[WotLk] [QUESTION] [NOGGIT] edit blizzard maps

[Thoraric]

Everybody says that don't edit blizzard maps. Why don't? Or I can convert blizzard maps terrain to another custom ADT which wont be bugged?
How can i delete WMO-s from an ADT in 010 editor or any program?

[Steff]

Noggit dont support all adt features. So it only works clean with adts made for it.
There are ways to edit blizz adts and to work around some problems. But it is not funny..

If you want to delete a wmo you need to delete it inside of noggit and mark all the surrounded adts for save.
The problem is that the wmo is stored in ALL adts it just it a litle pice of.

[Thoraric]

And if I crash in noggit and can't delete it because of WMO on the the adt tile?

[monsune]

Wish i found this topic before i created a quite nice and completed zone using blizzard's development map... then i spent like 6 hours trying to understand why on earth there were no changes visible in-game. So definitely no hope for me to have it working or would it, possibly, take some hex editing to "fix" ADTs or maybe at least could i "rip" and transfer the content to own map?

On the other hand i have seen patches including modified, fully functional blizzard maps so it has to be possible?

[schlumpf]

Editing Blizzard maps is technically not different at all from editing "custom" maps. If you encounter bugs after editing _any_ ADT, please report such, or look for workarounds for those.

[monsune]

I found no issues editing blizzard map so far. It all seems great, can save them after, etc. The problem is that there won't be any changes visible in-game. I spent half a day on this and nothing. It acts like the map put in custom patch was never loaded up by the client as it simply displays standard map. So could it be that Noggit's saved ADTs are not compatible?

[schlumpf]

I found no issues editing blizzard map so far. It all seems great, can save them after, etc. The problem is that there won't be any changes visible in-game. I spent half a day on this and nothing. It acts like the map put in custom patch was never loaded up by the client as it simply displays standard map. So could it be that Noggit's saved ADTs are not compatible?

No, then if would crash. The client has no fallback mechanisms or anything. It just never loaded your stuff.

[monsune]

I even added my stuff (coming straight from newest Noggit SDL) to a working MPQ patch (previously tested) to be sure it wasn't my fault of some kind when creating MPQ file. Still nothing while MPQ loads up as i can see other things coming from it, just not my edited map. This is just too simple to make a mistake. So it must be ignoring the ADTs or magically reverting to their "original" content. Is that even possible?

Correct me if i'm wrong but when the name is patch-z.mpq then it loads last, right? So edited ADTs should overwrite what is being loaded before them (original ADTs of same map). Thus it clearly should work. But it doesn't.

Or Ladik's MPQ Editor is simply broken and messed up somewhere.

[Amaroth]

More likely explanation is that you have put your ADTs into wrong folder in MPQ. They must be in World/Maps/(name of map/.. directory.

[MountainLion]

Read this viewtopic.php?f=78&t=3571

Try that mpq editor instead and follow the instructions

[monsune]

I'm pretty sure that my ADTs are in world/maps/mapname/ path. OK. I will try with the older version of MPQ editor. There is one thing i'm not doing though - i don't touch DBC as the map i edited already exists there (blizzard's development one) and i'm simply "overwriting" several ADTs. Hope this is correct?

EDIT: Didn't work with 1.1 also.

I noticed that Taliis (wdt creation mode) won't see any of these ADTs saved by Noggit. Scan is empty like there were no ADTs in the folder. Why?

[MountainLion]

I'm pretty sure that my ADTs are in world/maps/mapname/ path. OK. I will try with the older version of MPQ editor. There is one thing i'm not doing though - i don't touch DBC as the map i edited already exists there (blizzard's development one) and i'm simply "overwriting" several ADTs. Hope this is correct?

Your custom patch has to contain the right dbc files or else it doesn't know where your edits go.

What I would suggest is to go back to the start of the tutorial I linked earlier, and do it step by step (always helps)

Also, your patches have to contain a good folder structure, for reference download the tools Steff included in the tutorial and have a look at the folder structures inside the Project folder to get an idea of how you need to organize.

Edit: If all else fails, try uploading your custom patch so we can have a look at it and figure out the issue.

[monsune]

I kindly appreciate your time and patience but still, i believe there must be another reason for the failure. That's because:

1. I edited a blizzard map (development one) that was already there, never added one from scratch. I have seen another patch, with a few blizzard maps edited, and there were no DBC files included at all, still that patch worked fine.

2. My file structure is correct to the best of my knowledge: world/maps/mapname/*.adt (mapname is same as the original blizzard one). Exactly the same schema as in the other patch that i mentioned above and same as in Steff's tutorials.

3. I did read all the tutorials several times. They are very well written, pretty informative and clear to me. The only difference being that they cover creating a map from scratch and not using blizzard ADTs as a base for edits.

4. I tested my patch with Noggit by loading the map while having the patch in client's data folder. It loads up fine in Noggit and there are changes visible. Just not for the client, only in Noggit. This seems to be a proof that patch itself is fine, right?

Client acts like it never loaded ADTs from my patch or ignored them, simply displaying original content. Could it be that Noggit can't properly save ADTs created by blizzard thus they are just garbage from the client's point of view and don't load? Please also note what i wrote in previous post about Taliis unable to scan them when creating wdt, is that even normal at all?

[schlumpf]

Client acts like it never loaded ADTs from my patch or ignored them, simply displaying original content. Could it be that Noggit can't properly save ADTs created by blizzard thus they are just garbage from the client's point of view and don't load? Please also note what i wrote in previous post about Taliis unable to scan them when creating wdt, is that even normal at all?

Again: the client just crashes when you have bad files. As you have mentioned editing the WDT, did you include that? Are you sure NoggIt loaded from the MPQ and not from local files?

[monsune]

Noggit must have loaded ADTs from my MPQ because i can see terrain changes, some removed m2s, etc. That's a clear fact. Client never crashed also but it just won't display anything related to that MPQ and its ADTs. Original terrain, standard m2s, etc. Just like there was no MPQ added in data dir.

I didn't include the wdt. First reason being that Taliis won't show those modified ADTs after directory scan. They are like non-existing and ADT matrix is clear. I tried several times, clicked all over to refresh, etc. Still nothing to save. So i failed to successfuly create wdt from edited blizzard ADTs.

On the other hand, in some downloaded patch i mentioned before (also modified blizzard maps) there were no wdt/wdl files at all, just plain ADTs and that worked fine both in Noggit and client. Which isn't the case with my patch.

I also made very sure about naming scheme. No bugs, extension is upper case, i also tried World vs world, Mapname vs mapname. Still nothing.

I think it would be quite easy to anyone interested to replicate what i'm describing - just load up development map in Noggit, do some edits, save the map, build an MPQ and try to make client to see it. I'm sure it won't work for you either unless you can provide me with a proof that i'm wrong Then i thought that there was something wrong with just this blizzard dev map. So i tried editing stormwind area map. And again same situation.

So my elaboration is: why is it so and what can be done about it? There must be some difference between ADT created from scratch and ADT that comes straight from blizzard. Funny thing being that it works for Noggit but not for client. Just like e.g. there were some specific data blocks or flags in those original ADTs that client is looking for (perhaps optional so it doesn't crash when they are missing) and can't find them because Noggit skips them when saving map thus client reverts to original ADTs from stock MPQ.

EDIT:

I continued to have fun. This time i deleted original Stormwind map completely from client's patch-3.MPQ. I also removed my custom patch from Data folder. And guess what? Client didn't mind and i teleported to Stormwind without any problems. It's all there still like nothing happened. Even though Noggit can't see the map anymore and you can't access it from the menu.

Isn't this gross? Where is the Stormwind map coming from then?