Removed jump/land sounds (attack/wound sounds had pained growls).
Made fidget discovery much stricter to exclude jerky battle animations.
Changes:
- Disabled playJumpSound for ground mounts (attack sounds too aggressive)
- Disabled playLandSound for ground mounts (wound sounds have growls)
- Fidget criteria now requires BOTH frequency AND replay (not OR)
- Excluded IDs 11-15 (attacks) in addition to 16-21 (combat)
- Only animations with proper idle metadata will be selected
Added debug logging to show ALL non-looping, short, stationary animations
regardless of metadata, so we can identify hoof stamps and head tosses.
Shows:
- All potential fidgets (no metadata filter)
- Animation ID, duration, frequency, replay timers, flags, next animation
- Helps identify which IDs are the shuffles/stamps/tosses on Palomino
Horse was playing death animation on idle. Added explicit filtering
to exclude death (5-6), wounds (7-9), combat (16-21), and specials (2-3).
Changes:
- Check animation ID ranges before adding to fidget list
- Prevents death/wound animations from being selected as idle fidgets
- Keeps metadata-based discovery but adds safety exclusions
Created specific idle sound pool using only horse snorts and whinnies.
Re-enabled idle sounds with much longer interval (20-40 seconds).
Changes:
- Added horseIdleSounds_ pool: mHorseStand3A (snort) + mHorseAggroA (whinny)
- Updated playIdleSound() to use dedicated pool instead of mixed breath sounds
- Increased idle sound interval from 8-15s to 20-40s (less frequent)
- Removed flying mount idle sounds (too aggressive)
- Increased volume slightly (0.35x) for better audibility
Idle sounds were too frequent/upsetting, and strict criteria found no fidgets.
Changes:
- Disabled idle sounds entirely (commented out in updateCharacterAnimation)
- Relaxed fidget criteria: frequency OR replay (not both required)
- Keeps proper metadata-based discovery (frequency/replay fields)
- Comprehensive logging shows candidates and selections
Previous criteria caught combat animations with grunts instead of subtle fidgets.
Now using strict filtering and comprehensive logging to identify real fidgets.
Changes:
- Duration: 500-1200ms (very short movements only)
- Movement: <0.01 speed (nearly stationary)
- Exclude: IDs 2-3 (specials), 16-21 (combat/attack range)
- Added candidate logging: shows ALL potential fidgets for debugging
- Removed upper ID limit to catch fidgets at any position
Fidgets were stuttering because normal animation updates immediately overrode them.
Now tracks active fidget and prevents normal animation updates until fidget completes.
Changes:
- Added mountActiveFidget_ to track currently playing fidget animation
- Check fidget completion using getAnimationState before allowing normal updates
- Only trigger new fidgets when no fidget is active
- Cancel active fidget on movement
- Expanded fidget search criteria: duration up to 3000ms, ID range 1-20
- Added debug logging to show discovered fidgets and when they complete
Implements WoW-style mount idle behavior when player is stationary:
- Fidget animations: discovered via property search (non-looping, 500-1500ms, stationary, IDs 1-10)
- Triggers random fidget every 6-12 seconds when standing still
- Ambient idle sounds: snorts/breaths for ground mounts, soft wing sounds for flyers
- Triggers random idle sound every 8-15 seconds when stationary
- Both systems reset timers on movement to avoid triggering while riding
Mount Animation System:
- Property-based jump animation discovery using sequence metadata
- Chain linkage scoring (nextAnimation/aliasNext) for accurate detection
- Correct loop detection: flags & 0x01 == 0 means looping
- Avoids brake/stop animations via blendTime penalties
- Works on any mount model without hardcoded animation IDs
Mount Physics:
- Physics-based jump height: vz = sqrt(2 * g * h)
- Configurable MOUNT_JUMP_HEIGHT constant (1.0m default)
- Procedural lean into turns for ground mounts
- Smooth roll based on turn rate (±14° max, 6x/sec blend)
Audio Improvements:
- State-machine driven mount sounds (jump, land, rear-up)
- Semantic sound methods (no animation ID dependencies)
- Debug logging for missing sound files
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed mount animation sequencing (JumpStart → JumpLoop → JumpEnd)
- Fixed animation loop flag interpretation (0x20 vs 0x21)
- Rider bone attachment working correctly during all mount actions
Implements aggressive performance optimizations to improve frame rate from 29fps to 40fps:
M2 Rendering:
- Ultra-aggressive animation culling (25/50/80 unit distances down from 95/140)
- Tighter render distances (700/350/1000 down from 1200/1200/3500)
- Early distance rejection before model lookup in render loop
- Lower threading threshold (6 instances vs 32) for earlier parallelization
- Reduced frustum padding (1.5x vs 2.5x) for tighter culling
- Better memory reservation based on expected visible count
Terrain Rendering:
- Early distance culling at 1200 units before frustum checks
- Skips ~11,500 distant chunks per frame (12,500 total chunks loaded)
- Saves 5-6ms on render pass
Performance Impact:
- Render time: 20ms → 14-15ms (30% faster)
- Frame rate: 29fps → 40fps (+11fps)
- Total savings: ~9ms per frame
Add SkySystem coordinator that follows WoW's actual architecture where skyboxes
are authoritative and procedural elements serve as fallbacks. Integrate lighting
system across all renderers (terrain, WMO, M2, character) with unified parameters.
Sky System:
- SkySystem coordinator manages skybox, celestial bodies, stars, clouds, lens flare
- Skybox is authoritative (baked stars from M2 models, procedural fallback only)
- skyboxHasStars flag gates procedural star rendering (prevents double-star bug)
Celestial Bodies (Lore-Accurate):
- Two moons: White Lady (30-day cycle, pale white) + Blue Child (27-day cycle, pale blue)
- Deterministic moon phases from server gameTime (not deltaTime toys)
- Sun positioning driven by LightingManager directionalDir (DBC-sourced)
- Camera-locked sky dome (translation ignored, rotation applied)
Lighting Integration:
- Apply LightingManager params to WMO, M2, character renderers
- Unified lighting: directional light, diffuse color, ambient color, fog
- Star occlusion by cloud density (70% weight) and fog density (30% weight)
Documentation:
- Add comprehensive SKY_SYSTEM.md technical guide
- Update MEMORY.md with sky system architecture and anti-patterns
- Update README.md with WoW-accurate descriptions
Critical design decisions:
- NO latitude-based star rotation (Azeroth not modeled as spherical planet)
- NO always-on procedural stars (skybox authority prevents zone identity loss)
- NO universal dual-moon setup (map-specific celestial configurations)
Wire DBC-driven lighting to terrain shaders:
- Add LightingManager to Renderer
- Initialize lighting manager with AssetManager
- Update lighting each frame with player position
- Feed lighting params to terrain shader uniforms:
* Ambient color
* Diffuse (sun) color and direction
* Fog color, start, end distances
- Fallback to skybox-based fog if lighting unavailable
TODOs for full integration:
- Wire actual map ID from game state
- Wire server game time from login packets
- Add weather/underwater state detection
- Apply lighting to WMO/M2/skybox shaders
Current state: Uses local time + Eastern Kingdoms map (0)
Next: Hook up SMSG_LOGIN_SETTIMESPEED for real game time
Add complete Blizzard-style time-of-day lighting pipeline:
Spatial Volume System (Light.dbc):
- Light volumes with position + inner/outer radius
- Distance-based weighting with smoothstep falloff
- Multi-volume blending (top 2 with normalized weights)
- X,Z,Y coordinate handling + LIGHT_COORD_SCALE for ×36 quirk
- Smooth zone transitions without popping
Profile Selection (LightParams.dbc):
- Weather variants: clear/rain/underwater
- Links to 18 color + 6 float band curves per profile
- Block indexing: LightParamsID × 18/6 + channel
Time-of-Day Band Sampling (LightIntBand/LightFloatBand):
- Half-minutes format (0-2879) with time clamping
- Keyframe interpolation with midnight wrap
- Wrap-safe initialization for edge cases
- BGR color unpacking
Multi-Volume Blending:
- Weighted sum of all lighting params
- Proper direction blending: normalize(sum(dir × weight))
- Blends ambient, diffuse, fog, sky, cloud density
Temporal Smoothing:
- Exponential blend to prevent frame snapping
- Smooths ALL parameters (colors, fog, direction, sky)
Game Time Support:
- Accepts server-sent game time (WoW standard)
- Falls back to local time if not provided
- Manual override for testing
Debug Features:
- Volume distance/weight logging
- Fog params logging
- Coordinate scale verification
Also: Move buff bar to top-left under player frame
The quest log was empty because the client never requested quest data from the server.
This caused "Already on that quest" errors when trying to turn in completed quests.
Solution:
- When gossip opens with an NPC, parse quest icons to determine quest status
- Quest icon decoding: 0x04=completable (turn-in), 0x02=available, 0x01=incomplete
- Populate questLog_ with active quests and their completion status
- selectGossipQuest now checks questLog_ and sends correct packet:
* If quest is in log + complete → CMSG_QUESTGIVER_REQUEST_REWARD (turn-in)
* Otherwise → CMSG_QUESTGIVER_QUERY_QUEST (view details)
Added opcodes:
- CMSG_QUEST_QUERY (0x05C) - client requests quest template data
- SMSG_QUEST_QUERY_RESPONSE (0x05D) - server sends quest template
Debug logging:
- Logs when quests are added/updated in quest log
- Logs selectGossipQuest decisions (isInLog, isCompletable)
- Logs whether turning in or querying quest
Also lowered quest marker height by 1 unit (HEIGHT_OFFSET 2.1 → 1.1).
Quest turn-in now works correctly!
Replace 2D ImGui text markers with proper 3D billboard sprites using BLP textures.
Features:
- Billboard rendering using Interface\GossipFrame\ BLP textures (yellow !, yellow ?, grey ?)
- WoW-style visual effects: bob animation, distance-based scaling, glow pass, distance fade
- Proper NPC height positioning with bounding box detection
- Camera-facing quads with depth testing but no depth write
- Shader-based alpha modulation for glow and fade effects
Technical changes:
- Created QuestMarkerRenderer class with billboard sprite system
- Integrated into Renderer initialization for both online and offline terrain loading
- Rewrote updateQuestMarkers() to use billboard system instead of M2 models
- Disabled old 2D ImGui renderQuestMarkers() in game_screen.cpp
- Added debug logging for initialization and marker tracking
Quest markers now render with proper WoW visual fidelity.
Fountain water at (-9048, -44, 93.7) was 2 units too large in diameter,
causing fall detection to trigger and respawn players. Lower water by 2
units within 15-unit radius of fountain center.
Event objects like Fire Festival Fury Trap and Mercutio Post use
SpellObject_InvisibleTrap.m2 models which were rendering as white
tiles using WHITE1.BLP texture. These are meant to be invisible
spell trigger objects that should not obstruct player movement.
Changes:
- Added isInvisibleTrap flag to M2ModelGPU struct
- Detect models with "invisibletrap" in name during loading
- Skip rendering invisible trap instances in render loop
- Disable all collision checks (floor/wall/occlusion) for invisible traps
- Objects remain functional for spell casting but are now invisible
PROBLEM:
Canal water surfaces in Stormwind extend spatially beyond their intended
boundaries, causing water to appear in tunnels and buildings where it
shouldn't be visible. This is likely due to oversized water mesh extents
in the original WoW data.
SOLUTION:
Lower Stormwind canal water by 1 unit to hide it below tunnel/building floors
while keeping boats at reasonable floating height:
- Only affects water in Stormwind area (tiles 28-50, 28-52)
- Only affects water above 94 height (canal level)
- Moonwell exclusion: 20-unit radius around (-8755.9, 1108.9, 96.1)
to preserve functional moonwell water
HARDCODED VALUES:
- Stormwind area bounds: tiles (28-50, 28-52)
- Height threshold: >94 units (canal level)
- Moonwell position: (-8755.9, 1108.9, 96.1) with 20-unit exclusion
- Lowering amount: 1 unit
WHY THIS IS HACKY:
- Zone-specific logic hardcoded for Stormwind coordinates
- Position-based moonwell exclusion uses hardcoded world coordinates
- Height threshold is a magic number tuned by trial
- Doesn't fix root cause (oversized water surface meshes)
- Some park water may still be visible
PROPER FIX WOULD BE:
- Trim water surface meshes to actual canal boundaries in ADT/WMO data
- Or implement spatial clipping of water surfaces at render time
This is a pragmatic workaround that improves the situation.
- Filter terrain water in Stormwind area (tiles 28-35, 46-52) to 85-110 height range
- Conservative global WMO water filter (only removes water above 300 or below -100)
- Increase canal water opacity and add distance-based opacity
- Prevents floating/underground water in Stormwind without affecting other zones
- Add carpet/rug name detection in model loading
- Set collisionNoBlock flag for carpet and rug models
- Prevents slipping/sliding on decorative floor coverings
- Player can now walk through carpets without collision
- Increase padding from 1.2x to 2.5x model radius
- Add minimum 5 unit padding for small objects like lamps
- Fixes models disappearing at viewport edges during camera rotation
- Add distance-based + backface culling for STORMWIND.WMO LOD shell groups
- Hide floating cathedral shell when within 185 units of group center
- Enable backface culling for LOD shell to reduce artifacts from inside
- Increase WMO view distance from 160 to 500 units for better visibility
- Extend fog distances to 3000-4000 units for clearer long-range views
- Add fog support to water renderer matching WMO fog settings
Previous threshold (worldZ > 150) was too aggressive and hid Group 95
at worldZ=162 which is legitimate cathedral geometry.
New approach: Only hide groups that are BOTH:
- High: worldZ > 180
- Very tall: sizeZ > 100
This specifically targets ONLY the floating shell:
- Group 92: worldZ=225, sizeZ=251 ✓ culled
- Group 93: worldZ=201, sizeZ=165 ✓ culled
While preserving legitimate geometry:
- Group 95: worldZ=162, sizeZ=131 ✓ kept (Z < 180)
- All other groups: Z < 180 ✓ kept
Identified the floating LOD shell from Z-position analysis:
- Group 92: worldZ=225 (flags=0x7d2, 251.5 units tall!)
- Group 93: worldZ=201.6 (flags=0x7e1, 165.4 units tall!)
These groups are positioned WAY above the normal cathedral geometry
(which sits at worldZ 98-122). They're the simplified distant shell
meant to make the cathedral look impressive from far away.
Fix: Skip rendering groups with worldZ > 150.0
This hides the floating shell while keeping all normal cathedral
geometry visible.
The threshold of 150 sits safely between:
- Normal cathedral: 98-122
- Floating shell: 200-225
Enhanced STORMWIND.WMO logging to show:
- centerZ: local Z position of group center
- sizeZ: height of the group
- worldZ: world Z position after transform
Removed all culling logic to see ALL groups rendering.
This will help identify which groups are positioned HIGH (floating shell).
User reports the shell is 'larger and floating above' the real cathedral,
so we need to find groups with unusually high Z positions.
Changed culling strategy based on observation:
- Previous: Hide groups with <100 verts when close
- New: Hide groups >200 units away when you're <300 units from WMO
The floating cathedral is likely Groups 281/283/284/285 which are:
- High detail (23k-28k verts)
- Far away (200-569 units from camera)
- Meant to show the cathedral from a distance
When you're actually near/inside the cathedral (distToWMO < 300),
these distant views should be hidden and only the close-up geometry
(Group 257 at 20 units) should render.
Added distance-based culling for WMO LOD shell groups:
- Skip groups with <100 vertices when camera is within 500 units
- This hides the simplified 'distant shell' when you're close to buildings
Analysis from STORMWIND.WMO logs revealed:
- LOD shell: Groups 268/269/271/274 (24-72 verts, flags 0x19xx)
- Main cathedral: Group 257 (32,698 verts at 20 units distance)
The LOD shell groups are meant for distant viewing only but were
rendering at all distances, causing the 'floating cathedral' effect.
Fix: Compute distance from camera to each group center and skip
rendering low-vertex groups when close. This preserves performance
(LOD shells still render from far away) while fixing the visual bug.
Added detailed logging when rendering STORMWIND.WMO groups to identify
the distant LOD shell that's causing the floating cathedral:
- Group index
- Group flags (hex) - will reveal which flag marks distant-only groups
- Distance from camera to group center
- Vertex count (helps identify simplified LOD geometry)
Logs once per session to avoid spam. This will help us identify:
1. Which groups are the floating LOD shell
2. What flag value indicates 'distant view only'
3. Proper distance threshold for LOD culling
Next step: Use flag pattern to hide distant groups when camera is close.
Added deduplication for WMO instances based on uniqueId, matching the
existing M2 doodad deduplication logic. This prevents creating multiple
instances of the same WMO when it's referenced from multiple ADT tiles.
Before: STORMWIND.WMO (uniqueId=10047) was being rendered 16 times
(one instance per ADT tile that references it)
After: Only 1 instance is created and shared across all tiles
Changes:
- Added placedWmoIds set to TerrainManager (like placedDoodadIds)
- Check uniqueId before creating WMO instance
- Skip duplicate WMO placements across tile boundaries
- Log dedup statistics: 'X instances, Y dedup skipped'
This should fix the floating cathedral visual issue if it was caused by
rendering artifacts from 16x overdraw, and will massively improve
performance in Stormwind.
The issue was that vertex colors (MOCV) were being multiplied directly into
the texture color BEFORE lighting calculation. When MOCV data contained
black (0,0,0) values, this zeroed out the texture color, making all
subsequent lighting multiplication also zero, resulting in pitch black areas
regardless of ambient light settings.
Fixed by:
1. Removed premature vertex color multiplication from texture sampling
2. Applied vertex colors as ambient occlusion AFTER lighting calculation
3. Clamped vertex colors to minimum 0.5 to prevent complete blackout
Now even areas with black MOCV data will render at 50% brightness minimum,
while properly lit areas remain bright. This preserves the AO effect without
causing invisible geometry.
Added detailed logging for WMO vertex data to diagnose pitch black areas:
- Log MOCV (vertex colors) chunk presence and first color value
- Log MONR (normals) chunk presence and first normal vector
- Log WMO group flags to identify interior vs exterior groups
Increased WMO ambient light from (0.4, 0.4, 0.5) to (0.55, 0.55, 0.6) to
make shadowed/dark areas more visible. This addresses pitch black areas in
Stormwind and other locations where diffuse lighting may be insufficient.
The diagnostic output will help identify if black areas are caused by:
- Missing or incorrect vertex color data (MOCV)
- Missing or incorrect normal data (MONR)
- Groups incorrectly flagged as interior (0x2000 flag)
Nonbinary characters can now choose between masculine and feminine body types in character creation, with real-time preview updates and full appearance customization. Body type preference is saved to character config and persists across sessions. Also reduces character preview drag-to-rotate sensitivity from 0.5 to 0.2 for better control.
Extends gender system beyond WoW's binary male/female to support nonbinary characters with proper they/them pronouns. Implements client-side gender mapping (nonbinary→male) for 3.3.5a server compatibility while preserving player identity through local config persistence. Adds pronoun placeholders ($p/$o/$s/$S) and three-option gender text parsing ($g<male>:<female>:<nonbinary>;) for inclusive quest and dialog text.
Implemented three new ambient audio systems with automatic day/night transitions:
Weather ambience:
- Rain sounds (light/medium/heavy intensity based on weather system)
- Snow sounds (light/medium/heavy intensity)
- Automatically syncs with visual weather system in renderer
- Different loop intervals based on intensity (18-30s)
- Disabled indoors
Water ambience:
- Underwater swimming sounds (18s loop)
- Ocean surface sounds
- State tracking for entering/exiting water
Zone ambience:
- Forest (normal and snow variants)
- Beach sounds
- Grasslands
- Jungle
- Marsh/swamp
- Desert (canyon and plains variants)
- All zones have separate day/night sound files
- 30s loop interval for subtle background atmosphere
- Disabled indoors
Technical details:
- Added WeatherType enum (NONE, RAIN/SNOW LIGHT/MEDIUM/HEAVY)
- Added ZoneType enum (NONE, FOREST_NORMAL, FOREST_SNOW, BEACH, GRASSLANDS, JUNGLE, MARSH, DESERT_CANYON, DESERT_PLAINS)
- Loads 26 new sound files from Sound\Ambience\Weather and Sound\Ambience\ZoneAmbience
- Weather intensity thresholds: <0.33 = light, 0.33-0.66 = medium, >0.66 = heavy
- Renderer automatically converts Weather::Type + intensity to AmbientSoundManager::WeatherType
- All ambience respects volumeScale_ and indoor state
- State change logging for debugging transitions
These managers were only being initialized in loadTerrainArea (online mode).
Added initialization in loadTestTerrain as well so they work in both modes.
Now the file probing should actually run and show which sound files exist.
The cachedAssetManager was only set in loadTestTerrain() for single-player mode.
In online mode (loadTerrainArea), it was never set, so NPC voice and mount sound
managers never initialized. Now gets asset manager from Application instance if
not already cached. This will enable file probing and voice/sound loading.
Added extensive logging to diagnose issues:
- Logs WMO model IDs when entering WMOs (to identify correct tavern IDs)
- Logs when tavern music should be playing
- Logs NPC voice playGreeting calls and their results
- Logs which sound files are being played
- Added more emote variations (Hello, Yes) for NPC voices
This will help identify why tavern music and NPC voices aren't working.
NPC voice fixes:
- Changed sound paths from "Greeting" to "Hello" emote (more reliable)
- Added warning log when no voice samples load
- Voice files should now play when clicking NPCs
Tavern music:
- Detect tavern WMOs by model ID (inn buildings)
- Play tavern-specific music when inside taverns
- Crossfade back to zone music when exiting taverns
- Adds cozy ambient music to inn/tavern buildings
Fixes issue where dust particles were angling down into terrain and not visible.
Changes spawn position to fixed 0.2 units above ground, increases upward velocity
to 1.2-2.5 for clearer rise, and uses only horizontal velocity component for drift
to prevent Z component from pushing particles downward.
Added NPC voice manager that plays greeting sounds when clicking on NPCs:
Features:
- Voice line library with multiple race/gender voice types (Human, Dwarf,
Night Elf, etc.)
- 3D positional audio - voice comes from NPC location
- Cooldown system prevents spam clicking same NPC
- Randomized pitch/volume for variety
- Loads greeting sounds from character voice files in MPQ
- Generic fallback voices for NPCs without specific voice types
Voice lines trigger automatically when gossip window opens (SMSG_GOSSIP_MESSAGE).
Uses same audio system as other sound effects with ma_sound_set_position.
The mount dust code was calling camera->getForward() without checking if
camera was null first, causing a crash that prevented mounting/dismounting.
Added camera null check to the condition.
Implemented dust cloud particles that spawn at mount feet when running
on the ground, similar to the original WoW. Features:
- Brownish/tan dust particles using point sprite rendering
- Spawn rate proportional to movement speed
- Particles rise up, drift backward, and fade out naturally
- Only active when mounted, moving, and on ground (not flying)
- Smooth particle animation with size growth and alpha fade
Uses similar particle system architecture as swim effects with
GL_POINTS rendering and custom shaders for soft circular particles.
Added full mount sound system with:
- Wing flap sounds for flying mounts (gryphon/wyvern) when moving
- Wing idle/hovering sounds when stationary in air
- Breathing/snorting sounds for ground mounts when idle
- Occasional whinny sounds for ground mounts when moving
Sounds are loaded from MPQ files and played via AudioEngine with
randomized pitch/volume variation. Mount sound manager tracks mount
type, movement state, and flying state to play appropriate ambient
sounds at natural intervals.
Updated setMounted() to accept creature display ID and notify the
mount sound manager, which uses display ID ranges to detect mount
type (flying vs ground).
Reduced mount footsteps from 4 beats to 2 beats per animation cycle
with evenly-spaced timing at 0.25 and 0.75 normalized time. The
previous 4-beat pattern (0.1, 0.35, 0.6, 0.85) was too frequent and
not properly synced with mount animations.
Implement framework for playing mount sounds (flapping, galloping) based on mount type and movement state. Actual sound playback to be implemented next.
