[Frank Firefly]

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1077461-openmw-newester-thread-4/page__hl__openmw

Hi! I know OpenMW has been mentioned around here before (search functions rock) but here we are again, pimping our project! So what's new?

Recently our Lead Dev (Nicolay, sorry to call you out buddy) went MIA, so after sitting on our hands for a few weeks the team mobilized, and we are back at it. We've had significant progress recently with NPC rendering, and are gearing up to tackle exteriors. We've had exteriors working before, but that was before a language switch and an engine rewrite. A lot of the groundwork is already in place, with the assets loading as they should, and a workable technique in the old language still sitting there for reference. We'll be working on hooking everything up with Ogre3D (the graphics engine we are using) which is the next big challenge.

We are definitely looking for more help! If you code/love Morrowind/love open source/have time to kill, we would love to http://openmw.com/forum!

And here's a bunch of links:

http://www.openmw.com/

http://openmw.com/forum

http://openmw.com/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ <= Zomg read this!

http://twitter.com/#!/marczinnschlag

[Alexander Horton]

Glad to see this back on track.

[Emily Graham]

Indeed. Hmmm, I wonder if I know anyone in real life I could beg to work on this. *chuckle*

[Vahpie]

0.9.0 released! Check out the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NClTB0utRMs

[Adriana Lenzo]

Great progress! Thanks for the video update.

[Amysaurusrex]

Glad to see this still being worked on. Even with all the new things coming out, this is still very important and should not be ignored by anyone.

[Ebony Lawson]

This is AWESOME

[Shaylee Shaw]

Video: 'It's a new age!'

Me: Heh, that sentence reminds me of a pretty obscure unrelated referen-

Video: 'old men, running the world'

Me: Okay this dude rocks.


Will your people continue to report on their progress within six months?

[Darren]

I am glad your problems are sorted. Maybe nicolay comes back, you may never know. I always hold some hope.

-My brother is sneaking upon me and posting for me. I am very angry at him. :facepalm:

[Gisela Amaya]

I'm getting RSS updates with spam from your announcements forum.

[Peter lopez]

Video: 'It's a new age!'

Me: Heh, that sentence reminds me of a pretty obscure unrelated referen-

Video: 'old men, running the world'

Me: Okay this dude rocks.

The same thing happened with me, it was awesome! :laugh:

[Honey Suckle]

0.10.0 Released!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58aVKVPqpJ8

[Juan Cerda]

:celebration:
Great improvements!
Thank!

[Lady Shocka]

D-: Isn't that supposed to be 1.0 -_-

EDIT: I love that he has the TR Theme playing

[Grace Francis]

Progress! :goodjob:

[Paula Rose]

Very relieved that this is still being worked on. Great job you guys. Keep it up. We salute you!
But I'm confused, you have not yet applied anything to the Ogre3D engine, right? And that's why everything looks exactly the same as vanilla Morrowind? When everything is hooked up to Ogre3D engine, will the game look and perform better than TESIV Oblivion without having to use any graphics mods like MGE? As in, will vanilla Morrowind look better than Morroblivion?

[Logan Greenwood]

Very relieved that this is still being worked on. Great job you guys. Keep it up. We salute you!
But I'm confused, you have not yet applied anything to the Ogre3D engine, right? And that's why everything looks exactly the same as vanilla Morrowind? When everything is hooked up to Ogre3D engine, will the game look and perform better than TESIV Oblivion without having to use any graphics mods like MGE? As in, will vanilla Morrowind look better than Morroblivion?

We are currently using Ogre3D, however the implementation is not complete. Ogre3d will allow some rendering enhancements to OpenMW, but will not alter the assets you provide it to change the models/textures/etc in the way that Morrowblivion would.

You have to provide the Morrowind assets yourself in order for OpenMW to work, they will not be distributed with the engine. And once loaded into OpenMW, they will be rendered with Ogre3D, but the content will not be altered. Again, there may be some effects or enhancements that Ogre3D will allow, but no alterations to the assets will be made by the engine.

I hope this makes sense... it's kind of an important distinction. If anyone has any further questions about this please get ahold of us.

[Ruben Bernal]

We are currently using Ogre3D, however the implementation is not complete. Ogre3d will allow some rendering enhancements to OpenMW, but will not alter the assets you provide it to change the models/textures/etc in the way that Morrowblivion would.

You have to provide the Morrowind assets yourself in order for OpenMW to work, they will not be distributed with the engine. And once loaded into OpenMW, they will be rendered with Ogre3D, but the content will not be altered. Again, there may be some effects or enhancements that Ogre3D will allow, but no alterations to the assets will be made by the engine.

I hope this makes sense... it's kind of an important distinction. If anyone has any further questions about this please get ahold of us.

So if there isn't much visual difference between gambryo engine being used and Ogre3D engine being used, what will this offer? Will Ogre3D allow modders to do more things they couldn't do before? Like volumetric clouds and accumulating weather effects? Physics on all objects perhaps?

[Gill Mackin]

So if there isn't much visual difference between gambryo engine being used and Ogre3D engine being used, what will this offer?

It will be open source, so anyone can modify the engine directly, without having to use DLL overrides or exe hacks. It should even be able to support other mesh and animation formats besides just NIF, and video formats besides just .bik. You'll also be able to have proper 64-bit builds, allowing it to use much more than 2GB/4GB RAM without crashing. Plus, it'll run natively on OSX and Linux.

Even though 1.0 will be visually similar, additional features can be added, such as HDR, full-world shadows, and other graphical effects (tesselation, material shaders, etc). They can be done properly in-engine, and engine bugs can be fixed or avoided completely. Physics can be added to objects. That stuff comes later, though, since the first goal is to get it running like the original, then the bells and whistles can be added.

[Ilona Neumann]

Thank you guys for all the effort you've put into this. I can honestly say that I'm more interested in this project than anything else out there. Completed, it would really open Morrowind up and give people the opportunity to make crucial changes so that the game can be lifted to a state of perfection. It's an amazing game and it really deserves a chance to be reborn in this fashion. Keep it up!

[Yonah]

I also would like to give my support to this project. Morrowind's content is one of the best I know for a RPG and it only lacks of a good engine: Realistic physics engine, bug-free code, better gameplay features, modern graphic features, reliable scripting system...
BTW I'm a Linux user and I have a dual boot (disk partitioned <_< and Vista :facepalm:) *only* to play Morrowind, so I'm really dreaming of a Linux native version
Keep up the good work!

[Hazel Sian ogden]

It will be open source, so anyone can modify the engine directly, without having to use DLL overrides or exe hacks. It should even be able to support other mesh and animation formats besides just NIF, and video formats besides just .bik. You'll also be able to have proper 64-bit builds, allowing it to use much more than 2GB/4GB RAM without crashing. Plus, it'll run natively on OSX and Linux.

Even though 1.0 will be visually similar, additional features can be added, such as HDR, full-world shadows, and other graphical effects (tesselation, material shaders, etc). They can be done properly in-engine, and engine bugs can be fixed or avoided completely. Physics can be added to objects. That stuff comes later, though, since the first goal is to get it running like the original, then the bells and whistles can be added.

That all sounds promising and awesome! But how will this affect mod projects that have been around for years like MGE, MGE XE (by Hrnchamd), MWSE, MPP, MCP.... will it make those mods obsolete? Or will it allow those mods to be expanded upon even further than what they could have before?

Other mesh/animation formats? Does this mean that we will be able to create new, smoother & much better looking body models? Better Bodies was made in 2003 at PsychoDog Studios and has since been the only body replacer. I would love to be able to create, or see created, new & improved body models. That in turn would mean we'd have to make new clothes, but hey, they did the same thing with TESIV.

Not sure what you mean by 64-bit builds. But it sounds like you're saying Morrowind will be able to render and run much more smoothly. Like say if I were to own a machine like http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-alienware-aurora-r3/4507-3118_7-34529769.html?tag=mncolBtm;rnav that has 16GB DDR3 SDRAM, would that allow me to play Morrowind at a much, much higher frame rate even with a myriad of big mods that cause extreme fps hits (like Arktwend, Deus ex Machina, Morrowind Comes Alive...)?

Now when you say "tesselation", are you saying Morrowind could have the potential to look like the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F6zSgtRnkE demo, given the right people implement the right kind of modding and tweaking to the open engine?

All these questions are referring to after OpenMW has been patented, packaged & shipped, so to speak.

[jason worrell]

That all sounds promising and awesome! But how will this affect mod projects that have been around for years like MGE, MGE XE (by Hrnchamd), MWSE, MPP, MCP.... will it make those mods obsolete? Or will it allow those mods to be expanded upon even further than what they could have before?

Not that I know anything, but I can take an educated guess. The point of Open MW is to run almost exactly the same as the original minus a few of the more obvious bugs which means these will likely still work or will work with an update. However, depending on the complexity, they will likely incorporate many features from these as they go along. I can however say with a some certainty, that MGE will likely ending up remaining mostly separate because peachykeen(assuming he gets to this point) is working on a replacement(voodoo/gem) with complete documentation, or a least once he gets the basics working, he will expand to do what MGE does. Knowing how complex code can get(in terms of layout), it would probably be simpler if they left it as a separate entity or to simply have it as a section of code they can include but still keep it separate. Just my thoughts on it, I have taken a guess, lets see if its right! haha

[Caroline flitcroft]

That all sounds promising and awesome! But how will this affect mod projects that have been around for years like MGE, MGE XE (by Hrnchamd), MWSE, MPP, MCP.... will it make those mods obsolete? Or will it allow those mods to be expanded upon even further than what they could have before?

Other mesh/animation formats? Does this mean that we will be able to create new, smoother & much better looking body models? Better Bodies was made in 2003 at PsychoDog Studios and has since been the only body replacer. I would love to be able to create, or see created, new & improved body models. That in turn would mean we'd have to make new clothes, but hey, they did the same thing with TESIV.

Not sure what you mean by 64-bit builds. But it sounds like you're saying Morrowind will be able to render and run much more smoothly. Like say if I were to own a machine like http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-alienware-aurora-r3/4507-3118_7-34529769.html?tag=mncolBtm;rnav that has 16GB DDR3 SDRAM, would that allow me to play Morrowind at a much, much higher frame rate even with a myriad of big mods that cause extreme fps hits (like Arktwend, Deus ex Machina, Morrowind Comes Alive...)?

Now when you say "tesselation", are you saying Morrowind could have the potential to look like the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F6zSgtRnkE demo, given the right people implement the right kind of modding and tweaking to the open engine?

All these questions are referring to after OpenMW has been patented, packaged & shipped, so to speak.

A lot of this has already been said, but I'll reiterate/expound: Mods like MGE, that rely on modifying the Morriwing executable and/or DLLs will not be usable with OpenMW. However, the sort of graphical enhancements they provide will be able to be programmed directly into OpenMW. As has been said, those sort of "bonus" enhancements will be implemented after a 1.0 release. Because OpenMW is open source, the potential for this sort of stuff is incredible, even though it is, in a way, a sort of "two steps back, three hundred steps forward" kind of deal.

As for fixes that exist solely as TES:CS mods (is the Unofficial Morrowind Patch still completely a mod? or does it modify the executable/libraries too?), you will be able to load those like normal morrowind plugins and run them in OpenMW.

[leni]

I assume MCP would be obsolete because most of the bugs that it fixes won't be present in OpenMW in the first place.

And yeah the Unofficial Morrowind Patch is still a standard mod.