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This guide covers custom zone making and the tooling available |
Custom Zone Making can be split to two styles, s3d and eqg format changing. s3d is an older file extension that EverQuest originally releasd with. eqg is the newer format, and you can repeat virtually all processes of a s3d in a cleaner, more coherent (and faster) manner with the more modern format. Each customizing zones section will have a note on the top to describe what area this page is applicable for, be it eqg or s3d format.
{% hint style="info" %} The information below this point is applicable for the legacy s3d format. {% endhint %}
OpenZone supports the following flows to import and generate zones:
| Flow | Ext | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| EQGZI | .blend -> .eqg | Modern and feature rich | Still work in progress, may lack some features OpenZone has (custom NPCs, etc) |
| OpenZone (.scn) | .scn | All features available | Very clunky, camera movement horrible, have to type in coordinates |
| 3d Studio Max | .3ds | Native modeling controls | Unverified if works with latest version, might have poly limits? |
| Quake 3 | .bsp | Ongoing updates, easy UI, free | BSP-Based rules are ultimately turned to normal polygons, meaning the process is quite clunky and untuitive and not always optimized |
| Dungeon Builder | .3ds | TBD | Primitive conversion, not a clean pipeline. |
To simplify the process of quake 3 bsp importing, I have a repo I set up here: https://github.com/demoncia/zones . You can alternatively download https://github.com/Garux/netradiant-custom and find a copy of openzone 8.3 to repeat the process, but the guide may be slightly different for you if you do so.
- Download a zip of https://github.com/demoncia/zones/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
- Extract to a path of your choosing.
- Start radiant.exe
- Your first start it may prompt for what game to use, use the Everquest option (it should be the only one).
- After clicking next, it'll ask where your game path is. Set it to the library/textures subdirectory.
- If you skip above, or mess it up, go to the top menu select edit, preferences. here's a screenshot of how I have it set up when I have the project at c:\code\projects\demoncia\zones:
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Click file, open. You should see my premade maps listed, like clz. Note the path, library/textures/quake3/maps of the dir you extracted radiant to. Click open
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Your textures should load and look like this:
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If all textures state Shader Not Found, review that your library/textures/quake3/ has maps, scripts, and textures subdirectories.
On the top menu, select build, (final). On success, a message such as the highlighted should appear:
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Start openzone.exe. On the top menu, select file, properties. Select indoor for zone type, and shortname/long name to clz for now. Click OK
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On the top menu, select file, import, Quake 3 Map... and browse for library/textures/quake3/maps/clz.bsp. You'll see a screenshot like below:
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(If multiple q3Mesh1 entries exist on the top left hierarchy, select one and press the delete key, and confirm. Any time you import, you'll want to delete the old mesh)
On the top menu, select file, export, Export to s3d... Enter new zone name: clz. click ok through each message.
In your zones subdir you'll see a list of various files. For now, you are only interested in the s3d and eff files.
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Copy these files to your everquest directory, overwriting the original clz.s3d.
Start everquest, and see if your loading screen changes. If it does, you have successfully made a custom zone!
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