I have been gathering data from several posts and trying to create a "guide" for 3D target rings. Here are my findings. I hope if anyone has any information, tips, tricks or places where I have mistakes, to please post them so I can edit this and post it later elsewhere. Here goes....
Here is a better explanation of the 3D Target ring and how it works, to my simple understanding, if someone can explain it further than I, please post and do so. At the end of the “TargetIndicator.ini” file located in the Default settings you can find a general explanation of what each setting does. See thread 1 or your own “.ini” for a copy. Obviously, this was never fully finished as you can notice by reading the note and noticing they there is no mention of “fairlyeasy” or other discrepancies.
A few programs that I use are MS “paint” irfanview and GIMP. These 3 are free for use and cost nothing and generally get the job done for me. I start with paint and make the orginal picture, use GIMP to make additional changes or crop specific part and irfanview to switch from one type of file to another. I usually use “.PNG” as it preserves the graphic exactly they way I want it and then change it the the final “.TGA” file that EQ uses.
When making multiply target rings, it may seem easier to give them a similar name but in practice, give them distinct names. I named the target circles for the guild jaggedpine defenders “jpdwhite” for white, “jpdblue” for blue, ect. This will help later if you decide to find that one target ring you wanted to use as a default.
Below I have put my own explanation in simpler terms along with some helpful hints.
Please note, I made this in the easiest possible way so if something seems obvious to you, remember, it’s not obvious to others.
If your target window shows only a “white circle” around your target, then something is not correct and needs to be fixed. The white circle is the default graphic used by EQ when it can not find a file or a file contains an error.
When loading a target ring, the more files you load, the longer it will take, the more memory you need and the more storage space you will have to have for the files. Also, when using the “/indi off” and the “/indi on” command to turn off/on a 3D target ring, you will crash at times. Ususally I can turn on and off the 3D target indicator about 7 or 8 times before I crash on my computer, I don’t know why it does this but it is annoying. The reason I mention this is because when testing new rings, you will probably turn this off and on several times
When making custom 3D target rings, only specific sizes can be used because of the way the ring is wrapped around a target. When making the horizontal picture the length must be a multiple of 256.
Example 1: 256x256
Example:2 256x260
Example:3 2048x385
Example 4: 1024x252
That way, when you rotate it 90% and flip it horizontally (or vertically, depending on how you rotated it) it will wrap in a circle properly. Once it gets changed it becomes:
Example 1: 256x256
Example 2: 260x256
Example 3: 385x2048
Example 4: 252x1024
The reason you want to work with it horizontally is if you want to put in letters and symbols. If you try to rotate and flip it first, you will have a hard time adding in these things.
When adding words to the target rings (or anything for that matter) once in EQ, it will show up as a mirror copy, this is why you “flip” it.
When making rings, the left side of the picture will be the center of the ring and the right side will be the outside of the ring when you convert it to a TGA file.
The target ring size is static, you can’t make it bigger or smaller than what the size is. Like having a canvas to paint on, it will stay the same size but you can choose how much of it you want to see. You accomplish this by painting anything “black” so that it does not show up in EQ. This will show up as a transparent part of the ring
Because of the way certain graphics interact with each other, it may not be transparent but actually show you something unexpected, such as the ground or a spell particle. For some targets, the ring will be larger but that is based on the targets original size. Giants get a giant ring, Halflings get a Halfling sized ring. Creating pictures with larger graphic sizes will not change the target ring size either, it will only compress more detail in the final picture.
Currently, there seems to be 2 actual rings, in inner ring and outer ring that is visible. The inner ring takes up about 33% and the outer ring the last 66%. Even tho you make the inner rings pixels the same as the outer ring, they end up being twice as thick, as the outer rings, you can see this in the pictures I posted here -->
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/...ticalstrips.png
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/...ntalstripes.png
There are currently (as of February 2007) 7 “colors” of target rings as well as 5 “non-color” rings. They are:
[Trivial]--------------Grey targets
[VeryEasy]----------Green targets
[Easy]---------------Light Blue targets
[FairlyEasy]---------Blue targets
[FairMatch]---------White targets
[Difficult]------------Yellow targets
[Deadly]-------------Red targets
[AssistMarker]------Assist ring
[Marker0]-----------Mark NPC 1
[Marker1]----------- Mark NPC 2
[Marker2]----------- Mark NPC 3
[Marker3]-----------Unknown
Spinning target rings require a file for each sequence. You can choose which way you want the ring to spin. Cutting off the top of the picture and pasting it on the bottom will “spin” the ring clockwise. Cutting off the bottom of the picture and pasting it on the top will “spin” the ring counter-clockwise. This will be come more apparent as you make rings. This is really interesting when you have 2 rings interact. Say the color rings you have spin clockwise while the assist/mark npc rings spin counter-clockwise in a pattern that does not overlap. An example of this is “Spike Spin Aura” target ring. You can also create an illusion of the “texture speed” effect by making the sequence of pictures a slightly different color and move that color inwards frame by frame. The Jaggedpine defenders target ring I am making will have this effect.
To make a blinking effect, you can create 2 target rings and have them slightly different shades of what color you choose and use 2 frames to switch back and forth.
Explainations of terms:
Additive – 1 for on, 0 for off (returns to alpha blend) but this is greek to me.
Point count – This defines the original shape of the target “ring” Each point added brings it closer to a true circle by adding a point. 1 and 2 points will not do anything useful. Once you set it 3 and above, you can see the differences. 3 will make a triangle, 4 a square, 5 an pentagon and so on. With this you can define what shape your “ring” will be. Setting at 16, 32, and 64 are recommended counts for circles. A setting of 128 has been known to crash some systems. This point count affects all 4 types of circles.
Texture – This is where the name of the file will be stored that EQ will look for and load. Default is “TargetIndicator” and if left at this EQ will use this as its source for a graphic.
Example: Setting this to “Texture=JPDwhite” will have EQ looking for the file named “JPDwhite.tga” (note: changing it to upper or lowercase will have no effect, it only looks for the letters)
Twist Factor – Suppose to rotate the target circle, can’t find a value to create any action (default is 1.0)
Twist Speed – Suppose to rotate the target circle, can’t find a value to create any action. Also said to create a “pulse” effect but I can’t seem to get that to work either (default is 0.0)
Frame count – This number set here will tell how many files needed to be loaded for the target ring. 0 will force EQ to look for a file with no numbers in it, anything 1 and above will cause EQ to search for files with the name located in the “texture” section with a number after it, starting with 0. This is also where you can make your target ring rotate. It accomplishes this by showing each frame for a time and then switching to the next.
Example: “FrameCount=0” will make EQ load “JPDwhite.tga”
Example: “FrameCount=4” will make EQ load “jpdwhite0.tga, jpdwhite1.tga, jpdwhite2.tga, jpdwhite3.tga” and show one right after another over and over again.
If there is a file missing, EQ will use the default texture as it’s graphic until you correct this.
Example: Example: “FrameCount=4” will make EQ load “jpdwhite0.tga, jpdwhite1.tga, jpdwhite2.tga” but since it can not find “jpdwhite3.tga” it will load the default target ring in place of that missing file.
Duration – This only affect the target ring if you have a frame count of 1 or more. This will limit how long, in milliseconds, to show each frame named by the “texture” and “frame count” settings.
Example: “Duration=125” will have EQ show “jpdwhite0.tga” for 125 milliseconds, then switch to “jpdwhite1.tga” and each one for that amount of time. Setting this to a smaller number will make your ring “spin” faster and vice versa.
Texture Scale – This affects how each of the target circles will be stretched. 0.1 will stretch it so that only the first 10% of the inner circle will be shown. 0.99 will stretch it so that 99% of the picture is shown. Above that, the target circle will start to “overlap” and create strange effects.
Texture Speed – This affects how the graphic will be “pulled” toward the center. On the default graphic you can see this effect. (default is 0.001)
Scale Min – According to notes, currently not used.
Scale Max – According to notes, currently not used.
Scale Speed – According to notes, currently not used.
Alpha – This will affect the transparency of the ring. 0 will be totally transparent while 255 will be totally opaque. This does not work totally as expected due to some other settings that can not be changed and sometimes you will see this cut off another target circle. (default is 240)
Red, Green, Blue – These will affect the overall tinting on your graphic. Setting them to 255 or deleting them will show your graphic as it is in another program. Setting them to 0 will make your graphic not show up at all.
Fade Start – only a noticeable difference is if this is set below the “fade end” value. (default is 10) To display the ring without any fadeing, set this at 100
Fade End – noticeable difference below 0.1. This is dependent on where you start the fade start. (default is 20) To display the ring without any fadeing, set this at 100
Opaque Start – The higher the number on this, the lighter the target ring will get. 1 is the lowest setting. (default is 1.0) Set this to 0 and the “opaque end” to 0 for no fadeing.
Opaque End – The higher the number on this, the lighter the target ring will get. 1 is the lowest setting. (default is 1.5) Set this to 0 and the “opaque end” to 0 for no fadeing.
Initial Length – This doesn’t seem operational. (default is 1)
Grow Speed – This doesn’t seem operational.(default is 1)
Floor Offset – This doesn’t seem operational (this is suppose to set how far off the ground the target ring will be) (color rings default is 0.5, assist is 1.0, mark 1to 4 are 0.9 to 0.6)