Thoughts on getting rid of chat bubbles
 

I'm not a graphics expert, so I thought I'd see what you guys thought. I noticed that there are pieces in the DDS files that look like they make up the chat bubbles. Do you think there is any kind of magic we can perform by modifying these images. I'd like to make the images for the chat bubbles see through. This would allow us to get rid of chat bubbles without really getting rid of them. I relalize I miight have to make some font changes as well.

You can disable them in options...

A project frought with bugs and hardcoding
 

tryed this a while ago. Opened up the dss file with the chat stuff in it. Changed the chatbubble from white to grey in the alpha layer (ONLY the chat bubble part). the result (attached) was a semi trasparent chatbubble with semi transparent text, and, for some lovely reason, every single bar in the game went semi trasparent along with it. Basically everything in that dss file got the same grey alpha layer

Oh ok, its bugged i guess. so i go looking to make the chatbubble into it's own dss file. one problem, the chatbubble dss is not referenced in the xml anywhere. great:rolleyes:

so i dont think the answer is in the dss files.

Thanks Insom
 

I'd still prefer your chat bubbles to those silly, solid white chat bubbles. I'll have to continue looking for a way to get rid of them.

Had you changed the alpha values some more, did you think you could get rid of them all together? I undertsand that doing this may cuase other things not to show up, but did you think that instead of creating a separate DDS file for the chat bubble, instead create a separate one for the other components in that DDS file, and change all their references.

BTW, the check box in Options only gets rid of other player's chat bubbles, not NPC chat bubbles. Those are the ones I really want to get rid of as they break the immersion.

/bonk

eq2ui_proxyactor.xml, you ninny.

Just set the Opacity value on all the images, and wha-la!

(Not sure what's up with the bottom of the second chat bubble, and need to go to a work meeting right now so can't find out for an hour or two.)

If you wanted to get rid of them completely, set the Opacity to 0, or just delete them and the accompanying Text completely!

Good work Deathbane
 

I guess I should have spent a little more time looking at the XML files myself. I just assumed it was hard coded into the client. They have been asked numerous times how we can get rid of them, but no one ever took two minutes to tell us which file to modify.

When you change the opacity values to zero, you are still left with black text. It isn't too noticeable, but I wanted more. I went into the files and added a Visible="false" parameter to the <Text> entries and viola, no more immersion breaking chat bubbles.

Thanks for looking into this guys.

Glad I was able to help you to get it working how you wanted it. :)