We do this by importing a model into Maya, checking the scale and adjusting it if required. We then export the model back out ready to be imported into our in-house model editor, JagEd. Sadly, we can’t just scale it in JagEd due to the version incompatibility. Ideally in the future this would be all done in one step, but when prototyping you sometimes need to get creative and find hacky solutions before a proper implementation is developed! While we’re having to do each model individually, we have made use of some AHK scripts to automate as many of the monotonous steps as we reliably can.
Once imported into JagEd, we next check to see if the model has held up correctly after being processed twice. Often this can result in some vertex colour data going missing, causing some areas of the model to appear white. This requires only a minor amount of clean up to be ready for the final export!
While we could use models from 2012 as a starting point for making Old School models, the same could not be said for animations. Despite our attempts, we were unable to make any progress using animations from 2012 or from the present RuneScape. It was looking like we’d have to remake them from scratch, but thankfully other members of the team had seen the early results and were keen to lend their support. Whilst Mod Ry continued work on the environment, Mod West decided to have a crack at using some existing Old School animations with the avatars.
Given that the proportions of the Avatar of Destruction are strangely similar to that of Graador, with only some minor adjustments we could have him moving about. And as you may have guessed from the GIF above, it was a success!
Kind of… the model is essentially exactly how it was back in 2009 (minus some texturing) and adapting the skeleton to that of Graador was fairly simple. However, it would be a lot better if we could get the original animations working, so we’ve tasked the tools team with getting us this feature in the future.
Map, check. Models, check. Animations, check. Things were starting to look pretty good. But Soul Wars is about more than just looking good – we needed it to sound good as well. And as with everything else, we needed it to sound like it did back in 2009. That meant the same music and the same sound effects.
Sound effects offered a nice surprise. The way they were made in 2009 was exactly the same way they were made in 2007 and this meant they worked perfectly with Old School! Using our 2012 backup again, we were able to copy the sounds directly across with no changes. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, profit! If only it were that simple for everything else.
We also wanted the original Soul Wars music to go alongside the sound effects. Up until late 2012, RuneScape used midi for all of its music. That means, yes, you’ve guessed it, the May 2012 backup had midi files we could use. Unlike sound effects though, some tweaks were needed.
Although midi was still in use when Soul Wars was added in 2009, some new instruments had been added by then that don’t exist in Old School. Luckily, the Soul Wars music track didn’t use any of these, so that midi file worked perfectly. However, The Waiting Game lobby music needed some tweaks, but fortunately Mod Ed had dabbled with Old School music in the past (anyone hunting a Dragon Warhammer may know his Servants of Strife track) and was able to get it working.
Now we were really getting somewhere. We had sound and we had visuals. All we needed now was the game itself and for that we needed some script (plus a few interfaces, of course).
With many of the scripts referencing interfaces which currently don't exist, these needed tackling first. Though the files for these had been retrieved from the 2012 repository, the versions were incompatible and wouldn't compile. However, we were able to open the interfaces in RuneScape’s engine tools to see what's on them, and even copy the contents over with the majority of its data attached. Again, there were models and sprites used in parts of these interfaces (such as the various coloured charms in the Reward Shop) that have never existed in Old School. In these cases we either created it from scratch, adjusted it to work or removed it from the interface.
We could then move on to getting the scripts in a working state. Fortunately, although the game's engine has been constantly changing over the years, there were very few new engine features used in the version of Soul Wars that we were using as a basis, so a large part of the script worked almost instantly.
There were a few issues, however, with what we call procedures and labels (what other languages would call functions), as various general use ones that did not exist in Old School were being used. Some were self-explanatory and easy to replicate, whilst others needed us to dive in to the RuneScape repository and see what exactly they were doing. One of the recurring issues that we ran into was the use of constitution and lifepoints rather than hitpoints, requiring us to deal with a separate set of values and a completely different multitude relating to damaging and healing players.
After going through and fixing all of the errors, we were ready to jump in and see what exactly we had. Not everything was working perfectly, but at this point we had a very roughly working shell of the minigame that we could jump in to, split up into teams and get running!
There you have it, a working prototype of Soul Wars in Old School RuneScape! The question now is: what next? Although we have a working prototype, it will still take a fair amount of work to get the minigame to a point where it can be released. We believe that with the right resources, it could be possible to release Soul Wars towards the end of the year whilst still delivering the content we promised at RuneFest. Now we just need to decide if we should!
So, do you want to see Soul Wars in Old School? Or would you rather see another piece of content from post-2007? Or maybe you’d prefer we focus only on new content? We want to know your thoughts. Send them our way, and if all goes well, we’ll have more to share with you very soon.
