects

[azxten]

I've been reverse engineering the spellsnew.edd file to figure out what each part of a spell actually does. It hasn't been easy.

I decided to try my luck and E-mailed about 5 artists who worked on EverQuest before before and after the spell changes were made. Hopefully one of them is feeling generous and will explain something to me but I doubt it.

Allen Bond is my one true hope for an explanation.

http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/...-Lebounde-Bond

What are your main duties on EverQuest?

Building zones, textures, objects, particle effects.

However, I believe he is still employed with Sony and working on EverQuest. In fact, I couldn't find his contact information so I just used the standard soe.sony.com E-mail address format and I didn't get a return message.

I'm stalking EverQuest artists for information on how to reverse engineer the files they made.. unbelievable.

[Furinex]

i hope you get something because honestly, Im not sure i understand these hex values very much and im getting lost easily.

[azxten]

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.

[RelivingNorrath]

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.

My brain exploded.

[Telin]

This is exactly the issue I ran into a couple months ago when I was trying to do just that. I found out where to change the particles from left and right hands like you. I also found all the additional layers associated with the target npc_aegolism v2 effect.

It seems that there are only two particles (green and orange) that are there for the hands. The other 4 are for the target. There is the green, orange, and two blues for the target effect. That's because the first set of blue particles flow inward toward the target. The second set of blue particles burst outward at the end of the cast. So that actually takes two effects to complete.

I wasn't able to figure out how to add in a 3rd layer to the hands. If i tried to, it broke everything past that point because everything has to line up as expected. It's probably also important to know that even EQMac which uses those particles is broken to the point that the blue particles never come out of the hands. Their spellsnew file also doesn't have a place for the blue particles to come out of the hands. I'm not sure if we could find files from the luclin era when they first switched to the spellsnew files if we would be able to find where the blue particles are coded for the hands.

If my memory serves me, the blue particles for post-luclin spell effects were just like the healing blue stars coming out at the end of the hands. It was not the blue diamonds that were in classic. That is why the target effect uses the blue stars and not diamonds as well.

[Telin]

I've been reading the text in the dbg.txt and in the directx and eqgame files. The clients that load the classic particles properly are all using directx 8.1. This includes Eqmac and SoD server. I think Titanium uses directx 9. Could this be on of the issues at least when attempting to load the original classic particle system? Is there a way to force Directx 8 or would that require changing eqgame.exe itself.

[Furinex]

I thought of something. I remember there being an Item, that had a clickable effect where the spell effects were of the old classic shielding effects. And I distinctly remember the new spell effects already been around for some time. I wanted that item so bad just so I can splash the old spell effects around everywhere I went. Maybe if we can figure out this item (I wish I could remember more), we can find out what it is listed as using in the item global, match it with the spell file, then find our offsets.

[Rhambuk]

Best of luck to you fellah's your doing bog's work!

[azxten]

The "orange" shielding casting in progress effect actually has green in it as well. This kind of blows my mind because the .dds file is just an orange sprite. Where the hell is it getting green from as well?

This is also a potential "hack" to fix the issue. You could define a blue from hands particle effect and use the green/orange effect that is typically thought of as just "orange." The problem is you would see much less green than normal and also it would show up at level 1.

[Telin]

If these effects have the ability to add a different color to the sprites, maybe that is how they added shades of blue to the new effects. If you notice the orange particles from the hands seem to be far too thick when the settings are high. They also get progressively smaller toward the end of the cone. If about half of the orange particles turned to blue as theyre getting smaller toward the end it would look as I remember it during luclin.