459 ScapeRune Client - Refactoring & Modernization (RuneLite / FullScreen)

[thing1]

Introduction
Since I have been doing so much client work for ScapeRune lately I decided it would be neat to have a thread to track progress. My goal for this client project is to bring it up to spec with modern OSRS while keeping it as vanilla as possible. This is also a documentation and refactor effort to remove the obfuscation techniques and rename things accordingly. I have been working on this client on and off for several years so a lot of progress has been made already. The server thread is still being updated periodically and can be found here: ScapeRune #462 - Bringing back what you loved, piece by piece!

Why 459?
I have worked with 459 since late 2008. I practically cut my teeth on this client working on Project Annihilation back in the day with the team. I am honestly more familiar with the 400+ client structure than the 317 one. However, I have never been big into client customization or deep diving to learn how things work more technically until recently. I am learning a lot and still have a lot to learn with it all.

RuneLite Integration
Integrating RuneLite into the client has been a tedious task, but I am making progress. Our team has spoken about it and we are all in agreement to avoid any features that would provide an advantage over someone using the vanilla client. We will not be integrating any overlays or plugins that make the game easier such as quest or minigame helpers. I will also be modifying existing plugins when needed to add features or remove OSRS details. I have been utilizing the RuneLite UI by creating custom plugins for all of our own client settings as well to preserve the original client as much as possible.

Goals

• Resizable
  
  • Switching In-Game via Settings Tab
    
  • Interface Positioning - All interfaces in the game center properly
    
    
  • Layouts
    
    • Classic
      
    • Modern
      
  • Transparent
    
    • Chatbox
      
    • Tab Area
      
  
  
• RuneLite
  
  • Classic NPCs
    
  • Controls
    
    • Middle Mouse Wheel Camera
      
    • Dialogue Progression Keys
      
    • Tab to Reply PM
      
    • Function Keys (F1-12)
      
  • Profile Switching/Saving
    
  • Custom Cursor
    
  • Discord Integration
    
  • FPS Control
    
  • GPU Rendering
    
  • 117 HD
    
  • Hiscores
    
  • Info Panel
    
  • Interface Styles
    
    • 414
      
    • 459
      
    • 474
      
    • Transparent Chatbox (With Opacity Setting)
      
    • Transparent Side Panel (With Opacity Setting)
      
    • Modern Layout
      
    • Hide Clan-Chat Icon
      
  • Login Screen
    
    • Custom Backgrounds
      
    • Display Fire
      
    • Save Username
      
    • Save Password
      
    • Enter To Login
      
  • Loot Tracker
    
  • Low Detail
    
  • Notes
    
  • Roof Removal
    
  • Screenshot
    
  • Skill Calculator
    
  • Skybox
    
  • Stretched Mode
    
  • Time Tracking
    
  • XP Tracker
    

Special Thanks To:

• 
  RSPSi
• 
  Richard1992
• 
  Dane
• 
  K4rn4ge
• 
  Polar
• 
  Venn

 

[Nicholas]

since a big point of the project seems to be about nostalgia, how much do you think runelite will get in the way of that? I know personally, all the overlays, tooltips and ground/npc/object markers are quite obtrusive unless manually tuned or disabled. A lot of the plugins I use in high-level OSRS gameplay can detract quite a bit from the content itself, but their utility outweighs the annoyance of having more shit on my screen.

it's even worse when I see random apes on discord who just turn on everything and leave it all on the defaults, so their screen is covered in horrible overlays and bright colors that make my eyes burn.

for the sake of preserving nostalgia, do you plan to hand-pick specific plugins that you want, or simply add them all and exclude those you don't want? will you tune the defaults so that plugins - for example, the thick yellow square that tile markers default to - are less obtrusive?

it's a small thing i guess, and it might seem petty, but I have become quite blackpilled about runelite over the last few years. i think it massively shifts how the game is perceived, and rarely in a good way

regardless, I look forward to seeing what you do. good luck!

 

[ISAI]

since a big point of the project seems to be about nostalgia, how much do you think runelite will get in the way of that? I know personally, all the overlays, tooltips and ground/npc/object markers are quite obtrusive unless manually tuned or disabled. A lot of the plugins I use in high-level OSRS gameplay can detract quite a bit from the content itself, but their utility outweighs the annoyance of having more shit on my screen.

it's even worse when I see random apes on discord who just turn on everything and leave it all on the defaults, so their screen is covered in horrible overlays and bright colors that make my eyes burn.

for the sake of preserving nostalgia, do you plan to hand-pick specific plugins that you want, or simply add them all and exclude those you don't want? will you tune the defaults so that plugins - for example, the thick yellow square that tile markers default to - are less obtrusive?

it's a small thing i guess, and it might seem petty, but I have become quite blackpilled about runelite over the last few years. i think it massively shifts how the game is perceived, and rarely in a good way

regardless, I look forward to seeing what you do. good luck!

Our team has spoken about it and we are all in agreement to avoid any features that would provide an advantage over someone using the vanilla client. We will not be integrating any overlays or plugins that make the game easier such as quest or minigame helpers. I will also be modifying existing plugins when needed to add features or remove OSRS details. I have been utilizing the RuneLite UI by creating custom plugins for all of our own client settings as well to preserve the original client as much as possible.

Good luck! Awesome fucking project can't wait to see it continue to improve

 

[Avatars]

since a big point of the project seems to be about nostalgia, how much do you think runelite will get in the way of that? I know personally, all the overlays, tooltips and ground/npc/object markers are quite obtrusive unless manually tuned or disabled. A lot of the plugins I use in high-level OSRS gameplay can detract quite a bit from the content itself, but their utility outweighs the annoyance of having more shit on my screen.

it's even worse when I see random apes on discord who just turn on everything and leave it all on the defaults, so their screen is covered in horrible overlays and bright colors that make my eyes burn.

for the sake of preserving nostalgia, do you plan to hand-pick specific plugins that you want, or simply add them all and exclude those you don't want? will you tune the defaults so that plugins - for example, the thick yellow square that tile markers default to - are less obtrusive?

it's a small thing i guess, and it might seem petty, but I have become quite blackpilled about runelite over the last few years. i think it massively shifts how the game is perceived, and rarely in a good way

regardless, I look forward to seeing what you do. good luck!

You can just turn it all off if that hinders you. That's the great thing about RuneLite, it gives you an option.

Edit: apart from that his goals don't seem to contain anything about adding plugins, apart from the GPU plugin.

 

[thing1]

since a big point of the project seems to be about nostalgia, how much do you think runelite will get in the way of that? I know personally, all the overlays, tooltips and ground/npc/object markers are quite obtrusive unless manually tuned or disabled. A lot of the plugins I use in high-level OSRS gameplay can detract quite a bit from the content itself, but their utility outweighs the annoyance of having more shit on my screen.

it's even worse when I see random apes on discord who just turn on everything and leave it all on the defaults, so their screen is covered in horrible overlays and bright colors that make my eyes burn.

for the sake of preserving nostalgia, do you plan to hand-pick specific plugins that you want, or simply add them all and exclude those you don't want? will you tune the defaults so that plugins - for example, the thick yellow square that tile markers default to - are less obtrusive?

it's a small thing i guess, and it might seem petty, but I have become quite blackpilled about runelite over the last few years. i think it massively shifts how the game is perceived, and rarely in a good way

regardless, I look forward to seeing what you do. good luck!

Appreciate the concern on this and I agree fully. I'm not adding anything that affects the game scene directly so no overlays, markers, tooltips, etc. All the features will be handled on the side of the client in the RuneLite UI panel and this is by design. All of the items in the RuneLite list above are plugins we plan to have and we don't plan to stray too far away from that.

Thanks for the support everyone

Just finished integrating the Control Options section on the new RuneLite addition and adding support for them into the client. This plugin will handle all of the QOL client related controls. I feel like they are named fairly, but for those who are curious here are their descriptions that can be found by hovering over the options:

Mouse Wheel Camera - Allows the camera to rotate by moving the mouse while holding down the middle mouse wheel.
Dialogue Progression Keys - Allows the progression of dialogues by pressing the space-bar and selecting options with number keys.
Tab To Reply PM - Allows the ability to press tab to reply to your last private message.
Function Keys - Allows the use of F1-F12 to switch sidebar tabs in-game.

 

[Nicholas]

Appreciate the concern on this and I agree fully. I'm not adding anything that affects the game scene directly so no overlays, markers, tooltips, etc. All the features will be handled on the side of the client in the RuneLite UI panel and this is by design. All of the items in the RuneLite list above are plugins we plan to have and we don't plan to stray too far away from that.

thank you for clarifying, that is quite a relief. I really like the idea of keeping the client and RL as separate as possible, and having all the RL stuff exclusively handled in the RL panel is more than I would have expected. Very nice!

You can just turn it all off if that hinders you. That's the great thing about RuneLite, it gives you an option.

if you think this is a genuine rebuff to the point I raised, you are either illiterate or disingenuous

 

[thing1]

Here's the latest plugin in the works. This is something I have seen the OSRS community ask for multiple times and I couldn't think of a more fitting plugin for ScapeRune. This took a lot of time and effort but I have tweaked a few things to allow for NPCs to be changed on the fly. This required creating new cache archives to hold the older npcs, anims, and graphics. This also required some tricky mapping as the animations don't line up between 414 and 459 NPCs. All in all I'm pretty happy with how it was done and how smoothly it works. I still have a good amount npcs to finish mapping over but a decent amount of them are implemented.

 

[Avatars]

thank you for clarifying, that is quite a relief. I really like the idea of keeping the client and RL as separate as possible, and having all the RL stuff exclusively handled in the RL panel is more than I would have expected. Very nice!



if you think this is a genuine rebuff to the point I raised, you are either illiterate or disingenuous

All I'm saying is that your message made no sense. If the plugin annoys you, you turn it off. You're just overthinking things and thus making a big deal about nothing. Maybe try to become less sensible so that you don't get triggered over everything?

 

[thing1]

I've started loading 428 interfaces in to match the gameframe when you switch revisions. This will be tricky doing the mapping but I think it will really tie things together with the old gameframe and npcs.

 

[Nicholas]

All I'm saying is that your message made no sense. If the plugin annoys you, you turn it off. You're just overthinking things and thus making a big deal about nothing. Maybe try to become less sensible so that you don't get triggered over everything?

i will assume that you are being genuine

the point I made, in more concise wording, is essentially that 'defaults are important'. there is a concept in software development known as 'look and feel', which is pretty self explanatory. will the application be black and white or red and yellow, will it have big buttons or small, will it have few menus or many, and so on. developers tune the look and feel of their application to appeal to themselves and their userbase, providing defaults that (in the developers mind, at least) engage the users in the way that the developer thinks best.

For example, if an application has too many colors, users might find it aesthetically unappealing. If there are too many menus, or buttons, or commands, users might find it too difficult to use. If the program is typically used in conjunction with others always opens in fullscreen, users may be annoyed. Even if there are options to lessen the number of buttons, or to disable fullscreening on launch, or to make the colors more muted, the defaults will already have had an impact on the users experience with that application. It's unavoidable.

Now, the point originally raised was that the vanilla runelite defaults clutter the game scene. There are overlays, tooltips, skilling plugins, etc, that are all enabled by default and will therefore, by default, be impacting the user experience from the moment they begin using the application. The 'look and feel' of the client intends to preserve the 'look and feel' of the client as it was in 2007, and all of these modern plugins would very much change that look and feel for everyone. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Even if you can turn all of the plugins off, it's annoying and their presence will have already impacted the user.

Since the developer clearly agrees with this idea, I hope that you can at least acknowledge that it has value even if you still don't agree with it.

 

[thing1]

Working on mapping all of the interfaces out, they have different buttons and data they require to function so it will take a little time but the system is fully fleshed out now. Next I will tackle the settings tab followed by the attack tab and magic spellbooks.

 

[evergreen]

Working on mapping all of the interfaces out, they have different buttons and data they require to function so it will take a little time but the system is fully fleshed out now. Next I will tackle the settings tab followed by the attack tab and magic spellbooks.

Underrated work also the data toggle for old NPCs. #chefskiss

 

[K4rn4ge]

 

[Russian]

Love to see it!

 

[thing1]

Just updated the thread to include all of the recent updates!

Huge thank you to RSPSi for helping me fix my OpenGL texture orientation .

After I fix the alphas and the UV I believe GPU mode will be nearing completion.

 

[thing1]

After some huge client reworking, full support for 474+ Model/ModelData has been added. This allowed the hooks to work properly in the GPU plugin instead of blowing out the models to solid white if they were textured. After this the lighting in OpenGL mode was redone to support the old lighting, after some digging I discovered OSRS has changed the way models are lit entirely.

Once again a huge thank you to RSPSi for helping me diagnose and resolve these issues, couldn't have done it without him and his years of knowledge .

 

[thing1]

I've been hard at work porting over the 117 HD plugin (while making heavy modifications to make it my own implementation). Today I will probably work on the sprite/text alphas in GPU mode but I'm really excited to see how far this client has come.

 

[.css]

That's actually dope

 

[thing1]

Spent the weekend working on the HD plugin, here's a little progress picture. I also was able to fix all of the transparencies involving sprites and text when in GPU mode.

 

[thing1]

After some serious work I was able to get real time lighting and shadows implemented in for 117 HD! Due to differences in OSRS lighting system, object ids, and maps I had to rebuild a lot of the HD plugin myself but I'm really excited to show how it has turned out. On a separate note, FPS unlocking is now supported as well.

Shadows:

Shadows With Lighting:

Switching Between Modes: