EQ B-Roll v1.1.0

Film classic EverQuest on your own private server. You can fly anywhere, you can't die, and nothing attacks you. There's also a renderer for smooth, repeatable camera moves.

Download (zip) View on GitHub

The real game

The actual 2002 client on a server that runs only on your PC. Every character is a flying, invulnerable GM, and nothing aggroes.

The Studio

A renderer for the same zones. Place camera keyframes and export frame-perfect MP4s up to 4K, with motion blur.

New in 1.1: the Studio now has every zone in your client, a day/night cycle with time-lapse, speeds from a walk to a warp (keys 1–6), and staged fights: place a player and an NPC and make them fight. Updating from 1.0? See Updating. Full changelog.

Set up (once)

You need a Windows 10 or 11 PC with a mouse plugged in, about 15 GB of free disk space, and an internet connection. Setup downloads everything else and installs it for you.

Download and unzip Click Download above. Before unzipping, right-click the zip, choose Properties, tick Unblock and press OK. Then unzip it somewhere simple, such as C:\eq-b-roll. Avoid Program Files.
Double-click Setup.bat It checks for Docker Desktop, which runs the game server, and offers to install it if it's missing. If it installs Docker: restart your PC, open Docker Desktop once and accept its terms (no account needed), then double-click Setup.bat again.
Let it finish The first run downloads about 8 GB: the server, the game client, and models for the Studio. It takes a while. At the end you'll have two shortcuts on your desktop: EQ B-Roll (the game) and EQ B-Roll Studio.

Safe to re-run. If anything goes wrong, fix what it tells you and run Setup.bat again. It picks up where it left off and never deletes your characters.

Updating

If you have 1.1 or newer: close the Studio window and double-click Update.bat in your EQ B-Roll folder. It fetches the latest version and keeps your zones, saved shots, videos and settings. The Studio panel shows a yellow note when an update is out.

If you installed 1.0 (there's no Update.bat in your folder yet):

Download the zip again with the button at the top. Unblock it as before.
Copy it over your folder Open the zip, open the eq-b-roll-main folder inside, select everything, and drag it into your existing EQ B-Roll folder. Choose Replace. Your zones and saved shots aren't in the zip, so nothing of yours is overwritten.
Done Open EQ B-Roll Studio as usual. From now on, use Update.bat.

Filming in the real game

Start it Double-click EQ B-Roll. The server starts by itself whenever Docker Desktop is running.
Log in with any name and password The first time, it asks for them twice; that creates the account. Then create any character.
Turn up the view distance Press Alt+O, go to Display, drag Clip Plane all the way up, and untick Level of Detail.

Moving around

To	Do
Fly up or down	Look up or down with `Page Up` / `Page Down` (or hold the right mouse button), then move forward with `W`
Level your view	`Home`

Commands (type them in the chat box)

Command	What it does
`#zone qeynos`	Go to a zone. Other good ones: `gfaydark`, `northkarana`, `erudsxing`, `lavastorm`, `airplane`
`#goto -551 315 44`	Teleport to an exact spot, as x y z. The game's `/loc` shows the same numbers as y, x, z.
`#set time 19`	Time of day, from 0 to 23. Try 6 for dawn, 12 for noon, 19 for dusk, 23 for night.
`#set weather 1 0 30`	Rain for 30 minutes. Use `2` for snow and `0` for clear; clear it before switching.
`#set zone clipping 500 10000 2000 9500`	View distance and fog: min, max, fog start, fog end. Lower the fog numbers for more haze.
`#size 10`, `#set race 12`	Change your own size or appearance for a shot.

A good first spot to test everything: #zone qeynos, then #goto -551 315 44. It has water, torches, sky, and plenty of NPCs.

Recording

In OBS, add a Window Capture of the game window. At your monitor's resolution the game runs borderless, which is ideal for capture. For a movable window, pick a smaller resolution under Options → Display.

Filming in the Studio

Double-click EQ B-Roll Studio. It opens in your browser (use Chrome or Edge).

Key	Does
Click the view	Take the mouse to look around; `Esc` gives it back
`WASD`, `E`/`Q`	Fly; up and down
`1`–`6`	Speed: walk, run, mount, griffon, fly-by, warp. The mouse wheel fine-tunes it.
`Shift`	Boost while held (set how much under Camera → Shift boost)
`K`	Drop a camera keyframe here
`P`	Preview the shot
`R`	Record a freehand flight instead
`Tab`	Hide the panel

When the preview looks right, press Render MP4. Clips are saved in the renders folder.

Zones

The Zone list has every zone in your EverQuest client. Zones under Ready load straight away. Pick any other zone and it's exported from your client first, which takes about a minute. To get them all, press Export all zones: it works in the background (a couple of hours, about 8 GB) while you keep filming, and each zone moves to Ready as it finishes.

Speed and fly-bys

Fly speed goes from a slow 1 unit/s up to 20,000. 5 (fly-by) and 6 (warp) cross a zone in seconds. For a keyframed fly-by, set the Take's Speed high as well; turn Fog all the way up (off) so the far end of the zone is visible.

Time of day

Under Look, tick Time of day and drag Hour. Time-lapse makes time pass during the shot (in game hours per real minute; negative runs backwards), for sunsets and nightfall. It's saved with the shot, so every render matches the preview.

Staged fights

Place a player Under Stage, pick race, gender, armour and helm, point the crosshair at the ground and press Place player at crosshair.
Place an opponent Pick any creature from this zone and place it a little way off. It will run in to fight.
Fight! Choose who wins (or nobody) and how long it lasts, then press Fight!. It starts a second later. Build your camera move around it: the fight is part of the shot, and previews and renders show exactly the same fight.

Stage fights on open ground: a falling body can end up inside a nearby wall.

If something goes wrong

The game crashes ("memory could not be read") when I click Play

Windows can't find a mouse. This happens on PCs used only through remote desktop or VNC. Plug in any mouse, even one you never touch. If that's impossible, there's a virtual-mouse workaround in the technical notes (problem #2).

Docker Desktop won't start

It needs hardware virtualization, a BIOS setting usually called "Intel VT-x" or "AMD SVM". Most PCs have it on. If it's off, turn it on in the BIOS. Also make sure you opened Docker Desktop once and accepted its terms.

"Port is already allocated"

Another EverQuest server, or another program, is using the same ports. Stop it in Docker Desktop under Containers, then run Setup.bat again.

Setup says client files are missing

Antivirus sometimes deletes one of the old client's files. Add an exclusion for C:\TAKP-broll in Windows Security, then run Setup.bat again.

Windows says "Windows protected your PC" when I run Setup.bat

That's SmartScreen being cautious about downloaded scripts. Click More info, then Run anyway. Unblocking the zip before unzipping (step 1) avoids this.

How do I stop the server?

Quit Docker Desktop, or stop eq-broll-server under its Containers tab. It starts again by itself the next time Docker Desktop runs.