I might have the time today, but on the other hand if Hrnchamd updates the GUI glitch in the next few days, I'd rather just wait for that to be honest...



no problem. I did get and set up 3.8.2 as part of the process to get XE working, and it seems to be working just fine. It's actually both faster and has much, much better water (than 3.8.0 which I was using before finding this thread), so I'm really happy with it, but the option for blurring distant land seems to be gone which is a damn shame as I can't really afford to play with DOF standard on my computer and it looked great. hope that'll come back.

UAC isn't an issue for me because I disabled it some time ago - it's way too annoying. Checked the folder and it's empty.

i'll keep an eye on the thread and try any new versions as they appear.

0.8.3 released

Config

• Shader editor is back.
  
• Benchmark numbers seem to make more sense. (Can't have more than 100% frame rate hit, fps reduction table is patched)
  
• Distant land wizard doesn't auto disable with the rest of the tab.
  
• Toggling exp. fog adjusts static distances as well as draw distance.

Shaders

• HDR tuned again. Really needs evaluating, please.
  
• Sunshafts sun disc set off by default, as it needs the glare texture replacer to look good with it on.

In-game

• Morrowind no longer quits if MGE isn't setup, it just disables MGE. (most common problem I've seen)

Ideally MGEgui would naturally lead the user to setup everything in sequence. I want to add an instructions tab, but the sequence and layout of controls is just as important, opinions please.


nhx, the distant land generator is exactly the same as in MGE 3.8.2, so that may not be the problem. If you can get a more detailed crash report from Windows it could help. Also, try running Morrowind with just the base mods.

0.8.3 Report

Config

• Shader editor is back. -- Confirmed. Suggestion: When "Editor" is pressed, either set the default directory for the File->Open menu to be the current Morrowind's XEShaders folder, or when "Editor" is pressed bring up the currently selected shader in edit mode.
  
• Benchmark numbers seem to make more sense. (Can't have more than 100% frame rate hit, fps reduction table is patched) -- Makes sense. Suggestion: Rename "Preview Active Chain" to simply "Preview" and move it from the Shader editor window to the shader selection menu.
  
• Distant land wizard doesn't auto disable with the rest of the tab. -- Confirmed.
  
• Toggling exp. fog adjusts static distances as well as draw distance. -- Thanks!

Shaders

• HDR tuned again. Really needs evaluating, please. -- I tried out the HDR in game and tried to look at some extreme cases (direct sun-staring swiftly looking to dark areas). The important thing is that no matter how I did it, the HDR never seemed horribly out of place. I would almost want to say that it should be a little bit more subtle, but it is working well with default settings in a default Morrowind install.
  
• Sunshafts sun disc set off by default, as it needs the glare texture replacer to look good with it on. -- I could argue both ways, but your perspective makes sense. Perhaps have a link to a glare texture replacer, or package one? Does anyone have a link to such a package for reference, at least?

In-game

• Morrowind no longer quits if MGE isn't setup, it just disables MGE. (most common problem I've seen) -- Great change in my opinion.

The UI changes are going great so far!

This is gonna be an odd report. I tried the new version out with all shaders and distant land disabled; interior loaded, exterior crashed. This is the crash report.

Problem signature:  Problem Event Name:	APPCRASH  Application Name:	Morrowind.exe  Application Version:	1.6.0.1820  Application Timestamp:	3ef35891  Fault Module Name:	Morrowind.exe  Fault Module Version:	1.6.0.1820  Fault Module Timestamp:	3ef35891  Exception Code:	c0000005  Exception Offset:	000e5467  OS Version:	6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1  Locale ID:	1033  Additional Information 1:	0a9e  Additional Information 2:	0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789  Additional Information 3:	0a9e  Additional Information 4:	0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

I then switched shaders on and loading even an interior cell crashed the game. Then I turned shaders off and distant land on. It crashed again. I forgot to get a copy of the report, so I went and reloaded the same save without changing any settings to get a copy of the crash report, but... it worked! And how. The shadows look incredible and don't casue ANY fps drop on my system (the game's already quite sluggish outdoors, but I was expecting it to turn to a slideshow).

I just now went back and switched shaders back on, and that works too. They look pretty great - from some of the screens I've seen I was expecting the bloom and HDR to be far too aggressive but they're not. I'll have to do some more testing to give specific feedback on the HDR shader. I'm actually a little confused on what it does because I was under the impression HDR used seperate texture maps (or channels) along with a fullscreen shader to give the impression of a wider range of color. The stock shaders supplied with the game do look great though.

So in sum I have no idea what caused the crashes the first several times I tried this out, as I haven't changed anything on my system. I've run Morrowind 7 times since I got 0.8.3, it crashed the first 3, and worked the last 4, so it doesn't seem to be random. I'll keep you updated on whether / to what extent I have further issues though.

Personally I think the shadows are a much bigger deal than all the shaders combined however. It's a huge addition to the world's believability.

Some minor things I noticed -

- The file and in-game popup still say it's version 0.8.2
- I can't get screenshots enabled, even if I set it in the .ini myself. The screen flickers when I hit the button (with MGE's rendering stuff dropping out, then back in) but I always get that stock screen shots are not enabled message.

All right, now to play with shader settings some more...

This is not MGE-XE specific, it is how things work in regular MGE as well. You'll need to go to the Macro Editor and bind a key to MGE's screenshot function.

It's a crash in a commonly used function, so it's not very helpful without a stack trace. Are you using any MWSE mods?


HDR is, at the core, an idea to ignore the RGB limits of 0-255 and see what happens when you use physical units for light (irradiance) instead of going by "tweak until it looks good". It turns out you need to modify lighting a lot, and textures not so much, as long as they aren't oversaturated/overcontrasted. What's in surface textures is actually albedo, or reflectance, which is naturally 0-1. Environment maps and skyboxes are the ones that use HDR textures as they are effectively lighting. All the other post effects come from fitting the irradiance back into RGB.

Morrowind has a better than average dynamic range due to its lighting design, so MGE HDR just does eye adaptation - adjusting exposure for changes in lighting, and changing depth of field due to pupil dilation in darkness. Any shader has access to the exposure meter, though.



Yes, but perhaps it would be better to bridge over the Morrowind function or include a screenshot keybind by default.

HDR is subtle but it is there.

Sunshafts when viewed from inside dark surroundings becomes... gray. That is weird. I will do more experimentations.

Something weird I noticed regarding particles. Off topic maybe but graphics related.


I have one request. Stand-alone shader editor. It is really annoying to have locked windows behind.(Preview and editor windows included. If preview window was on as default and compile was working as preview button, things would be faster.) Also MGEgui needs Morrowind to start. I found myself many times with ideas and a computer but without Morrowind.

played morrowind+mgexe 0.8.3 yesterday about 10 hours (thx to mgexe its compelling as on the first time) and watched the bloom/ssao/hdr/sunshaft filter in all different daytimes and weather conditions and iam VERY happy with them!
you seem to have a good taste as every shader is very subtle and consitent, the whole graphics (with exp. fog) is completely rounded now. i can remember the old mge shaders wich mostly looked inappropriate and to colorful (i never used any shader before mgexe). but i think the grass will never be really statisfying for me, it always looked and looks unfiting (i dont use any replacer or mod, only darknuts sharp textures + mgexe and everything looks sooooo harmonious - MORROWIND 2011 :celebration: ).

Hrchamd, this is AWESOME?? I returned home to see some friends and discovered this new version......installed.....messing with distant lands creation....failed.....error...... well, i dont have time....lets go to test with the current distant lands folder and all your new shaders......wow.
All long loading times dissapeared.... ????....no more burning faces.....????.....water is murky one more time....????..... i can use SSAO without a huge hit....shadows are simply perfect.....recent game shadows looks horrid compared....the general colouration of the game turns back to a less saturated origin maintaining subtlety all the shader effects ....????.....wtheck?...no one crash in this little travel......in fact in my new 460GTX the game was unresponsive before this XE....wow...this only you? You are a very talented man.

Evidently this needs a extensive testing from my part seeing all conditions to bring to you a valid testing data and i hope i got the time in this new decade lol to help you to refine this beast along with the help or others. I know that every tester is welcome.

Thanks and happy new year.

My first concern with HDR is not to overkill on light textures like faces and bright shirts, it's hard but it looks possible. With the snow, it's falling at terminal velocity, but it's missing a randomness component, so you notice how strange it can move. Snow speed is tweakable in the ini. For your experiments, can't you make a fake Morrowind.exe and Data Files setup for MGEgui - what checks does it fail?



I would like to see a shorter more compact grass mod, but it's truly difficult to make it look thick at the same time. The grazelands, for me, looks great with the silhouette of grass on top of the hills. If you explain what doesn't quite fit, then maybe someone will have a new idea of what could work better.



Thanks Connary, you noticed all the intentions of my development.


Happy new year everyone!

I am actually using several MWSE mods. I've played two or three times since I last posted and still haven't had any more crashes, however. I'm going to agree that the shaders supplied are excellent and tuned in good taste - the sunshafts / 'god rays' in particular are absolutely incredible.

Thanks for clearing up the HDR question as well.

Also I'm not sure if you're aware but one issue I did run across is that during a cloudy storm, the distant fog pulled back and the fog color itself was light (to match with the sky), but the bloom & HDR shaders interpreted the large fogged blocks of terrain as pure light so they glowed unnaturally. I'll take a screenshot next time I see the effect. Not sure what could be done to fix it off the top of my head.

Overall I'm pretty thrilled with this release. It's been completely playable for me apart from those early crashes and is actually more intuitive to configure than standard MGE. An excellent holiday present.

Happy new year!

I've noticed this as well. Though either Fine or soft bloom doesn't cause this ( I think its Fine Bloom) to happen. At least on the previous version of mgeXE it didn't anyway, I haven't tried soft or fine bloom with the most recent build.

EDIT: Fine bloom doesn't cause the glow effect on the newest version of mgeXE.

It is almost impossible. This whole business isn't solved in other games either. Things unnaturally glow with all games, I know. Not using bloom is a start though. My idea is adding light sources a billboard effect. Then extracting sky, glowing objects and light sources to another render target and give them higher values so papers and faces would be normalized/scaled back. Also switching between sharp(small) bloom for daytime, soft(bigger) bloom for night time/caverns could work. Better Music mod already differs different areas, could be plugged to it.


I tried to match my speed to get free fall effect but I was too fast apparently. So I used console and reduced my speed, then again and again. It was when I reduced my speed to 1, I noticed snow actually stops falling, it doesn't move at all. That's why I failed at matching my speed to it. It is funny how this doesn't happen if I look horizontally. I have to move downwards and look downwards(or upwards) to trigger this weird bug.

For checks:
Morrowind.exe, patched
morrowind.ini(fake can pass)
and registry keys.

I can move morrowind.exe with me, I guess. But registry checks, hmm. Mge shader editor is the only lightweight, handy, stable tool in the universe, can you believe it?

i cant really say what i dislike about the grass but i think one reason why it looks that cut in, is that the grass has sharper textures and not the exactly same colors as the groundtexture. with all the tree replacers & texture packs this might look better but for vanilla morrowind it (especialy from above) looks not fitting.
in modern games you have a fotorealistic groundtexture with normalmaps etc. from wich the grass grows very naturaly, as morrowind dont has these sharp groundtextures it might better fit to use slightly transparent grass like used in old farcry ( http://www.gadgetdevils.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/far-cry-1-001.jpg ) the best reference are the vanilla morrowind trees.

[img]http://img256.imageshack.us/i/mgescreenshot18.jpg/[/img]
just a screenshot showing how morrowind looks with vanilla textures & models :bowdown:

I tried this out this morning. Looks great. I did have one problem when I was swimming towards Argonia though. It only happens in first person but there is a huge line going directly through the center of my screen.
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj265/zackgwin/ZackGs%20Argonia/Argonia32.jpg

Is it only one place in particular; could you tcl and fly above the water line to get a better view? Your sky is blooming a lot as well, is that intentional?

I would have done the mournhold walls half a year ago if blender didn't freak out every time I imported them. When I import them, blender refuses to go into edit mode unless I haven't deleted the default cube, and I don't delete the default cube it'll go into edit mode but won't let me edit the wall. It's like Blender is displaying it but it's not actually there.

I suspect it has something to do with the scale at which blender imports the .nif but I have absolutely no idea how to check and even if I did, I'd have no idea how to fix it.

Help?

http://i53.tinypic.com/1zd7otf.png

You should also know that the "edit" button in the shader chain editor is bugged to stay at it's coordinates on screen even when the window is resized.

I think you set a too high distant land textures/normal map resolution.
Try to set it at "4096" or lower.

Is it possible to manipulate the "ground mesh" like the water is manipulated with shaders? The idea is to add some effect to the ground, like bump or normal map, or perhaps a little shine from the sun when facing right direction. Is it possible?

Don't know what's going on there either. Could you try correcting the double shadowing issues with Better Clothes to warm up? The starting male common shirt has doubled polygons near the shoulder which causes overdarkening in shadow (check in-game). Similar clothes using the same mesh will have the same problem.



Morrowind water is removed and the water is drawn at a different point. It can't work like that with land, which is drawn several times to blend the ground textures together.

And what about hook texture option ? It is possible to attach a shaders to a ground textures?

There's more than 64 textures to hook (MGE limit), and I consider hooking to be inefficient. It's not impossible for a specific land shader but there's memory problems loading so many normal maps for all the land textures and getting the blending right.

I'll look into it. I remember the original post about the issue so I know exactly what you mean.

I was going to also look into fixing the BC meshes, when I realised I'd downloaded it but had never installed it.
That was a bit of a revelation.

Anyway, I've got a bc_shirt_com_01_Male.nif which in theory is fixed.
http://www.filedropper.com/bcshirtcom01male
Do tell me if it fixes the shadow issues, I haven't yet tested it with MGE XE.

I can probably do the rest of the meshes if you'd like, and if it works properly.