MGE XE
A custom MGE build with shadows and a handful of performance improvements, hopefully with similar or better performance than regular MGE. Have a look at these screenshots.

Galleries
To the South (recent)
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153914.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153894.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153886.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153876.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153867.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153857.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153849.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153838.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153830.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153821.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153810.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153799.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153790.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293153781.jpg
Weight of Light
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046108.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046097.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046089.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046079.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046071.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046060.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046048.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293046009.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045995.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045981.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045961.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045952.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045601.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045593.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045583.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1293045571.jpg
Ascadian Afternoon
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-4-1278628508.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1278628508.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1278628507.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1278628507.jpg
Coastal
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1281023163.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1281023162.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1281023162.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1281023122.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1281023122.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1281023121.jpg
Solar Dipole
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-5-1278457500.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-4-1278457499.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1278457499.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1278457499.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1278457498.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-5-1278457584.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-4-1278457584.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1278457584.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1278457583.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1278457583.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-5-1278457655.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-4-1278457655.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-3-1278457655.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-2-1278457654.jpg http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/26348-1-1278457654.jpg


It works by utilising the distant land objects to cast shadows, so it only works outside. It is real-time and Morrowind time passing is quite noticeable. There are some limitations, you'll just have to try it yourself. There are several features from MGE that have been cut too; MGE scripting, dynamic water, texture hooks. I require some compatibility and performance testing.

If you want to test, you will have to regenerate distant land. As statics cast shadows, you will need a low minimum static size; I recommend 150. You can use 100 if you have a higher performace setup. Shaders need updating as well, the HDR and shader chain setup has been changed slightly. I will be providing some updated versions of common shaders. You will also need to update your drivers and DirectX 9 to the June 2010 release, it fixes serious issues with the shader compiler from last year. Unmodified shaders will not be loaded to avoid crashes or incorrect operation.


Install Instructions (updated)
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26348

0. You need http://sourceforge.net/projects/morrgraphext/files/Beta%20Releases/MGE%203.8%2B%20SVN%20builds/ installed and working already, and a Shader Model 3.0 card.
1. Install files, update to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3b170b25-abab-4bc3-ae91-50ceb6d8fa8d.
2. Deselect mods from your load order that interact with MGE. (Standard MWSE mods are okay, HUD mods are not.)
3. Run the new MGEXEgui. Generate distant land with 150 minimum static size.
4. Edit your shader chain to use the new shaders. The XE shaders are separate settings from regular MGE. SSAO no longer requires fiddling with.
5. Bind "toggle distant statics" key in macro editor. This currently toggles shadows instead.
6. Set view distance in-game to maximum.

Recommended shader order: SSAO, DoF, Sunshafts, (Underwater), Bloom, HDR.
Also recommended: set timescale to 10 or 15 (or 1000) in the console. The movement of the sun is very visible.

You may want to set transparency supersample anti-aliasing in your graphics drivers, if you want high quality grass/tree edges.
Don't expect everything to cast a shadow, remember that it's only distant land objects.


Things to test
All errors are logged to mgeXE.log in the Morrowind directory. Check there first if it crashes or white screens, it may explain why.
When reporting errors, always post mgeXE.log and OS, video card details, and driver version.
Please report rendering errors with detailed information and a screenshot.


Known issues
The Ghostfence has problems due to the overlapping alphas, there is currently no solution for this.

There are some stupid things happening with water caustics underwater, checking it out.


Changes from SVN 178

• All objects in Morrowind view distance receive shadows.
  
• Distant land and grass culling is not delayed by a frame any more.
  
• Grass lighting changed. All grass was effectively shaded by a single ambient light; it was pretty flat. There is some directional lighting now, as well as grass receiving shadows. Please evaluate the lighting situation.
  
• Grass animation is somewhat different.
  
• Shaders no longer affect the crosshair, nor spill over the screen during cell loading, nor screw with cutscenes.
  
• HDR resolve is now asynchronous and should cause less fps loss. Also uses less video memory.
  
• Shader chain double buffers instead of copying. clip no longer works, shaders must use flow control.
  
• thisframe and lastframe are no longer available.
  
• tickcount is removed, there is a time variable instead with in-game seconds passed.
  
• There is no alpha-to-coverage. Personal opinion; alpha stipple is too noticeable.
  
• MW/MGE blending modifications. May be more efficient.
  
• Distant scene has full land coverage for better culling of distant objects.
  
• Screen is no longer slightly blurred by half a pixel when MW/MGE blending is disabled.
  
• The game should load and save in exteriors with less crashes. Needs testing.
  
• Windowed mode snaps to the screen edge to act like fullscreen.
  
• New underwater surface effects, total internal reflection.
  
• InGame.fx has been replaced by a set of effect files that should be more easily substitutable.
  
• Redesigned GUI for simpler setup and use.
  
• Shader chain is seperate from regular MGE as the shader interface is different.
  
• High quality selection of default shaders included.
  
• Minor shoreline turbulence animation.
  
• Screenshot enable checkbox now works like others since the screenshot code is patched. Just use PrintScreen, no macro required.
  
• Water shows up in the local map again.
  
• Scattering exponential fog, thanks to phal.

Hey Hrnchamd, glad to see you're making some great progress with MGE XE

speaker-60 contacted me about the sourcecode of the atmospheric scattering shader. In case you want to include it into MGE XE, I've uploaded it http://www.speedyshare.com/files/26181829/mge.zip. The code is probably a bit messy since the code still includes some other changes I made for testing purposes. I have marked (hopefully) all relevant passages with a "//// SCATTERING" comment. What it does is it simply intercepts MW's first sky rendering call and renders the shader instead (last pass in the included ingame.fx).

The code also includes the necessary parts for passing the cloud textures to active shaders, by re-rendering the clouds onto a dedicated texture, not sure if you want to include that as well.

The probably most time consuming step is replacing all the fog calculations in the distant land shaders. The ingame.fx I included uses compiler macros to be easily switchable between the different fog methods, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement that in your new shader files.


Oh, and I've run across a bug with the current MGE XE build, the distant land near clipping plane seems to be always set to 7168 (or MW max view distance), causing gaps when using a view distance below maximum. See http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5458/31351724.jpg.

EDIT: And taking screenshots as .tga only produces plain black images in windowed mode for me. Works fine with regular MGE.


Looking forward to your future releases.

I can attest to this. FPS Optimizer wrecks havoc on MGE XE changing the view distance. I had to turn off FPS control as standing in Sedya's bridge, spinning around, could make the entire town disappear and just show the distant water.

Thanks, phal. Been mowing the weeds in the MGE codebase mostly, it should make things easier to add.

I would like to phase out FPS Optimizer eventually, exactly what features do you use it for?

Mouse Pointer speed correction. The game is completely unplayable without it. I mentioned this over in the MCP thread.

Until something comes along to make the mouse not slow down to me having to pick it up *twice* to move from one side of the screen to the other while in the inventory screen....I'll need FPS Opt. I suspect I'm not alone here.

(unless there is some other, better way to make this issue go away, in which case, I'm all ears)

Noticed something with draw distance set to 300 cells, is it intended? When I open the console while using MGE, my FPS goes from 1 FPS to 25 FPS (so basically, I stop lagging). When I open the console while using MGE XE, my FPS does not change, stays at 1 FPS, and continue to lag.

MGE does save the distant land into a texture buffer for menu mode. In XE it shares the buffer with the shader pipeline to save several megs of VRAM, I'm working on it now due to the general slowness of menu mode people have reported.

I just found what I think is a bug as I've not seen it in standard MGE. While swimming in 3rd person, I get significant hair clipping while at the surface, sometimes all hair below the waterline disappearing, sometimes the entire wig disappearing.

Also, there's a general fogginess at distance that just didn't used to be there. I can fly up high from Sedya and see Vivec, but its quite obscured. I've cycled weather several times, so it isn't that.

It seems to be better suited to MCP. Menu mode mouse speed is linked directly to whatever DirectInput returns.



Alpha blended hairs will clip with water, but water is a bit broken in this version anyway. About the fog, screenshot comparison or it didn't happen.

Now you're going to make me go learn how to do screenshots....maybe tomorrow

So how do the latest versions handle exterior ssao? I know that there used to be some oddities on some objects, especially animated grass.

So how do the latest versions handle exterior ssao? I know that there used to be some oddities on some objects, especially animated grass.

My HDR problem wasn't confirmed so I will have to make more experiments.

In editor, tickcount is still working. Time is not. I hope time will give me consistent animations with variable framerates.

sampler s0;float time;float4 HDR;float tickcount;//We animate the texture before projecting!!float4 windyshadow( float2 Tex : TEXCOORD0 ) : COLOR0{	float timex = fmod(time, 100)/100;	float speed = 1;	Tex.x += Tex.x - timex;	Tex.y += Tex.y - timex;       float4 col;	col.rgb = tex2D(s0, Tex).rgb;       col.a = 1;	return col;}technique T0  < string MGEinterface = "MGE XE 0"; >{	pass {PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 windyshadow();}}

This funny shader is causing funny things. As I move the mouse, I see texture files on screen. Very weird?

its all just details, overall MGE XE looks very clean (great work that shaders dont affect hud and loading times) and btw we have shadows and the best shaders out there!

SSAO on grass seems to have worked fine for six months. It's SSAO over particles which are a problem (since they have no real depth).



Shader editor needs updating to vtastek edition I see. Your sampler isn't bound to anything, it will just use whatever texture it feels like.



Heh, I think I can fix 2 and 3 within a few releases, the distant land detail texture should be a good substitute for deep seabed without extra rendering.

What settings in the HDR shader file do I need to change in order to not be blinded by the sun? I'd like for the shader to be more like the DX9 HLSL HDR 4 of regular MGE.
Shader chain is :

SunshaftsUnderwater EffectsHDR

Is that a good place for the water shader?

It's the sunshafts shader that does that, it runs after Morrowind draws its own glare which can be blinding. See http://www.gamesas.com/?showtopic=1036626, there is the original sunshaft shader with replacement textures that stop Morrowind doing that. Install just the texture and see if it makes a difference.

Place the underwater shader just before bloom, I think.

http://www.speedyshare.com/files/26200634/shaders.zip a link to the shader files with included atmospheric scattering. The new file layout made editing those pretty easy.

To make the scattering effect complete, the sky render call needs to be replaced with a simple shader returning fogColour(eyevec,-1). Apart from that, there is still a color mismatch between MW fog and MGE fog, which I solved in my custom rev186 by replacing MW's original fog color with a constant float3( avg*0.21, avg*0.41, avg*0.80 ), with avg the average of all three color channels of the original fog color. (see lines 1963+ in the WrapperClasses.cpp I uploaded yesterday.)
The SunPos vector needs to be adjusted as well, by inverting the z coordinated if SunVis equals zero (at night), to simulate the sun going around the sky once per day, instead of back and forth. (Line 1633 in the WrapperClasses.cpp)

phal, I read this to mean the shaders from your rev186 now work in XE? I'm sad I have to work for 3 more hours.

Looks to me like there are three new shaders in the file, they replace current ones with Phals ones.

I've not tested it yet, but will do shortly!

I must say, after a bit of tweaking with settings, MGE XE is truelly awesome, once the issues with the water shader are resolved (the issue where a horizon line or leaves showing through terrain) is caused when full dynamic shadows are turned on, turn them off and it goes away.

if the cloud shadows can be implemented, the graphics will be complete, but they are already wonderful, I harped on about the shadows caused by statics for hours to my friends

Hah, people can't help downloading. I still need to connect the sky rendering to the shader for the sky colours to show up properly. TGAs seem to save correct images when I tested it just now, I'm not sure what could be wrong.

Tested the shaders, and while I understand the fog needs to be fixed, to me the water shader didn't look as nice (at least above water) and the sun rays took on an odd hue also, reverted back to your current shaders, will test again when we're told to this time

0.8.6 released

Config
Fixed time variable in shader preview. The previous tickcount was using .net ticks, different than Windows tickcount. .net ticks run at 100ns per tick.
Fixed button labels in macro editor/remapper due to text rendering change. Macro'd keys are now a pleasant black text on light blue instead of black text on darker green.
Screenshot enable checkbox now works like others since the screenshot code is patched.

Shaders
Bloom Soft finally fixed not to bloom fog. I actually read all of the code this time.
SSAO Fast still has problems overdarkening distant objects, I recommend using SSAO HQ for now.
Underwater effects toned down a bit.

XE
Water bugging out should be fixed. Water is now drawn when Morrowind water is pattern matched. This also makes water show in the local map again.
Menu mode should regain responsive mouse, MGE XE only updates rendering on mouse clicks.
Underwater refraction of above surface increased.
Underwater transition is moved to match the centre of the viewport instead of when water reaches the top of it.
Screenshot function is permanently bound to the PrintScreen key. Morrowind will never show the enable screenshot in ini message ever again.


Additions to far water / fog scattering / reflections will be in the next version.

Please check if water is bugging out any more, if Bloom Soft works properly, and if there are no quirks in menu mode. The scene is fully updated when you click, but I don't know if that becomes a problem.

Does hair clip with 3.8.2? It's one of those things that the engine does. The boat in Seyda Neen needs to be added to your statics exception list, see the main MGE thread for how it works.