Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

[Shep]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

just trying to leech.....

fuck that, i dont need to go to that damn forum that bad.....maybe if the site was set up right in the first place, you wouldnt have had that problem...

[DeviFoxx]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

Loading maps(zones) into VRS doesn't work. I tried that along time ago. Likely this will never become possible, nor if I knew a way I would not likely make it public. Because this would create such issues as possible major cheating. You could edit a door or wall to just walk past.


Sorry, but I doubt even the jappanese to create such a program. And private servers, take major programing and understandign of packets etc. Hardware wise they usually don't take alot to run.

Well, firstly Editing zones and Doors and stuff to "Walk around" for cheating purposes isn't
likely, Kilandor... It's been Done Before. If it hadn't been, I wouldn't have written this post,
let alone called it "Advanced Cartography" instead of plain old "Cartography".

And if a private server's difficult or not-- still-- that wouldn't stop people from doing it.

Look at Ragnarok Online.

Anyway, running a private server isn't really what I'm trying to accomplish. Basically I just
want to see if there's a way to build zones and script cutscenes. That'd make Machinima
as far as FFXI's concerned much easier and much better. I simply realize to DO those two
things I'm talking about, there'd have to be a way to either load a private server, or run an
offline instance of FFXI.

I'm not really trying to "bring down" FFXI. I'm just trying to explore various options, that's
all.

[Kuro]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

For the love of god stop what you are doing!

If you do crack it, then no doubt you would share how, thus unleashing the can of worms of map editing, cheaters get ahold of that power and were doomed! FFXI would be destroyed!

THE END IS NIGH lol

[Rones]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

Wow that is a nice program Starving. Where did you dig up that one?

Never mind, I found it here. Tried that program before, but couldn't figure out how to get it to work. Just got a pop up message in JP at the start.

[Kilandor]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

Well, firstly Editing zones and Doors and stuff to "Walk around" for cheating purposes isn't
likely, Kilandor... It's been Done Before. If it hadn't been, I wouldn't have written this post,
let alone called it "Advanced Cartography" instead of plain old "Cartography".

And if a private server's difficult or not-- still-- that wouldn't stop people from doing it.

Look at Ragnarok Online.

Anyway, running a private server isn't really what I'm trying to accomplish. Basically I just
want to see if there's a way to build zones and script cutscenes. That'd make Machinima
as far as FFXI's concerned much easier and much better. I simply realize to DO those two
things I'm talking about, there'd have to be a way to either load a private server, or run an
offline instance of FFXI.

I'm not really trying to "bring down" FFXI. I'm just trying to explore various options, that's
all.

Yes I know of all the Private servers out there really, It would just take a group of super dedicated people. I think if you wanted to work on a direction to go for figureing out how to load them, then from there edit them. Would be to look at the JP program to load them, and figure out how it does it. It suxs though cause if we had source code, or a development kit for VRS, a DLL plugin could be made for it But it still might be possible. But tryign to to program a DLL for VRS I would think be near impossible without a Kit, or source.

But the best Idea would be to make your own program, based off the JP map loader.

I had the program in the above link before but I couldn't ever get it to work either

just trying to leech.....

fuck that, i dont need to go to that damn forum that bad.....maybe if the site was set up right in the first place, you wouldnt have had that problem...

It is setup properly, The bug with password Recovery has nothing to do with setup, or my fault. There is nothing I can do about it till the creator releases the update, other than what I have been doing having People e-mail me and then I reset thier PW, Which doesn't take long, and i've had about 7 people do it fine.

You must have just mistyped your password 2x, and yes its possible. There is 486 members, who are perfectly using the forum. with all of about 7 who have had problems and had to e-mail me. (8 if you count yourself) So..Obviously things are woroking fine. I'm sorry for your problems but you know how to contact me if you wish to. Its reall y simple, and I generall have it fixed within a day of the e-mail being sent, unless I just forget to check it.

[Rones]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

There are 2 downloads available, one I think is meant for DX9 capable cards.

Well according to the translation I got from the site, one is regular and the other is experimental version with shadows. I couldn't get either to work, just the same pop up message at the start. Tried it in various folders, but can't make any progress on it.

[ifandbut]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

I've only seen one program that can actually load the area models. It doesn't seem to export, but can load most of the environment effects, NPC and PC data like modelviewer. The models even move through the environment according to their animation, although I haven't found how to completely control them.

What dirrectory did you unzip it to?

[Lunaryn]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

For the love of god stop what you are doing!

If you do crack it, then no doubt you would share how, thus unleashing the can of worms of map editing, cheaters get ahold of that power and were doomed! FFXI would be destroyed!

THE END IS NIGH lol

*shakes head*

Maybe it's because I'm a programmer and most people don't want to even believe they could fathom how programming works, but...

If people successfully modded areas clientside to cheat, the only way that would grow into major disruptions to the overall balance/playability of the game at all would be if it was left to run rampant, which would imply that S-E has abandoned maintenance of the game entirely and is running the servers unattended. They may have a sometimes disturbingly laissez-faire attitude toward some happenings in the game, but modifying the client for in-game gain is not something they have a history of tolerating.

1-10 people could get away with this if they did it quietly and discreetly, not really making much use of it to further their characters, but just to play with.
20-50 people would certainly get caught by GMs and banned. I might even be going a little on the high side on this range, but a lot would depend on how flagrant the illicit behaviour was.
50+ people would almost certainly result in Emergency Maintenance, wherein a consistency check or several would be added, so the server would know if somewhere the client let you go is supposed to be impossible. Very similar to what happened with the 3rd party tool to change jobs on the spot. Not as simple a consistency check perhaps, but in no way unmanageable.

People see the game as very fragile, I think because the architecture is 'lazy' from a security standpoint. That doesn't mean shedding a little bit of light on it will shatter it. It means that shedding light on it will just force S-E into making their security model a little less poor.

Some people might be aware that there is a term in the Software Industry, "Security through Obscurity." which I feel truly pervades many people's attitudes toward this game. While many in the security field now agree that any system that relies too heavily on this method of security is deeply flawed and vulnerable, it seems as if many within the FFXI community cling to it as their 'only hope' of continued playability of the game, leading the few who study it to hoard knowledge carefully. The attitude that "what I know must not fall into the hands of the masses" continues on even to topics in game, due mainly to fears of increased competition for resources. I think that S-E does little to discourage this attitude in-game, but as far as it applies to the actual software I don't think the attitude is warranted. Just because S-E has chosen to do very much of their consistency-checking client-side, leak more information to the client than the client is supposed show the player, etc. does not mean they must, or that they will not change their approach when people exploit the weaknesses in the current approach.

Sorry for being somewhat off-topic, but this has been bugging me for a while now.

More to the thread's point, my suggestion is that if you're looking to build a whole new area and orchestrate scenes in it, perhaps FFXI itself isn't really the medium called for. My suggestion would be to try to find a 3D engine of some sort that wouldn't be too difficult to export FFXI models to. You could then model areas in that engine and write your own scenes. This probably isn't quite as daunting a task as it might sound, seeing as you don't need any user interaction, just a sequential set of rendering tasks.

[ifandbut]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

It might have something to do with the .lst files that are installed with the program. I just unzipped it into my regular download folder on a separate drive, and it still works. Do you have Languages for non-Unicode programs set to Japanese in the Regional and Languages options?

Ya, I can see everything in proper Japanese. I wonder, do you have the JP version of POL or FFXI installed or do you have the JP verisons of registery keys set in your registery?

I got a screen shot of the error. I can understand everything but those two Kanji but the best transulation I can get is something like "Final Fantasy XI is not installed/not found.

[Rones]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

Yep, that's as far as I can get.

[Arcaus]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

Hmmm. I've downloaded VRS and tried to import the FFXI models but it gave me a bunch of errors and terminated the program...Any idea why it's doing that?

Double Post Edited:
nvm it's working fine now >.>

[DeviFoxx]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

*shakes head*

Maybe it's because I'm a programmer and most people don't want to even believe they could fathom how programming works, but...

If people successfully modded areas clientside to cheat, the only way that would grow into major disruptions to the overall balance/playability of the game at all would be if it was left to run rampant, which would imply that S-E has abandoned maintenance of the game entirely and is running the servers unattended. They may have a sometimes disturbingly laissez-faire attitude toward some happenings in the game, but modifying the client for in-game gain is not something they have a history of tolerating.

1-10 people could get away with this if they did it quietly and discreetly, not really making much use of it to further their characters, but just to play with.
20-50 people would certainly get caught by GMs and banned. I might even be going a little on the high side on this range, but a lot would depend on how flagrant the illicit behaviour was.
50+ people would almost certainly result in Emergency Maintenance, wherein a consistency check or several would be added, so the server would know if somewhere the client let you go is supposed to be impossible. Very similar to what happened with the 3rd party tool to change jobs on the spot. Not as simple a consistency check perhaps, but in no way unmanageable.

People see the game as very fragile, I think because the architecture is 'lazy' from a security standpoint. That doesn't mean shedding a little bit of light on it will shatter it. It means that shedding light on it will just force S-E into making their security model a little less poor.

Some people might be aware that there is a term in the Software Industry, "Security through Obscurity." which I feel truly pervades many people's attitudes toward this game. While many in the security field now agree that any system that relies too heavily on this method of security is deeply flawed and vulnerable, it seems as if many within the FFXI community cling to it as their 'only hope' of continued playability of the game, leading the few who study it to hoard knowledge carefully. The attitude that "what I know must not fall into the hands of the masses" continues on even to topics in game, due mainly to fears of increased competition for resources. I think that S-E does little to discourage this attitude in-game, but as far as it applies to the actual software I don't think the attitude is warranted. Just because S-E has chosen to do very much of their consistency-checking client-side, leak more information to the client than the client is supposed show the player, etc. does not mean they must, or that they will not change their approach when people exploit the weaknesses in the current approach.

Sorry for being somewhat off-topic, but this has been bugging me for a while now.

More to the thread's point, my suggestion is that if you're looking to build a whole new area and orchestrate scenes in it, perhaps FFXI itself isn't really the medium called for. My suggestion would be to try to find a 3D engine of some sort that wouldn't be too difficult to export FFXI models to. You could then model areas in that engine and write your own scenes. This probably isn't quite as daunting a task as it might sound, seeing as you don't need any user interaction, just a sequential set of rendering tasks.

Something like this sounds quite possible.

I thank you kindly for your advice. It has been most helpful.

With that in mind, let us explore possible 3D programs.

Would 3D Studio Max be capable of something like this? You know of any programs?

[ifandbut]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

Something like this sounds quite possible.

I thank you kindly for your advice. It has been most helpful.

With that in mind, let us explore possible 3D programs.

Would 3D Studio Max be capable of something like this? You know of any programs?

I belive 3DS Max would do just fine, but to get a legial copy of it is quite expencive. I would personaly recomend Blender, it's free and open source, only proublem with it is it does not import many formats. You can find it at www.blender.org

[DeviFoxx]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

Have you tried this out? Might it work?

[Lunaryn]

Re: Experimental Project: Advanced Cartography (Map Modding & Construction)

Looks pretty good. We'd need to write an import filter, though. If one of our FFXI .dat format gurus has some technical info to contribute, this is probably doable, allowing it to directly import FFXI models. Otherwise, we'd probably be better trying to find documentation on MQO format, and making the input filter based on that.

I don't really have any graphics experience, but I do have C/C++ experience and am looking to pick up Python, so I could probably contribute something to such an effort. At least, once my University course is over.