EQ-Zip EverQuest Archive Manager

Release Notes:

9/19/2015 - Version 1.5.2

• Fixed: Saving global_chr.s3d will no longer result in an error. Its 1,617 files were taking up more filename space than I ever expected (29k bytes, where the largest other archive I'd seen needed around 8k). Now allocating 64kb of memory for the filenames directory section, instead of 16kb.

9/13/2015 - Version 1.5.1 Patch

• Fixed: Opening files was resulting in an exception being thrown in a number of intermittent situations.
• Fixed: Item selection changes weren't always being detected and responded to.
• Improved: CRC errors in names of files inside archives will now be ignored. This allows gequip.s3d to be opened.

9/11/2015 - Version 1.5

• Fixed: No more crashing from opening archives with large numbers of files. Let me know if you run into one that does!
• Fixed: Hopefully the last of the "Generic GDI+ Error" situations has been eradicated.
• Improved: Vastly improved the speed of opening archives with large numbers of files.
• Improved: Vastly improved the speed of importing and exporting large numbers of files. If more than three files are exported at once, you will get a confirmation of how many files were exported, to let you know when it's done.
• Improved: Application responsiveness has been vastly improved when handling archives with large numbers of files. There should no longer be any conflicts between archive decompressing, interface updating, and thumbnail loading. Scroll through the list of files all you like while the thumbnails continue to load in the background.

EQ-Zip EverQuest Archive Manager

Release Notes:

9/13/2015 - Version 1.5.1 Patch

• Fixed: Opening files was resulting in an exception being thrown in a number of intermittent situations.
• Fixed: Item selection changes weren't always being detected and responded to.
• Improved: CRC errors in names of files inside archives will now be ignored. This allows gequip.s3d to be opened.

9/11/2015 - Version 1.5

• Fixed: No more crashing from opening archives with large numbers of files. Let me know if you run into one that does!
• Fixed: Hopefully the last of the "Generic GDI+ Error" situations has been eradicated.
• Improved: Vastly improved the speed of opening archives with large numbers of files.
• Improved: Vastly improved the speed of importing and exporting large numbers of files. If more than three files are exported at once, you will get a confirmation of how many files were exported, to let you know when it's done.
• Improved: Application responsiveness has been vastly improved when handling archives with large numbers of files. There should no longer be any conflicts between archive decompressing, interface updating, and thumbnail loading. Scroll through the list of files all you like while the thumbnails continue to load in the background.

EQ-Zip EverQuest Archive Manager

Release Notes:

9/11/2015 - Version 1.5

• Fixed: No more crashing from opening archives with large numbers of files. Let me know if you run into one that does!
• Fixed: Hopefully the last of the "Generic GDI+ Error" situations has been eradicated.
• Improved: Vastly improved the speed of opening archives with large numbers of files.
• Improved: Vastly improved the speed of importing and exporting large numbers of files. If more than three files are exported at once, you will get a confirmation of how many files were exported, to let you know when it's done.
• Improved: Application responsiveness has been vastly improved when handling archives with large numbers of files. There should no longer be any conflicts between archive decompressing, interface updating, and thumbnail loading. Scroll through the list of files all you like while the thumbnails continue to load in the background.

EQ-Zip EverQuest Archive Manager

Release Notes:

9/8/2015 - Version 1.4

• Fixed: Extracting from _chr.s3d archives with lots of files inside should no longer yield a "Generic GDI+ Error".
• Known Issue: Some files may still have too many files inside for C# to easily parse. global_chr.s3d is one that is known, with 1,617 files stored in it. A stack overflow occurs even when not extracting the images from the stored files for display. I'll have to put together a way to split up the processing of obscenely large numbers of files into batches.

EQ-Zip EverQuest Archive Manager

Current Version: 1.3

Last Updated: 7/30/2015

Github Link: https://github.com/Shendare/EQZip

To Download: https://github.com/Shendare/EQZip/releases

Features:

• Creates, Loads and Saves .S3D, .EQG, .PFS, and .PAK EverQuest package files
• Thumbnails of all supported texture types (RGB16/24/32, DXT1/2/3/4/5, V8U8)
• Automatically converts textures to .dds with mipmaps when importing (toggle)
• Automatically converts textures to .png, .gif, .bmp, or jpg when exporting (toggle)
• Drag-and-drop files into or out of an archive and Windows Explorer, or between EQ-Zip windows!
• Cut, Copy, and Paste files between archives and Windows Explorer, or each other
• Select a texture and choose Replace... to easily browse for a new texture to swap it out with
• Or just drag and drop a new texture from Windows onto an existing one in the archive!
• Import/Export/Replace textures via: Application Menu, Toolbar Button, or Right-click context menu
• Export all files in an archive to a destination folder
• Recent menu feature to remember the last 9 archives worked with (toggle)
• .Net 3.5 compatible, but archives will compress about 30% smaller when compiled to .Net 4.5

Screenshots:

Disclaimer:

EQ-Zip is not affiliated with, endorsed by, approved by, or in any way associated with Daybreak Games, the EverQuest franchise, or any of the other compression/archive based applications out there with the word "Zip" in them, who reserve all copyrights and trademarks to their properties.

License:

Portions of this software's code not covered by another author's or entity's copyright are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) public domain license.

To the extent possible under law, Shendare (Jon D. Jackson) has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this EQ-Zip application. This work is published from: The United States.

You may copy, modify, and distribute the work, even for commercial purposes, without asking permission.

For more information, read the CC0 summary and full legal text here:

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Credits:

EverQuest game package file format determined from examination of the Delphi code in S3DSpy, by Windcatcher, without whose work this would be impossible.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/eqemulator/files/OpenZone/S3DSpy%201.3/

DDS texture file parsing rebuilt from code by Lorenzo Consolaro. (MIT License)

https://code.google.com/p/kprojects/

TGA image loading class from David Polomis. (CPOL 1.02)

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/31702/NET-Targa-Image-Reader

Virtual Windows Shell File handling functionality thanks to David Anson (MIT License)

https://dlaa.me/blog/post/9923072

Icons made from the freeware non-commercial "Aqua Neue (Graphite)" pack.

Full Release Notes:

7/30/2015 - Version 1.3

• Added feature to easily horizontally or vertically flip an image to get it to show up properly in-game if the geometry expects the texture to be stored in some way besides left-to-right, top-to-bottom.
• Added help descriptions to the Preferences window for choosing Import and Export auto-conversion options.
• Corrected 24/32-bit to 16-bit color scaling. NB: Integers truncate; they don't round.
• DDS Import Format - Auto

By default, importing graphics files to an EQ-Zip archive will automatically convert them to a .dds texture with mipmaps. The default .dds format is now "Auto", which tells EQ-Zip to pick the best format for the new texture based on the graphics file's use or absence of an alpha channel.

• All pixels fully opaque -> RGB16 - (R5G6B5)
• All pixels fully transparent or opaque -> ARGB16 (A1R5G5B5)
• Some pixels partially transparent -> RGB32 (A8R8G8B8)

This yields the most compact format (without lossy compression) for any texture, while preserving good color and alpha channels.

If you do not like Auto, you can specify how many bits-per-pixel to import .dds files at (16, 24, or 32), or deactivate auto-conversion altogether.

This completes my planned features. If you think of a new feature you want to see, or come across a bug, let me know at Shendare at Shendare DotNet.

Enjoy customizing your EverQuest experience with EQ-Zip!

• Shendare (Jon D. Jackson)

Former Release Notes:

7/29/2015 - Version 1.2

• Noticeable improvement in quality of texture mipmaps with high quality bicubic sampling
• Added full support for 16-bit DDS textures (auto-sensing A1R5G5B5 or R5G6B5)
• Set default import format to RGB16
• Code cleanup (Settings -> Util.cs)

7/28/2015 - Version 1.1

• DXT1 Decompression - Improved Slightly
• DXT2 Decompression - Enabled
• DXT3 Decompression - Added
• DXT4 Decompression - Enabled
• DXT5 Decompression - Improved Significantly
• V8U8 Decompression - Improved Significantly

7/25/2015 - Version 1.0

• Initial Release

Release Notes:

7/29/2015 - Version 1.2

• Noticeable improvement in quality of texture mipmaps with high quality bicubic sampling
• Added full support for 16-bit DDS textures (auto-sensing A1R5G5B5 or R5G6B5)
• Set default import format to RGB16
• Code cleanup (Settings -> Util.cs)

Planned Updates and Known Issues:

• A feature will be added to vertically flip a texture, as some in-game geometry expects a texture to be bottom-up, and it can be hard to tell until you see it in-game.
• An "Auto" import format will be implemented to auto-sense the best DDS format to use for an incoming texture based on how it uses an alpha channel (A1R5G5B5, R5G6B5, or A8R8G8B8). It will be the new default.
• DDS imports do not support compression at this time.

Screenshots:

Release Notes:

7/28/2015 - Version 1.1

• DXT1 Decompression - Improved Slightly
• DXT2 Decompression - Enabled
• DXT3 Decompression - Added
• DXT4 Decompression - Enabled
• DXT5 Decompression - Improved Significantly
• V8U8 Decompression - Improved Significantly

Screenshots:

EQ-Zip EverQuest Archive Manager v1.0

Features:

• Creates, Loads and Saves .S3D, .EQG, .PFS, and .PAK EverQuest package files
• Thumbnails of all supported texture types (missing DXT2/DXT3/DXT4 support right now)
• Automatically converts textures to .dds uncompressed when importing (toggle)
• Automatically converts textures to .png, .dds, .gif, .bmp, or jpg when exporting (toggle)
• Drag-and-drop files into or out of an archive and Windows Explorer, or between EQ-Zip windows!
• Cut, Copy, and Paste files between archives and Windows Explorer, or each other
• Select a texture and choose Replace... to easily browse for a new texture to swap it out with
• Or just drag and drop a new texture from Windows onto an existing one in the archive!
• Import/Export/Replace textures via: Application Menu, Toolbar Button, or Right-click context menu
• Export all files in an archive to a destination folder
• Recent menu feature to remember the last 9 archives worked with (toggle)

Screenshots:

License:

Portions of this software's code not covered by another author's or entity's copyright are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) public domain license.

To the extent possible under law, Shendare (Jon D. Jackson) has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this EQ-Zip application. This work is published from: The United States.

You may copy, modify, and distribute the work, even for commercial purposes, without asking permission.

For more information, read the CC0 summary and full legal text here:

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Credits:

EverQuest game package file format determined from examination of the Delphi code in S3DSpy, by Windcatcher, without whose work this would be impossible.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/eqemulator/files/OpenZone/S3DSpy%201.3/

DDS texture file parsing rebuilt from code by Lorenzo Consolaro. (MIT License)

https://code.google.com/p/kprojects/

TGA image loading class from David Polomis. (CPOL 1.02)

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/31702/NET-Targa-Image-Reader

Virtual Windows Shell File handling functionality thanks to David Anson (MIT License)

https://dlaa.me/blog/post/9923072

Icons made from the freeware non-commercial "Aqua Neue (Graphite)" pack.

Known Issues and Planned Updates:

• DXT2, DXT3, and DXT4 compressed DDS textures are not yet supported. At least DXT3 support is planned.
• DXT5 decompression is very slow. It will be rewritten with direct-memory access instead of SetPixel().
• DDS importing does not support compression. This is intended. DXT compression is very lossy ( see http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=DXT_compression_explained ), and graphics cards have plenty of video memory for tons of uncompressed textures these days.
• A feature will be added to vertically flip a texture, as some in-game geometry expects a texture to be bottom-up.
• It's a little strange that there is a separate EQArchive class and PFSFormat class to handle EQ package files. When I began the project, I was under the mistaken impression that S3D and EQG files used different file formats for storing their contents, so I had a PFSFormat.cs and an EQGFormat.cs both tied to EQArchive.cs. When I learned that both used the same format, I removed EQGFormat.cs, but because the remaining two classes are working fine together, I have not merged them at this point.

Release Notes:

7/25/2015 - Version 1.0

• Initial Release