Guild Wars Map Browser v5.3

Changelog

• You can now select between model LODs (level of detail). Select between High, Medium and Low quality. Available for maps and models. Just select the LOD quality in the Render settings window in the top right corner.
  

• An updated Blender model import add-on. Now when you import models in Blender it will import High (Always), Medium (if available) and Low (if available). Not all models have Medium or Low LODs but High will always be imported. Note that you must update the Blender Model Add-On (and restart Blender after updating). It will also only work with exported models from v5.3 and onwards of GWMB.
  

• The Antechamber terrain is shaded correctly. Like Jade Quarry and a few other maps it used a normal map for it's first terrain texture and this texture is now being skipped.

Note that prior to this update all LODs where drawn on top of each other which would make some models looks strange.

Guild Wars Map Browser v5.2.1

Changelog

• Fixed a bug leading to the program crashing when trying to save to a path with an umlaut character in it.

Guild Wars Map Browser v5.2

Changelog

• You can now close all windows.
• Added a new window for controlling the view state (show/hide) of windows.
• The Browse .dat file contents can now be closed (like all other windows) but also moved and resized.

This should allow the users of GWMB to better customize the layout of the GUI to their own preference.

Guild Wars Map Browser v5.1.2

Changelog

• Fixed a bug where MSAA was implemented incorrectly causing crashes for some users on program start.
• The program now generates a crashdump (minidump) on unhandled exceptions.

v5.1.1 possible bug fix

Possible fix for the bug. The crashing might be caused by my incorrect code for adding MSAA. This version reverse it to how it was prior to version 5.

v5.1.1 minidump

For debugging and bug fixing purposes. The _debug.exe is built in Debug mode and the _release.exe is built in Release mode.

Guild Wars Map Browser v5.1.1

Changelog

No other changes compared to v5.1 except that this version is compiled with as /MT instead of /MD.

Guild Wars Map Browser v5.1

Changelog

Two new big additions in this update:

• Give any file a name to make it easier to search/filter and find what you're looking for. File name data is saved and loaded from a csv file. This makes it possible to share your name data with other people. I hope that we as a community can have most of the dat mapped with proper names. You give each file multiple names. Model files can also have many different types. For maps you can also set is_pvp, is_outpost, is_explorable and map_ids (you can add multiple map ids)
• A dat comparison tool; This tool allow you to load multiple dat files and seamlessly switch between them. You can also compare files between the dat files using "comparison expressions" (a guide is included in the program). This should help find files of interest by comparing new and old versions of the dat. It also means you don't have to restart the program when you want to switch dat files.
• Crash handling: some users have had trouble running the program. If it crashes now you should get a message telling me exactly where the crash happened. If this still doesn't catch the crashes I'll have to do some more targeted exception handling.
• Various bug fixes and improvements.

Importing Maps and Models to Blender (tested with Blender 3.6.5, 4.0.0 and 4.0.1)

For a guide on this either check the release notes from previous releases or read the guide here.

Guild Wars Map Browser v5.0.4

Changelog

• Update map import addon to work in Blender 4.0.1. There was a typo in an if statement causing the addon to execute code for Blender v.3 rather than v4, should also work for subsequent Blender v4 releases.
• Updated Dear ImGui to 1.9.0.

Importing Maps and Models to Blender (tested with Blender 3.6.5, 4.0.0 and 4.0.1)

Install the GWMB (Guild Wars Map Browser) Blender Add-ons

1. Download 'map_import_addon.zip'
2. Open Blender
3. In Blenders top menu go to Edit > Preferences...
4. Go to 'Add-ons'
5. Press the 'Install...' button and select 'map_import_addon.zip' and then press the blue 'Install Add-on' button in the Blender window.
6. Once installed (should only take 1 second to install) make sure to 'Enable' the addon by pressing the little Gray square next to the addons name.
7. Repeat the above steps for 'model_import_addon.zip'

Exporting data from Guild Wars Map Browser

Before we can import into Blender we need some data to import. So open Guild Wars Map Browser and either export a Map or a Model.

Exporting a map

1. Right click a FFNA - Map file in the 'Browse .dat file contents' window.
2. Then click the 'Export full map' option. This will create a folder with a name like: gwmb_map_13565 with all the required data (where 13565 is just the File ID of the map in this case Lions Arch).

Exporting a model

1. Right click a FFNA - Model file in the 'Browse .dat file contents' window. Note that not all FFNA - Model files contains 3D models.
2. Then click the 'Export model as JSON' option. This will export all the required files (a .json file and some textures) into the selected folder. It will not create a new folder for you. The .json file should have a name like: model_0x121D1_gwmb.json (where again 0x121D1 is just the File ID of the modeland many textures with filenames like:66639.png` (where 66639 is just the File ID of the texture)

You don't have to worry about the File ID. I just mention it so the names won't feel as random.

Using the Blender Add-ons

Assuming you exported the map or model data as explained above you can now open Blender and import them.

Importing a Map

1. In Blender in the top menu go to File > Import > GW Map Browser Map Folder
2. Select the folder that Guild Wars Map Browser created for you when you imported the file.
3. Press the blue 'Import GWMB Map Folder' button
4. Wait a few minutes for the map to finish importing. Blenders UI will freeze during this time. If you open the System Console window before importing you can see some progress being printed. Go to Window > Toggle System Console.
5. To view the models shaded select the 'Viewport Shading Mode` (either material preview or render preview mode. I prefer material preview).

Importing a Model

1. In Blender in the top menu go to File > Import > GW Map Browser Model File (.json)
2. Select the .json file in the folder you chose when exporting. E.g. model_0x121D1_gwmb.json. You can select multiple .json model files if you exported them all in the same folder.
3. Press the blue 'Import JSON model file ' button
4. Wait a minute for the model to finish importing. Blenders UI will freeze during this time.
5. To view the models shaded select the 'Viewport Shading Mode` (either material preview or render preview mode. I prefer material preview).

Guild Wars Map Browser v5.0.3

Changelog

• Set Blender metric system to metric and use more realistic units for the GW meshes.

Importing Maps and Models to Blender (tested with Blender 3.6.5 and 4.0.0)

Install the GWMB (Guild Wars Map Browser) Blender Add-ons

1. Download 'map_import_addon.zip'
2. Open Blender
3. In Blenders top menu go to Edit > Preferences...
4. Go to 'Add-ons'
5. Press the 'Install...' button and select 'map_import_addon.zip' and then press the blue 'Install Add-on' button in the Blender window.
6. Once installed (should only take 1 second to install) make sure to 'Enable' the addon by pressing the little Gray square next to the addons name.
7. Repeat the above steps for 'model_import_addon.zip'

Exporting data from Guild Wars Map Browser

Before we can import into Blender we need some data to import. So open Guild Wars Map Browser and either export a Map or a Model.

Exporting a map

1. Right click a FFNA - Map file in the 'Browse .dat file contents' window.
2. Then click the 'Export full map' option. This will create a folder with a name like: gwmb_map_13565 with all the required data (where 13565 is just the File ID of the map in this case Lions Arch).

Exporting a model

1. Right click a FFNA - Model file in the 'Browse .dat file contents' window. Note that not all FFNA - Model files contains 3D models.
2. Then click the 'Export model as JSON' option. This will export all the required files (a .json file and some textures) into the selected folder. It will not create a new folder for you. The .json file should have a name like: model_0x121D1_gwmb.json (where again 0x121D1 is just the File ID of the modeland many textures with filenames like:66639.png` (where 66639 is just the File ID of the texture)

You don't have to worry about the File ID. I just mention it so the names won't feel as random.

Using the Blender Add-ons

Assuming you exported the map or model data as explained above you can now open Blender and import them.

Importing a Map

1. In Blender in the top menu go to File > Import > GW Map Browser Map Folder
2. Select the folder that Guild Wars Map Browser created for you when you imported the file.
3. Press the blue 'Import GWMB Map Folder' button
4. Wait a few minutes for the map to finish importing. Blenders UI will freeze during this time. If you open the System Console window before importing you can see some progress being printed. Go to Window > Toggle System Console.
5. To view the models shaded select the 'Viewport Shading Mode` (either material preview or render preview mode. I prefer material preview).

Importing a Model

1. In Blender in the top menu go to File > Import > GW Map Browser Model File (.json)
2. Select the .json file in the folder you chose when exporting. E.g. model_0x121D1_gwmb.json. You can select multiple .json model files if you exported them all in the same folder.
3. Press the blue 'Import JSON model file ' button
4. Wait a minute for the model to finish importing. Blenders UI will freeze during this time.
5. To view the models shaded select the 'Viewport Shading Mode` (either material preview or render preview mode. I prefer material preview).