Request - Nav Meshes - how should we distribute them?

[Redbot]

There are a ton of zones, and meshes can be 100+MB each.

What's the best way to distribute them?

 

[Eltai86]

Could host a locked thread with red guides created ones that are known to work, I have some and would be happy to build more super high resolution ones but meshgenerator hogs resources so when I do them it locks me out of doing much else and also actually is one of the few pieces of software that actually takes advantage of multiple cores. (System I'm using isn't a slouch either as it's the same machine I use for advanced statistical modeling).

 

[Hulda99]

Since meshes are still "optional", I think the "An official thread to download "mesh packs" updated by community" is a great choice.

 

[Sic]

Official mesh thread would be good imo

Someone posted a ton a while back which saved me an immeasurable amount of headache

 

[eqholic]

How about this ? A lot of downloading could be saved when inststead of the mesh the best known settings for generating it would be distributed. These could the be displayed in the generator as defaults.

 

[etherealmist]

The first question to be answered before any real suggestion can be reached would be, how likely is it that MQ2Nav will require us to rebuild the meshes again? If there is a decent chance, I'd say just have people build them as they need them. Or in the case of the LDoN thing THD is working on, bundle them with that release.

They only take a couple seconds on average to build, at least from my experience.

If it's not at all likely that we'll need to rebuild from scratch again, having them bundled here on the site would be nice. Maybe bundled by expansion. I know some people are better at making meshes than others, so it would also be nice if there was a way for the packs to be easily updated.

You could also make a downloader similar to how you have a downloader for the MQ2 patch that updates navmeshes. Not sure how much resources that would require though! :P This option would also nullify my questions hypothetical as 'repatching' would be pretty easy.

I personally would not like to have them be a part of the installer, in the sense that they get automatically downloaded when you update MQ2. I'd prefer either a second downloader, or addition options that can be disabled on the current downloader.



By the way, that downloader is amazing. Such a time saver.

 

[Meistro]

Include common meshes in the installer (plane of knowledge, classic zones, ~450MB)
An official thread to download "mesh packs" updated by community
Other (please reply!)

YES PLEASE.....

Ive only tried making meshes a couple times, and so far it hasn't worked well for me, and I haven't been playing enough as of late to even really look at since its been fixed.

My preference would be to have a place the community could upload their meshes where peeps could get individual meshes (and possibly rank the ones the like and know work) and from there (the ones that have been tested as working) could be loaded into a downloader or optioned on the MQ downloader, for those that want/need to do so (Love the idea of setting them up by expansion and/or common/heavy use (POK, Guild Lobby, etc.)).

 

[LorDeth]

I agree with eqholic..

feed a man, and he'll eat for a week.

teach a man to fish, and he'll be able to create his own mesh files!

err.. or something like that.. some famous spanish guy said it...

 

[Hulda99]

eqholic and LorDeth have a good point. Yet, there is an occasional mesh that needs additional work, over and above what the generator creates. I.E. Water, areas to stay out, clean up a path so all size PC's don't get stuck, etc. Is it possible to also make those kind of changes part of a setting?

 

[wackawacka]

Do you have unlimited storage on your website? Make a place to upload them and download them.... or if you have like TB's of space you'll be fine

 

[Kyle]

I would say bring them with the compile, all of them or put them all available in a .rar; it would be convenient to have them all for everyone I understand the amount of time it would take to install.

If that's an issue make downloading them on the compile optional.

 

[brainiac]

What about having an option to auto generate them in the background based on some good default settings per zone? Then the only thing that you'd need is a little bit of cpu and a repository of good settings.

 

[Inkie]

I definitely would like a pre-made mesh for the most common zones; PoK, Crescent Reach, Tutorial and possibly the newbie starting zones for the original cities. This gives new members an opportunity to see mq2nav (and mq2easyfind) work right out of the box and from there a wiki for continent / zone meshes to download.

Additionally, looking at getting mapfiend / eqresource maps in the same location as the meshes could be beneficial.

 

[etherealmist]

I definitely would like a pre-made mesh for the most common zones; PoK, Crescent Reach, Tutorial and possibly the newbie starting zones for the original cities. This gives new members an opportunity to see mq2nav (and mq2easyfind) work right out of the box and from there a wiki for continent / zone meshes to download.

Additionally, looking at getting mapfiend / eqresource maps in the same location as the meshes could be beneficial.

For maps, Brewall's maps get updated constantly for live servers and TLPs.

http://www.eqmaps.info/eq-map-files/

 

[XiroFS]

Good's Map is not bad as well, can install both Brewall and Good's switch around in game to compare.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/goods-maps-pack.236858/

 

[toots]

What about having an option to auto generate them in the background based on some good default settings per zone? Then the only thing that you'd need is a little bit of cpu and a repository of good settings.

The ability to turn on a coarse grained autogenerate feature might really improve the functionality of mq2easyfind.

Also, a link to a zip file with the communities meshes would be nice and allow for some consistency between users running macros that use MQ2Nav. However, I don't think it should be tied up in the compile. It is probably not something I need to download once or twice a month.

 

[LurkMcGurk]

I've given this some thought and I think a repository of nav meshes, separated by X-pac with the option to download them all single but we vote on which one is the best upload is the best option. If it's not the best option it's the one I would certainly perfer.

A lot of different platforms have a system like this (modding packs for games, skins for games, EQUI similarly does it) where you vote on the best ones and they naturally rise to the top.

Essentially my argument is Nav Meshes are too user specific and too zone specific for anyone to release a whole bundle of them and to boast that they work. I've meshed many zones and some zones just straight out don't work at all (Arcstone, Neriak D which is in Classic Everquest but it's a CoTF zone, Chelsith an RoF zone) then other zones have specific issues you wouldn't recognize without using it for awhile such as Heart of Fear C tries to cut corners too closely and unless you use Lev as a small race you'll get stuck on lips. Acrylia Caverns works but the doors in the zone are created in a way that... they don't really work with Nav. Also, Thundercrest Isles works but since MQ2nav cuts the corners too closely and the doors have lips when open, it gets stuck on default mesh of that zone.



These are minor things that only someone who has been there will notice and will find. If you do large compiles of nav meshes it's very very unlikely anyone is going to take the time to individually perfect each zone.


I'd rather download specific zone files from someone who used it and found the minor issues and fixed them. Coming from an every day users perspective I would be frustrated to find my esoteric zone that was in the official nav mesh compile was just a slapped together mesh like my own was with no fixes to the issues I was/am having. Because you have to remember, that's who these compiles are for - people who don't know much about meshing themselves or aren't very good at it either way.

 

[LorDeth]

This is why I still firmly believe if we have a good set of documentation / FAQ /wiki, that helps the peeps to understand the intricacies of what the settings change.
I mean, if you're changing ini's and stuff manually to make your macros work, its not really a stretch that you should (with proper guidance) be able to build and troubleshoot your own nav meshes.

and 2 main factors, that have been mentioned in most peoples' posts, why...:
1 - download size (bloat factor to include them in the compile) and storage capacity on whoever's cloud storage these are going to be stored on
2 - the variability due to individual users needs/ wants.

 

[Shadowfinger]

Maybe a .torrent with the nav meshes? I can leverage about 4GBPS of bandwidth if its in .torrent form. I know they can be large(i've made about 100 nav meshes' myself and they are starting to get large). A .torrent would alleviate the bandwidth as well as let users pick and choose which ones they want to download.

 

[sl968]

Could also use github so no bandwidth issues...

 

[shadowfall]

anyway to have them listed in the updater so they can be picked by user and downloaded then"?

 

[Wolfborn]

Make a script or what ever that will auto generate the meshes. Have an INI with optimal settings and the different xpacs listed. Simply choose your expacs and let it rip overnight.

 

[turbines]

Would it be possible if there was an official thread and just did the mesh by expansion. I know some of those are going to be huge but then you could dl only the ones that were relevant to what you need.

 

[minniemmee24]

please for the love of god dont include that in the vanilla compile, would make the download too big imo, people will never learn to make them or even edit them if they get handed out, just my 2 cents.