Client Graphics

[napkinthief]

Im looking for some information about upgrading the client. I am pretty adequate modeling with 3ds max and other 3d modeling programs. I would like to make new graphics for the clients and import them into a .mul or something, but I dont know where to begin. Id like to start with some simple things and move up to eventually change most of the ingame items, weapons, and some monster/player changes. I am aiming for something to look better than 2d, but offer the EXACT same gameplay.

So far I know I would have to create all the models I wanna change and take screen shots of them at the angles I want them to be shown ingame, because of the 2d gameplay. How would I go about importing them into a .mul and which one? Is it possible to up the graphics from the fuzzy low color classic style to higher quality colored models (maybe shading and dynamic lighting)?

[Rosey1]

This will help you:

Custom Artwork How-To

[HellRazor]

The animations are probably the most difficult aspect of adding stuff to the client. There is a lot you will need to know or figure out.

The main files you will be working with are anim.mul and anim.idx. There are also anim1, anim2, etc. which contain the animations from the expansions (Lord Blackthorn's Revenge, Samurai Empire, Mondains Legacy, etc.), but to add or replace animations you don't really need to use those, you just need to understand what they are and how they work.

There are 3 different types of animations (low detail, high detail, and people and accessories). These each have a different number of total animation frames, and a specified ID range that they must be within. You can take a look using InsideUO and see how they are arranged. (InsideUO has some of the animation IDs wrong tho so don't use that as a reference for ID numbers).

Also, you have the files bodyconv.def (which take the animations from the expansion files anim2, anim3, etc. and assign them to valid ID numbers from anim.mul) and body.def (which makes virtual copies of existing IDs, such as taking a wolf, hueing it red, and making a virtual copy to a different ID so it can be used as a dire wolf). The reason you need to know about these is that they are assigning animations to ID numbers - an animation slot may APPEAR to be empty, but if body.def or bodyconv.def is using them, then they really aren't empty and if you add something to one of those slots, those files will override it.

I recommend TDV Mulpatcher as a good tool to extract/add animation frames. You can extract an existing animation to see how the file names need to be laid out for each frame.

If you do some searching on my name and the words body.def and bodyconv.def you should come up with some posts I've made on those files explaining what they are and what they do.

My recommendation is, before you embark on a big project, take some time to just play around with extracting and adding a few animations first so you can figure out how it all works. It can be a little daunting, especially if you have no experience in editing the client.