Here's my BFZ (short for Black Fogged Zone) zonerect Calculator. It's an in-game tool used to figure out zonerects for SOE's default outdoor mapped zones (Antonica, TS, Nektulos, Commonlands, EL, etc.).
You put the attached XML in your eq2map folder. Once in-game, click the little Question Mark button on the top right of the Map window (formerly the Help button). The window will expand to the right and show a kinda crazy grid of 0's and 6 buttons labeled Step 1 - Step 6. Hold your mouse cursor over each of these buttons for instructions.
EDIT: Updated the attached XML. If you downloaded before 8:07 PM PST 2/28/05, redownload.
Can this be adapted to use for unmapped zones too?
I suspect not, but it doesn't hurt to ask........
Well, I could make an in-game version of taco-man's zonerect calculator, but it wouldn't be that helpful unless we figure out how to concatenate strings in-game (if even possible). If the zonerect could be changed on-the-fly I'd consider setting one up, but at this point there'd be no difference. I set this one up in-game, because the "Step 1" and "Step 3" buttons grab the necessary values (one of which is hard to get without some sort of little script).
I forgot to compensate for the width of the location arrow, so the values actually are off by a little. Will have a new version soon.
Ok i may be an utter newbie to this, but i have a simple question. I have most of the server side maps cleared completely. But i still have some black around the border covering up the "paper" around the map. All these screens i see have removed that black. May i ask how?
1) You uncover as much as you can then use Photoshop (or a similar image editor) to fake reveal the rest of the black. Filling in the blanks so-to-speak.
2) You can make another UI object load the current zone's map image. The fog is layer over the image, so by loading the current zone's image directly, you get a fog free picture. Then take a screenshot and you have a clean version.
3) There's a way to displace the fog on the main map, essentially shoving it off to the side so it doesn't obscure the map. This is what's been done in the above screenshot.
What were you saying earlier about displacing the fog on the map so that it wouldn't cover the main areas? Is this possible, and if so how do you do it?
Yes it's possible and it's pretty complicated. You have to start the MapPage object at 3x normal width before EQ2 loads the first map, then set it back to normal width the first time the map window is opened. This also displaces your location arrow so that you don't see it either. The lack of location arrow (until you've zoned) and the particular order in which the map window must be opened and it's state upon camping is why we abandoned making it a standard feature. Plus I imagine the EQ2 devs don't really like the players getting rid of the fog.
we need a list of original zones that need zonerect found.
I know the Feerrott needs one... I've been marking PoIs for it, but I haven't tried this thing to get a map of it. I'll run that tonight or tomorrow and post the results.
Do I need to have the entire zone as clear as possible of the fog, or is that even a worry? The only sections of the Feerrott I haven't cleared are those near the Temple of Cazic-Thule, as the mobs there are the only ones who see through my invis...
I know the Feerrott needs one... I've been marking PoIs for it, but I haven't tried this thing to get a map of it. I'll run that tonight or tomorrow and post the results.
Do I need to have the entire zone as clear as possible of the fog, or is that even a worry? The only sections of the Feerrott I haven't cleared are those near the Temple of Cazic-Thule, as the mobs there are the only ones who see through my invis...
Revealing the map isn't important, you just need to get far NW and far SE to get /loc's.
If it's easier to get far NE and SW than NW and SE (rather, if you can get farther NE than NW and farther SW than SE) go ahead and do so, and just post a pic of the BFZ calculator and I can do some reversed calculations on the numbers.