My current research for a graphics related mod project

[Ominous]

Hello all, I'm not really new to these forums but I've long forgot my username/password due to a long absence from modding since its been a few years.

I have recently been planning a graphics based mod since I have a lot of background in image manipulation and have been looking into resources from other blizzard based games. When I first came back to skim through the news and forums I was very surprised to find that we can add new levels/towns/objects....it took the breath right out of me.

Well like anyone else i started looking into the most obvious of blizzards games, World of Warcraft and stumbled across Wow Model Viewer. Nice I can now look at all the creature models and even export perfect animations!....or so I thought until i noticed that there is no way someone could actually position the models good enough to be used as animations in D2.

Well I decided to find a quick work around and sniffed out the pointers for the Models X/Y rotation and Distance from the camera. Which I will now post here for anyone who was wanting a quick fix along with a short tutorial. Note that I am not going to go into detail about how to convert to .dcc and insert into Diablo 2, since i assume the audience already knows how to do this.

Base Pointer Address: 0082B84C (Please note that all the pointers use the same base address)
Y Axis Model Rotation - Offset: 1FC
X Axis Model Rotation - Offset: 1F8
Camera Distance from Model - Offset: 1F4

===== Very Short Tutorial =====
Tools Required:
-Wow Model Viewer v0.7.0.6(latest I've found for pandaria)
-Cheat Engine(any version should work unless its way too old)

Step 1 - Open Wow Model Viewer and load the model you would like to position for export.

Step 2 - Open Cheat Engine attach to the Wow Model Viewer Process then Click Add Address Manually.

Step 3 - Type in your description for the pointer your inputting (ex. "X Axis Rotation") make sure its of type "Float" and then check pointer.

Step 4 - Under Address of pointer type in the Base Pointer Address above, then under Offset type in the offset that corresponds to the one your currently inputting.

Step 5 - Now once you have all 3 pointers, Set the Y Axis Rotation to 0, X Axis Rotation to 45, and Distance to Camera to around 20.

You should now have a model that is facing right in an isometric perspective! Good luck and have fun playing with it!

The Y Axis Rotation goes counter clockwise from (0 - 360).
The X Axis Rotation is best left unchanged from 45.
Distance from camera might take some tweaking to find a size that fits your liking. (Bigger Number...Smaller Model)
=========================

Okay enough about my background and what I've been doing these past few hours, Since my thread also mentions a graphics related mod project. I was thinking about starting small releasing a graphics plugin every once in a while as time permits and maybe later moving on to a personal mod and then just maybe if that makes any progress releasing it.

Would anyone besides me even be interested in this?
And besides interest what are your opinions/suggestions on where i should go from here.
(I don't need to know anything technical since i know how to use most of the modding tools, and defiantly know how time consuming creating new animations are since I've done it before 5-6 times with BG and IWD2 sadly this was a LONG time ago and probably haft to brush up on some things)

[weapon-x]

howdy

zup bro,

it seems we have lots of things in common

i tend to drift on the gfx side almost all the time,
but i also appreciate good gameplay...

all-in-all a total conversion...

haven't got World of Warcraft installed in my PC, honestly, haven't even tried playing it...
but i saw screenshots from google, and the game actually looks pretty cool... i even used skill icons from
the screenies WoW players posted.

i am currently rebuilding my d2 ui, and i am a little out of gfx resource...
i hope you don't mind sharing will stay tuned for your releases

cheers

[Necrolis]

just FYI, the source code seems to be available
https://code.google.com/p/wowmodelviewe ... e/checkout or the newer https://bitbucket.org/wowmodelviewer/wowmodelviewer
Ofc, I suppose its more fun going finding the stuff manually

You should chat to Demonsangel (either here or on the Xentax forums), he has reversed model formats from MANY MANY games for this very purpose, he even has a DCC encoder in python IIRC, might go a little faster if y'all team up (maybe release some combined packs of renders and the models in portable formats such as FBX/Collada), though I've been waiting for him to release his work so I could just convert the models

(Long ago I was planning to merge one of the WC3 model viewers and a DCC encoder to make something like this, found it easier to just add full OGL support to D2, so I could render 3D models ).

[Ominous]

I would have went the source code route, but i expected that many people(myself included) would not download software edited from an untrusted source so easily...especially ones that have an installer.

And your right about finding everything manually being more fun , i really enjoyed looking through hex and memory again, Haven't really had to do that since my friends got me to jump on the .net bandwagon. C# essentially took over my life for a long while, while being easier to work with than C or C++ I've found that relying on the language for everything has taught me some bad habits that I'm currently in the process of trying to unlearn...at this rate its gonna require extensive shock therapy .

About teaming up with Demonsangel, while teaming up with someone is something that i would love to do. I'm afraid that unless i know someone well communication on medium-large scale projects seem to lead to a projects failure more times than not(talking from personal experience and not meaning this to be a comment against him or anyone else here), although i would like to see his dcc encoder(maybe even convert it to a Windows Gui based application if its script based ).

If its just renders your looking for i could create a lot of them daily(even with little time), since i wouldn't haft to worry about conversion to dcc, offset managment, or editing cofs that a plugin would require. Model Conversion would be pretty simple also since im pretty sure .m2 has been looked into extensively(i might be wrong but ill look more into it).

Oh and for weapon-x, what type of resources are you looking for exactly, The base images for the gui, skill icons, ect? If so i could probably get you what you need .

[Necrolis]

although i would like to see his dcc encoder(maybe even convert it to a Windows Gui based application if its script based ).

Paul Siramy has the C source for a few encoders/decoders on his site in C, plus tones of docs on the format

[weapon-x]

Oh and for weapon-x, what type of resources are you looking for exactly, The base images for the gui, skill icons, ect? If so i could probably get you what you need .

yep, base images for the gui, buttons, skill icons... would be awesome

[Ominous]

Will get them to you as soon as i can sort can sort through and pack what i converted into manageable chunks, a total of 11,392 icons of all the inventory graphics, skills, and spells (not a mistype ). Also have some of the gui elements converted, which should be enough to at least give you some ideas on your interface.

But for now sleep, spent the night converting Akara into a Night Elf look alike...still need to work on her scale a bit but all in all turned out pretty good for a test. Attaching a screenshot in case you want to see how it went(her color is purposely brightened to check for transparency issues)

[weapon-x]

Will get them to you as soon as i can sort can sort through and pack what i converted into manageable chunks, a total of 11,392 icons of all the inventory graphics, skills, and spells (not a mistype ). Also have some of the gui elements converted, which should be enough to at least give you some ideas on your interface.

But for now sleep, spent the night converting Akara into a Night Elf look alike...still need to work on her scale a bit but all in all turned out pretty good for a test. Attaching a screenshot in case you want to see how it went(her color is purposely brightened to check for transparency issues)

awesome converted gfx you got there...


how many directions does this akara anim have?

i remembered adding a new weapon gfx useable by characters but
never did get to finish it, as i abandoned the idea, because it is very tedious... hehe

but given a chance, i'd make new gfx resource too...
i am thinking of adding new armor looks, with spikes and funky looking helms and plates
(*char gfx - not on the inventory stuff)


will be tuning-in for some updates and lots of releases

good luck

[Ominous]

Sorry about the delay, was visiting family and had no internet for 5 days or so. Akara in D2 has 8 directions just like the monsters, the one I made for a test was the same, as it was a replacement. But I can give an animation any number of directions needed such as for missiles and characters.

Also been writing a little program to change directions in wow model viewer at the push of a button while I was away from the net, I'll give it to others when its finished if anyone wants it. I have most of the wow graphics(the images not the models) extracted and converted to .png already, and will upload them as soon as I find some suitable web hosting.

Keep checking in, I promise I'm not being lazy (and you might be surprised when I release a few plugins, )

[splintter]

Looking good crusader grate work

[Jeewdew]

Oh and for weapon-x, what type of resources are you looking for exactly, The base images for the gui, skill icons, ect? If so i could probably get you what you need .

yep, base images for the gui, buttons, skill icons... would be awesome

If you are looking for WoW relatede stuff, they have been pickede out and put in files all over the internet - interface, icon etc.