Turtle HD Project

[Redmagejoe]

Turtle HD Project

PLEASE do not ask for alternative / sub-patches. I will not maintain variations of this patch, no matter how much you ask.

I am not a graphics person, nor a WoW mod creator. What I am, however, is a savvy user who can tinker with things to get them to deliver desirable results. What you see right now is a mostly working version of a Turtle WoW compatible conversion of the HD mod for Vanilla WoW servers, that I have painstakingly poured over to get into a state free of crashes and (mostly) free of graphical issues with player models. There are still a few fringe cases that makes this not quite perfect, primarily with Turtle custom mounts and player character skins. Fortunately, several passionate members of the community have been collaborating to refine this patch and make it better than I ever could have anticipated.



This patch successfully replaces all playable races with their Legion HD models. This patch updates all NPCs and creatures in the world with their Legion HD versions where available. This patch replaces several spell effects and sounds with future variations which are more impactful or otherwise improved. This patch replaces all world textures with higher resolution, redrawn textures that use vanilla as a base and aims to update without desecrating the old aesthetic. This patch adds Cataclysm music for zones to the existing Vanilla playlist for more ambience.


Known Issues:

• Strange lightshafts on Undead character creation screen. A corruption in converting the background UI M2 from Warlords to Vanilla caused the ground fog effect to behave this way. Work in progress to fix this.

Tools Used: DBCutil, Ladik's MPQ Editor v4.0.0.872

In order to make and test changes, you will need to use the MPQ Editor to open patch-A.MPQ (the mod) or patch-3.MPQ / patch-4.MPQ / patch-5.MPQ (Turtle patches) and find the file under DBClientFiles which handles the particular files you wish to work with. Extract it, then drag and drop the DBC onto DBCutil to spit out a CSV file which can be perused with Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet viewing application. Make the necessary changes, drag and drop the CSV back onto DBCutil and it will spit out a new DBC file, which can then be put in a new test patch at the end of load order, for example patch-Z.MPQ. Use MPQ Editor to make a new World of Warcraft MPQ, and use that as your testing patch.


File Downloads

TURTLE HD PATCH UPDATED 2024-04-10
*********************************************************************************************************************************************
patch-A.MPQ - Legion Character + World Models / Music Pack / Spell Effects
patch-B.MPQ - Environment HD Retexture (reTEXTURE, not a reMESH or reMODEL, only replaces flat textures)
patch-C.MPQ - Optional weapon/attack sound replacement patch (all credit to Astricon)
*********************************************************************************************************************************************

To install, simply navigate to your Turtle WoW install folder, open the /Data/ folder, and drop these MPQs in. Simple as that!


FAQ

"Spirit Healers have a strange white bubble around them with this patch. How do I fix this?"
Answer: Be sure that Smooth Shading is enabled in your Video Options.

"Where can I report bugs or missing features?"
Answer: Please use the GitHub link at the top of this post and make a new Issue on our repository for easier documentation of our existing bugs so that we may more easily track and resolve them.


Credits

• Astricon - Primary active texture and spell FX downporting developer; new spell sounds, new spell effects, fixing broken textures for NPCs and donation shop skins, etc
• Crestian - Texture work; HD black Night Elf hair, HD custom Tauren horns
• Samsam - Texture work; HD Male Orc facepaint skins
• Tonky - Major contributions to texture work; fixing broken textures for NPCs and fine-tuning HD skins
• Watchers3d - v1.17.1 new character customizations and NPC prebake patching

[Redmagejoe]

Update: It seems that at least some of the voice lines I inserted were already in a sound dbc somewhere, as simply adding them to the pack has caused male high elf to make male blood elf grunts when taking fall damage unlike before. Occasionally there are combat grunts as well, but the DBC likely needs to be properly modified.

[Daaki]

I tried this out and have two immediate things to report:

Mechanical auctioneer summons are now giant green penguins.
Players with pvp war mounts are being carried around by glowing green gnomes instead of their mounts when mounted. The gnomes have the players "equipped" in their main hand. It's actually really hilarious.

[Redmagejoe]

I think this would benefit from some input from the main MPQ-modifying dev explaining what dbc files affect what. The major issue is with the custom content and my unfamiliarity with it.

[Redmagejoe]

So I found one of the issues with the mounts looking at CreatureModelData.dbc. The end of the OG Legion patch has NPC ID 2500 on, which is the faction leaders with their custom models. Those same IDs are used by the special mounts for Turtle. I don't know enough about the under the hood to know if I can afford to just append these, as I'd need to figure out the NPC IDs for Jaina, Thrall, Sylvanas, etc on Turtle WoW. Maybe a Dev could help?

[Redmagejoe]

I believe I fixed the mount problem, but it did involve overwriting things which I cannot confirmed are used somewhere on Turtle WoW, like the Northrend Penguin or the Clockwork Gnomes. I will upload the new version momentarily.

EDIT: New patch-W.mpq is up, that fixes all mounts (except for weird texture on turtles)

Other known issues: Some new NPCs, like High Elf Refugees, have models but no textures, so look like black silhouettes.

[Crestian]

Thanks for doin this I love these models. Is there any way to make the custom character appearance options show up? Like Tauren horns or hair colors? I can model and edit texture files in photoshop/maya if they need to be changed. I just dont know how to do any of that other stuff.

[Redmagejoe]

Thanks for doin this I love these models. Is there any way to make the custom character appearance options show up? Like Tauren horns or hair colors? I can model and edit texture files in photoshop/maya if they need to be changed. I just dont know how to do any of that other stuff.

The DBC files are tricky for me to manipulate as well, since I'm not familiar with modifying references to files in an MPQ. However, there's currently no analogue for the "custom" skins, and cause minor graphics issues with this patch. If you would like to take the existing patch and make a Legion-ified version of Turtle's custom skins, that would be helpful.

[Crestian]

I would need the files. I have no idea how to do that though hehe. It wouldnt be difficult to make though if some one were to locate them .

[Redmagejoe]

I would need the files. I have no idea how to do that though hehe. It wouldnt be difficult to make though if some one were to locate them .

Grab the MPQ editor I linked in the OP, and then grab patch-W.MPQ and drag and drop it into the EXE if you'd like to root around in the replacement assets this patch uses. If you'd like to grab the vanilla files used by Turtle WoW, navigate to the Data folder of your Turtle WoW install, open patch-T.MPQ, patch-U.MPQ, or patch-V.MPQ to find the necessary files under Character within the MPQs. The way it works is load order is numerical then alphabetical, so V is loaded last. If the same file exists within V that is in U or T, ignore the older ones and use that as a base.

The files you are looking for will be in .blp format. There should be tools online that allow you to open these and work on them. Look at the same assets within patch-W.MPQ for a reference of how the skins should wrap. In this way, you may even be able to give the High Elves their blue eyes back by modifying the existing green-eyed blood elf skins.

[Redmagejoe]

Just a little preview of updated mount compatibility.




And what Spirit Healers should look like.




Trying to fix the Night Elf bald bug. These poor beautiful bastards.

[Jambiya]

Incredible work your doing, thank you for this

[Redmagejoe]

I am now working on getting Blood Elf and Goblin voices fully working. Assuming it can be made to work properly, I'll upload it as a separate patch and see if we can't get it pushed to the Turtle WoW team so as to incorporate it directly into their existing patches.

UPDATE: Goblin Voices are almost completely working, though there's a few lines I can't get working even with modifications to the SoundEntries.dbc. I replaced what existed in one field for which there was no line, while also creating about 16 more rows for lines that didn't have entries. The lines don't seem to play, so I'm guessing there must be another file that sets aside the action -> voice IDs for use, and they're not properly registered to what I want to use them for.

[Redmagejoe]

Updated first post with the voice patch. Bear in mind it is also a WIP.

[Torze]

WOW
This is awesome, can't wait to try it out.

[Astelan]

This looks amazing! i really want to try it but im a dork figuring out everything, any chance to make a tutorial video or something? Thanks for your work!

[Redmagejoe]

I am discontinuing the Goblin and High Elf voice patch, and leaving its current progress up. It's a satisfactory enough stop-gap in the interim of staff working on voices for the upcoming patch. I will resume my efforts on the graphics mods from here on out.

[Redmagejoe]

UPDATE: Vantablack High Elf NPCs have been fixed. They still use OG models and textures, but it's the best solution until someone wants to try to get them using the proper assets (which would require knowledge of internal unique IDs I don't currently have)

[Gmarguelles]

Thank you so much! Is there a way I can help?

I am not that good with this process, but I feel like I can test things out if you guys need me to.

By the way, what are the odds of adding model edits to the models themselves based on the legion models?

Ingame character: Shibuya

Please reach out if I can help someway

Btw: I have the Scarlet Inquisitor Skin and it is bugged

[Geojak]

hi, how does the environment retexture compare to the other one posted on this forum?

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2496&sid=058da3d8c ... 111f1f4265

[Redmagejoe]

To my knowledge it should be the same patch. There are some places, like Undercity, I've noticed that were untouched, though.

[Faustorgo]

@Redmagejoe Bro
I appreciate all the time and work invested in the realization of your project, just today I found out about it by chance, keep it up friend, you can, success.

[Facemaker]

Hey all, if anyone interested i have the water patch, that works with Twow client. It's not the full procedural thing, but it looks nicer than standart vanilla water repeating texture.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/urhqn75z ... 4.MPQ/file

[Redmagejoe]

Hey all, if anyone interested i have the water patch, that works with Twow client. It's not the full procedural thing, but it looks nicer than standart vanilla water repeating texture.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/urhqn75z ... 4.MPQ/file

Is it supposed to make the water's surface look solid, white, textureless? Should this be after the patch-X? In which case going to have to start renaming patches with the number I've got.

EDIT: No matter what order I load this in, the result is the same.

[Daaki]

Reporting another mob in Black Morass that isn't appearing correctly.

[Redmagejoe]

Oof, will have to take a look at that. I thought I did everything properly with CreatureDisplayInfo this time as well, but I'll take another look. You are using the latest version from yesterday, correct?

[Redmagejoe]

Latest patch-W fixes mount bugs and Black Morass bugs. Get it from the first post.

[Redmagejoe]

In order to not completely lose my mind, I need someone willing to do some very tedious diffing/comparing of two sets of DBC / CSVs (think spreadsheet) to merge turtle custom assets into the HD patch's file that will allow all WIP HD assets to be game-ready and tested at a moment's notice. At least right now, I don't have the time or patience, but if someone is willing to assist, it would probably only take an hour or two of your time.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

[Redmagejoe]

CharSections.dbc has been completely converted. This should allow Crestian and myself to more easily introduce assets and fix any remaining graphical bugs. Will wait to make an update until there's been a substantial amount of assets added.

[Faustorgo]

Amazing bro, the game looks really impresive, with the patch, cant wait :D

[Redmagejoe]

UPDATE

Pushed a new version out to fix a lot more face bugs. Not all are fixed, ones that are relying on assets we haven't made HD versions of, but it will fix horribly mismatched ones that were being taken from a completely unrelated file. This also happens to add black Night Elf hair support, new Tauren Horns, and fixed Ice Saber mounts.

[Redmagejoe]

UPDATE

If you haven't already, please install the latest version of patch-W.mpq again. I made an oversight in the CharSections.dbc that caused a duplicate entry for Tauren Horns which causes memory violation crashes on character generation with certain combinations of Tauren features.

[Spacestr]

Was flying over burning steppes before your latest post and got this crash:

ERROR #132 (0x85100084) Fatal Exception
Program: E:\Games\WoW Turtle Game Client\WoW.exe
Exception: 0xC0000005 (ACCESS_VIOLATION) at 0023:0047827A

The instruction at "0x0047827A" referenced memory at "0x00000018".
The memory could not be "read".

The only readable thing from memory dump was Textures\BakedNpcTextures\CreatureDisplayExtra-05356_HD.blp

[Redmagejoe]

I will look at that specific texture and see if I can't narrow down the problem. It is possible that it had to do with a lava spider though, if it is what I think it is.

EDIT: I opened up the file in question, and it appears to be a Twilight's Hammer Tauren, specifically a Twilight Dark Shaman. It's likely related to the horn bug I described, so please consider updating to the latest version I just posted.

[Spacestr]

Yes, that fixed it! Flew back & forth a couple times to make sure.