Unofficial maps in game

[Eloa]

Hmm... i dont like the current map window. Especially the size limitations of it. I'll mess with some stuff later and see if I can figure out another way to mess with the loc. I myself can do without the Loc, but what do you guys thing, would it be better to port everything over to it? I think for one its gonna look pretty ugly, squished, etc. Like the antonica map being split in two, I hate it, but its gonna have to be done with a lot of them.

[Haliken]

Here's a blank map and the 4 freeport newbie zone maps modeled after the default in-game map styles for use by someone who can get them in the map window.

This zip has the 4 FP newbie zones, the .dds is a blank map template.

Quib

[Eloa]

Originally Posted by Haliken

Here's a blank map and the 4 freeport newbie zone maps modeled after the default in-game map styles for use by someone who can get them in the map window.

This zip has the 4 FP newbie zones, the .dds is a blank map template.

Quib

Thanks
From what I know hardly anyone makes freeport information and I only play qeynos so this is great, will get them in as soon as we find out where we are going with this.



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We need to chat together and find out what we'll be doing about this whole project. I just downloaded mirc to join the chat, ill be there all night tonight, but will be ingame trying to go from 1-20 tonight, heh. send me a yahoo IM to get my attention, Fisher2w2

[tonyis3l33t]

Eloa, i have a strong feeling that we are going to end up doing a little of each.

For the original map i suspect only a few maps will be able to be implemented because:

commonlands and atonica are too big unless you halve it (might be worth it for these two tho)

a map has to be made that has exact or very close sizes/distances so that it matches up perfectly with the required map dimensions. This is the one that is going to hold us up the most with the zones that have no map whatsoever.

Until someone makes a perfect sized map, we will most likely have all teh maps in the window Eloa created. Once a good map is made, we insert it and test it out.

[Eloa]

I was thinking about resizing the map window for bigger maps and trying to get the loc marker to scale with it. but here is my chat ramble about why I dont think we'll ever be able to get that to work:

I dont think it's possible. Everything that is in there is starting to make sense. The map is placed in the MapPage and if all zone coordinates started at 0,0 then the game could position the marker at /loc's coords in the mappage, but since zonerect is there, its telling it to subtract the zonerect from the /loc and place the dot at the appropriate spot.

The weird thing is that there is an ingame map for antonica but its not listed as a style in the uibuilder, therefore we have nothing to go off of as a base for cutting maps up like antonica does now. We can plead with bobble to help us out here...

[tonyis3l33t]

lets say antonica is 1000x500. could you not start the dot at 500x0?

[Eloa]

theres nothing to change the dot with, it has to be hardcoded....

[Eloa]

so that all arent left out:

<EloaMasterHealer> its odd that theres no antonica listed in the ui file. We really need that for something to go off of for multi page maps.
<Deathbane-SemiAFK> maybe we can provoke Bobble into telling us how we can do it, or at least IF we can
<EloaMasterHealer> but I've been to antonica and have lots of diff names of files the 2 maps could be, but never been to commonlands and I'm seeing that it has 2 names,
<EloaMasterHealer> commandlands.vpk and commonlands_SG.vpk
<EloaMasterHealer> so that MUST be it
<EloaMasterHealer> SG would be the second map name
<Deathbane-SemiAFK> There's lots of files with SG.
<EloaMasterHealer> weird too...
<Deathbane-SemiAFK> Custom Antonica map would rock though
<Deathbane-SemiAFK> Whenever anyone asks newbie question, just send them to download the complete map pack
<EloaMasterHealer> he said something about if you've already been there you would see the what he was talking about, but ALL the files in my vpk folder are dated the install date
<EloaMasterHealer> heh, yep
<Deathbane-SemiAFK> Cache folder
<EloaMasterHealer> ioplans
<EloaMasterHealer> right, i was just playing refugee isle, and its the latest dated file
<EloaMasterHealer> wonder what all this junk is though.... tutorial_island02+tutorial_island02_epic01.iop
<Deathbane-SemiAFK> Game makes one of those files every time you zone.
<Deathbane-SemiAFK> That one is for zoning into the orc cave.
<EloaMasterHealer> aha
<EloaMasterHealer> so if you watch the cache folder you will find out when you cross zonename lines since the file will update
<EloaMasterHealer> and then you can have all the names

[Eloa]

Ok so on another note, in my maps, i managed to resize the maps to 512x512 and just stretch it to the same size as the 1024x1024 and after sharpening them you can hardly tell a difference, which also cuts the size from 512k to 129kb so that will save alot of ram from being eaten up.
New file is attached.

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[Eloa]

Brainstorm!

MrBobble
You know if we have this correct, you can just have the great guys over there take my map mod and implement it ingame and let us change the locdot.
If we have it wrong though, and we can resize the map and still get the loc to work can we get some further info please?
Or even some more information on how maps like antonica work with the split...
Thanks

[Eloa]

Added steppes map so my coworkers can add to it.

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[tonyis3l33t]

Eloa,
Instead of putting everything inside the eq2ui_mainhud.xml, i recommend you put in

<include>eq2ui_mainhud_custommap.xml</include>

and put all your stuff in eq2ui_mainhud_custommap.xml, obviously

just makes more sense that way. Plus if people have certain windows listed above others it would change their layer order all to what your eq2ui_mainhud's order is.

[Eloa]

good call, working on it

[Eloa]

Just submitted to downloads section as well.
Update
Put everything into a new .xml file

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[Eloa]

Another update. I just can't stay away.
This release intented for devs only, not game use. Download .05
Implemented the skeleton for the quests window.

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[Drumstix42]

Keep it up all

[SOE_Bobble]

Congrats everyone. If I was a quest NPC, I would give you a reward. Alas, I am not. So how about some more details:


For most of Beta, people may remember, EQ2 only had maps for the cities. The additional maps for Antonica/Commonlands/etc are encrypted and map icons are sent down from the server (along with the fog settings.) We wanted characters to have to explore to discover these regions. Nothing however should prevent you from adding your own versions of the images/locations -- you'll just need to find the name and zonerect. I suspect the fog will reset itself if you change the ZoneRect though.

Sidebar: Calculating the zonerect if fairly simple if you know the /loc and map pixel location for two places on the map (as far apart as possible in x & y). I'll leave that up to the reader. "Ratios are your friends."


Added at the same time was the ability to split maps. It's actually much more complex than that -- and I don't think I left any examples in the XML -- so here are the two additional map properties:

AvailableRect (x1,y1,x2,y2) -- similar to ZoneRect except it specifies the zone area (current location) when this map should be displayed. This defaults to ZoneRect. Overlapping split maps (Antonica/Commonlands) set the shared edge to the point you want to switch to the second map. This allows the maps to switch without moving all the way to the edge.

AvailablePriority (n) -- sets a priority for a map if more than one map has an AvailableRect that contains the current position. This defaults to 0. Lower numbers get preference. The current map is used if there is a tie. This allows detailed maps to be displayed for subsections.

For example: You could break Antonica up into 6 individual maps. Or one overall map with details maps if you travel within an area. Or...

For instance (with fake numbers):
MapStyles
qey_south_0
zonerect -200,-200,200,200
AvailableRect -200,-200,150,200
AvilablePriority 2
qey_south_1
zonerect 100,-200,500,200
AvailableRect 150,-200,500,200
AvailablePriority 2
qey_south_2
zoneRect -50,-50,50,50
AvailablePriority 1

If you are within the zoneRect of qey_south_2 that map will be drawn
based on priority. Otherwise it will pick from south_0 and south_1 appropriately. Note the _N attached to the zone names forn multiple maps.

And as correctly pointed out, the maps currently do not support changing on the Z axis.


I hope that helps.
MrBobble

[Eloa]

First off: Thank you very much!
Second: /ponders how many more hidden properties and such there are...
Third: Wow, this looks like it could be very fun, very useful, and a big PITA...
If someone would like to go on and switch mine over to this window, go for it, use my code or whatever. I personally am going to finish up my project as I think I like it alot better than the original map window. Though just some things off the top of my head on what he was saying is You could have a map of the area (antonica) and when you walk into the forest, one could draw up a detailed map of it and have it swap over to that. But again, I like big maps, and lots of information, hopefully they will implement the dynamic data where we can get a constant /loc update and then I will find SOME way to put in a position marker on all my maps. Guarunteed. Thanks to everyone for their hard work and trying all these useless things while figuring out the keys of how to get the UIBuilder to work for us instead of just moving around information. I know that everybody who uses our interfaces is very grateful.

Thanks again MrBobble.

[Deathbane27]

Originally Posted by SOE_Bobble

...And as correctly pointed out, the maps currently do not support changing on the Z axis.


I hope that helps.
MrBobble

It helps indeed.

And thanks for the "currently".

[Haliken]

Holy jeez, that was a lot to soak in Mr. Bobble. I've managed to make Oakmyst Forest into a proper map, and I couldn't find the internal name for Stormhold, so there's a selection menu and no-loc dot version of the first floor of that zone. I only marked the zone lines in Oakmyst Forest. Now that I know about the AvailableRects I can do more interesting stuff in some places eventually.

Anyway, check this out everybody.

Quib