[WIP][Showoff][3.x][Area Change] - Cursed Elwynn Forest

[mkross1983]

Hey everyone, I'm new to the forums here and to editing WoW in general. I've been going through the posts here and played around to make a few changes. I started making Elwynn look like the Emerald Dream but decided to change everything to more of a Desert / Cursed look.

I want to thank the following members for their helpful guides:

clov: Basic Area Change Guide.html

Lex: Gnome to Weird Looking Creature Guide

Cromon: [Development] YiasEdit - A 3.X Mapeditor

I cannot for the life of me find the texture to change the tree trunks, I've looked and found textures for Elwynn Trees in about five different spots. I have changed the canopy's to the Emerald Dream version but decided to leave them normal for right now in this edit.

So basically, it's pretty simple and it's my first published Area Change so go easy on me huh?

The majority of changes have been made in the Northshire Abbey. I deleted some trees and edited the height of some of the land. If you are not a GM and cannot turn on fly mode make sure your character is not in the abbey before running with this patch. I fell through the World and had to turn fly mode on to get back up. The height is not significant but it's enough for where I was standing when I logged out last.

Anyway, here are some screenshots, hope you guy's like it.

Let me know if you run into any problems and I'll help out as much as I can but remember I'm a noob at this stuff.

Patch-5.ZIP - Contains patch-5.MPQ


Ok, so I've made a few changes. I was able to change the texture of the fences and lamp posts in Elwynn to a darker texture. I also managed to change the skybox to a sickly looking green. Not sure I like it, I might change it later if I can figure it all out. Interesting to note I changed the very first entry in Lights.dbc for Elwynn Forest instead of ID 78. Changes to ID 78 were not doing anything so I tried ID 0 on a whim and it worked.

Couple screenshots:







I also changed the sound files to "Enchanted Forest" from "Forest". There are four different ones. There are some texture issues still like some grass gets cut off between two different tiles but it's not too bad.

More to come as I figure this all out.

[l1nk3]

That's hawt.

[korric]

for your first, this is good. Reminds me of when I first started.
That's the tileset from Eastern Plaguelands you've laid out there right? I recognize it
You've used Yias to remove some trees and stuff already makes this better than mine (I downloaded Yias but it refused to work).

If I may suggest something, when you get the time; have a look through WoW Model Viewer at some trees that may better suit the area (the Elwynn trees don't really suit that tileset) and then put those trees into the patch, there's a guide around here somewhere, but I'm too lazy to link it

Another thing is I can see a few patches of green grass around on the pictures, is that intentional? And could I suggest that you add a few more different tiles to it (cos it all looks the same colour, but I might be colourblind lol)

Maybe also if you have the time; find the BLP's for the buildings in Elwynn and change them a bit to make them look a bit more "plagued", or perhaps extract the ones from another file (the houses in Tirisfal Glades for example) and add them to the patch using the treepath of the Elwynn building BLP's. There's a guide around here somewhere, yet again I'm too lazy

Well it's always nice to more Area edits on here, hopefully my suggestions might come into focus as you develop the patch a little more, I look forward to seeing more of your work +Rep for you

[~sInX]

So you've swapped the tilesets to desolace. tbh, objects, sky, detail, etc etc, then you'll get ONE of my cookies.

[mkross1983]

lol, yes Sinnex, it's from Desolace and very simple I know. Thanks for the rep and advice korric. I've been looking through the files but am having trouble finding the right blp's for the tree trunks in Elwynn and I can't seem to find any blp's for real buildings except for Elwynn. The other blp's under "Buildings" folders have towers and posts and such. Of course I'm only using common.MPQ but I've looked common2.MPQ as well. Maybe some of Blizz's patches moved them around but I'm trying to make this look better.

I spent a good hour or so attempting to change the bushes, rocks, and other small details and added the files to the patch the same way I changed the tile sets but for some reason it's not working.

I'm keeping it at though. Thanks for the inputs so far.

[korric]

Try looking in Common-2.MPQ to find the trees and bushes for elwynn forest, copy their treepaths, then find and extract ones from a place such as Felwood or plaguelands.
Go to the folder you extracted them into and rename them to the names of the Elwynn forest bushes and trees, then add them into a patch using the treepaths of the elwynn stuff you copied earlier. (to find the sort of things you'd like, have a look through WoW Model Viewer in the World folder)

I had a go at this in my Brightwynd edit earlier today, I swapped some of the DeadwindPassGroundRocks to the streetlamps from around Stormwind city to try and make the place a bit lighter until I changed the skybox. It worked to some extent, it was a bit brighter... but I had streetlamps of various sizes skattered about the mountain range and the paths lol. So have a go at what I said above, but try your best not to make the same sort of mistake as me.

As for the Skybox, I can't help you with that, I've downloaded Glitchy's skybox editor and know how to use it but it causes critical errors cos the DBC files are missing a column or something.

Edit; sorry for my bad grammar and spelling (if any), I'm really tired :S

Edit 2: I just had a fun idea! if it's gonna be cursed maybe you could edit some skins for the critters and stuff to make them look plagued or whatever, and as for the Defias at the Vinyard; if the ID could be found in CreatureDisplayInfo.DBC then maybe they could be changed to undead or something. But this was just a random idea that came into my head while I was trying to get some sleep

[I Hypnotoad I]

Haha, This is kinda funny, an hour before you posted this topic, I had an idea to do something much similar to this.
But I can't blame you for anything, because I had only written the concept for it.

Unfortunetly, I cannot give you too many tips for this since I'm working on mine too, but I can say that you're doing good progress so far. The only thing that I'd like to input is for you to (Like others said) Change the trees, and some environmental doodads. I'm wondering if you're just swapping .blps for this edit, if you're using Yias and Taliis, may I suggest making a specific zone in Elwynn different from the whole 'Wasteland' theme (Some sort of Oasis or something)

[Xel]

This looks pretty good, I like how you removed trees! Actually the little green left in
this edit doesn't bother me. Well you could always swap those bushes.

Skybox also is a good way to improve the zone looking.
My favourite of those images has to be:

[mkross1983]

Still struggling with this. I found the .WMO for Goldshire Inn and I open it with notepad and I can see the paths for loading textures but am not sure how to edit it to use other ones and save it correctly. Search for WMO on here to see if there is a program or converter but I get no results. I try to look at the path's listed in the WMO but they aren't there. I've used both MWCS and Ladik's MPQ Editor. MWCS won't open Common2.MPQ for me at all, it just doesn't load, no errors. MWCS crashes when trying to view .M2's or Skin files. I have a model viewer but that doesn't help figure out where the textures are.

From the Goldshire Inn WMO I have:

DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\TRIM\MM_STRMWND_TRIM_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\WALLS\MM_STRMWND_WALL_02.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\ROOF\MM_STRMWND_ROOF_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\TRIM\MM_STRMWND_SUPPORTS_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\WINDOWS\MM_ELWYNN_WND_EXT__01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\FLOOR\MM_STREET_03.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\BRICK\MM_REDBRICK_03X.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\FLOOR\MM_STRMWND_INT_FLOOR_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\WOOD\MM_WOODROOF_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\WALLS\MM_STRMWND_INT_WALL_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\DEVICES\MM_FIREPLACE_FRONT.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\METAL\MM_MINERAIL_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\CEILING\MM_STRMWND_INT_CEILING_02.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\WALLS\MM_STRMWND_WALL_04.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\DECORATION\MM_STRMWND_INT_FURNITURE_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\DEVICES\MM_STONE_TABLETOP_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\COMBOS\MM_INN_COMBO_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\WALLS\MM_CELLAR_WALL_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\WOOD\MM_CASK_SIDE_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\DEVICES\MM_CORK_01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\WINDOWS\MM_ELWYNN_WND_INT__01.BLP DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\TRIM\MM_STRMWND_INT_TRIM_01.BLP

but everything around it is all symbols so the file is not readable by notepad, at least not correctly.

Anyone got any ideas on how the heck to change the building textures because two days of trying to figure this out and I'm lost still.

Thanks.

[korric]

whoa, lots of big writing :P
I'm sorry I can't really help you much with WMO's, I've never really dabbled into swapping those around.
If I ever find out how (cos I'll probably need to figure this out for Brightwynd) I'll tell you how to do it

[mkross1983]

Thanks Korric, appreciate it. I'll be sure to do the same for you if I figure it out. I updated a WMO file within Notepad and changed the path for the Goldshire Inn Windows to a Forsaken Window but it didn't make any changes with the patch so I'm assuming I'm either doing it wrong or notepad can't save the file correctly which is probably the most likely case.

I'll try to find a WMO Converter or Editor or something. I'll let you know if I figure anything out. We could just swap out the .M2 for a different model completely like we do for fences or something but then the structure and quest givers inside would be in the wrong spots so.

[korric]

As for progress, I've just had a go at reskinning WMO's (just simply changing the BLP's)
and all that did was turn Karazhan tower into a black silhouette which just doesn't suit my edit at all. So no progress at the moment with WMO's unfortunately. if there is such a program that edits WMO's then please PM me with a link to it