I've been having a look around recently to see if anybody has been able to implement the shadows that we all saw in the early-build trailers. Not really finding much, I am now asking you here.

Are there any mods that enhance the shadows system in Oblivion to a more realistic level?

I don't think there is anything yet but OBGE may eventually be able to do it but it is going to take a long time before it is done. It is just now being implemented in MGE which is much farther in development then OBGE is.

PS. You are going to need a really good computer to handle all of the extra shadows and especially to make them realistic.

I see. Well, like you said, I would need a more powerful computer anyway as my current system is having some weird difficulties with Oblivion as it is (see my thread in Hardware). I'll probably be upgrading within a year though, so having Oblivion look like I always thought it would... that'd be nice. Ah well!

If it could be done with vertex shaders it'd be great. But it would probably need a rewrite of the whole engine for the game to be able to do that on only those nifs that are or are part of buildings.

Basically here is what we're facing:

The shadow system in OB is hardcoded to only cast shadows from rigged objects (PC/NPCs/creatures)
There is a limit to the number of shadow casting objects in the scene
There is a limit to the size of the object (bounding box 500x500x500)
The shadow system does not allow shadows to fall on another shadow caster (IOW you can't cast a shadow over an NPC)

All that said... RGP-BlackDragon developed a system to 'rig' statics and script them to not move. His methods still suffer from the other limitations.

vtastek is working on shadows for MGE:

- http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/morrowind/Morrowind2010/sc02/proofofconcept03.jpg
- http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/morrowind/Morrowind2010/shadows/MGE-Proofofconcept2.jpg
- http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/morrowind/Morrowind2010/shadows/MGE-proofofconcept1.jpg

So we might see something similar for OGE in the future

When Scanti finds the surface normals for the OGE , HawkleyFox can start on directional occlusion:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bRkyG3R-eI

Hopeful but I think post processing shadows is going to kill most PCs.

If I didn't have all of the fps killing mods I have in Morrowind that I currently have then my computer could do the shadows without problems even with the shaders I have right now. By default Morrowind without mods or mge goes at a maximum of over 400 fps indoors and 200 to 300 out doors. With hdr, ssao, water caustics, dof, sun shafts, and bloom shaders my indoor fps is 200 to 300 and outdoors I get about 120 to 200 fps.