That's a technical problem. Please don't limit your creativity for anything like that. Devs will fix it.

ah ok!
then I hope that they will manage to correct this problem. :celebration:

The overly dark looking vertex shading is likely due to my gamma settings in-game being pretty dark. Rest assured it'll look fine on release.

Vertex shading is also still really important for making the transitions between different ground textures more natural due to the limitations of the Morrowind game engine, so it can't be gotten rid of entirely, even with today's advanced shaders. A sizeable number of people (myself included) don't use shader grass, anyway.

I know its possible good uses, that's why I mentioned only shadows(definitely not a good use, even in vanilla). :wink_smile:

Many players don't use MGE, and many more use MGE without shadows. But any unsightly or unrealistically dark "shadow" vertex shading will be fixed before the release.

I'm so glad we still hold this viewpoint. I myself don't use MGE currently.

Oh, that's good to know. I understand MGE is seen as an extra. Still I have to say, it is a very wrong design choice to make fake shadows for a game with day night cycles, it was bad in 2002 too. I don't think beth used it often in Vanilla, which I understand they realized it at one point themselves too. So for future compatibility and for good design, it is nice to remove those shadows. I respect that TR team is following vanilla spirit, and it is good to know that doesn't include bugs and bad design choices, especially the ones made for technical limitations of that time.

With those kind of shadows, I can see someone tediously trying to remove shadows while trying to guess which parts were intended as not shadows by artists in future. Which has to happen at some point for Vanilla Morrowind's few vertex painted shadows. It is good to know they don't have to do it for TR too.

PS. My most diplomatic post!

Actually, Bethesda's Morrowind models used vertex shading gratuitously...

Looks great.

Any ETA on the merged map 2? Or map 3 in general?

I was starting to think TR had died. I check this forum every few weeks and hadn't seen a TR thread in quite a while. The TR site also hasn't been updated since April.

I'm glad to see it's still around. Especially since I resolved to not play Morrowind again until map 3 is out.

Not sure what you mean by that first bit; our second release, Antediluvian Secrets, has been out for over a year now. Sacred East will be finished once it is finished.

And @vtastek The moon casts shadows too

Will the quested Map 2 be released simultaneously with map 3?

Models are a different matter. In Oblivion, they made this fake tree canopy shadows, which is hardly enough, still I think they never painted shadows under any tree. But models used baked AO in Oblivion in addition of some vertex shading. Which is something even TR team can use if we could have provided the tools. But baked AO is not that needed because SSAO is working pretty good which Oblivion didn't have, and there is also shadows...

Still technology is not enough to create little subtleties that an artist can. One day we can have physically correct lighting(or very close to it, and we will) until then artist input is important and needed.

Forgive my ambition but I believe time is on our side, this game will become, once again, best looking game and don't give the title away ever again!

@haplobartow,
You mean "it should"?

I agree. :nod:

Switching shadows to moon is not a big problem. Although we first have to understand how moons work. They appear, then disappear. I have no idea what natural formula they are obeying, it is bizarre. If we know more about it maybe we can recreate it via MGE to have total control over it. We can add light shafts too. Limitation would be one caster at a time, I think.

Now I will go back trying to add volumetric clouds to the game. :laugh:

Eek. Not if it can be avoided.

Last I heard, there was talk of releasing maps 1 and 2 merged together as one with some of the quests wrapped up.

It was a while ago, so maybe I have it wrong. I haven't seen anything on the TR site about it, though.

This has already been done once, and all future releases will be merged into the previous files, so that you don't have to use 9 different files just to play one mod. However, we don't know whether a quested Antediluvian Secrets (which would be AS version 2.0) will be released before, with, or after Sacred East 1.0 at this time. They are both similarly close to completion.

@vtastek Yes, it should, in game. Vanilla sun doesn't cast shadows in game AFAIK, that's what the shadows are for, but we can't account for the changing of the Sun or moons' positions with our vertex shading (that would be something... disabling and enabling all new sets of landscape shading every hour on the hour via global scripts... talk about messy!), although I was referring to the Moon in real life casting shadows. To be honest, even if MGE had perfect day-time and night-time shadows, I still don't know if TR could account for such a feat, simply because of our system... unless the CS supported the shadows I think it might be too much of an abrupt transition between having stuffing looking like it should in the CS knowing how it will look in-game, and stuff looking stark naked in the CS, hoping it won't look so weird in-game.

Morrowind does realtime lighting and MGE has to do it that way too. It is part of the deal, a dynamic world with day-night cycles. This also means some performance sacrifice. But it calls for an advanced lighting system. Things will get messy.

I understand the editor problems. An architect would calculate how shadows being casted and all other details before construction. I think we can say original designs were fabulous which only now, we can see them in full glory. Any other game would have teared apart by now. I am sure someone who wants to account shadows for the designs of the cities can use Blender or just run MGE XE to see how it looks. There could be a house which is in constant shadows all day. Is it important to some quest? Or a special tower which draws an arc on some places or point a specific direction in a specific time for a quest? Things like that comes to my mind.

This is why you guys should check the OpenMW project. Anything that slows you down(I mean that can speed up your progress) or any additional feature requests, let them know. Even if it doesn't catch in time, your experience can help future modders.

http://openmw.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Not to forget http://sourceforge.net/projects/aedra/. It renders quite nicely, http://games.softpedia.com/screenshots/Project-Aedra_1.jpg (even though it still lacks shadows entirely). Let's just hope the projects will get past the tedious stage of getting the Morrowind game engine (as opposed to "render engine") right. Without AI and script engine, as bugged as it is, nearly every mod will be unplayable. However, it's a terrible thing to code. First, you don't get instant gratification (you don't see much difference, if any at all - and closely related to that: bugs as well aren't that obvoius. With your renderer, you can immediately see where you are. When your scripting engine interprets something differently from Morrowind but doesn't throw an error either, you're done for. Trying to trace that kind of bug is going to take some time.

So while I agree with vtastek that realistic shadows will be mainstream in two or three years (because by then, even the cheapest graphics adapter will be able to render them!), vertex painting the way it is mostly done in TR still has it's place. I remember how much my roads improved by following the http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/?p=modding_data/tutorials§ion=251365 (by none other than, uh-oh...haplo! :bowdown: ). This will be seen as an artistic touch by then. I don't think that vertex shading done the TR way could ever be perceived other than fitting. Maybe people will still be painting their triangles when the entire Tamriel gets raytraced - just because it gives that bit of landscape along the roads that dirty, worn out look it should always have in the first place.

...and the video? it's simply breathtaking what you TR guys do. Awesome. A warm and heart felt "thank you" for the hours I spend wandering around in the wonderful realms of Map 1 and 2. Seeing TR develop steadily and professionally is one of the great driving forces in the Morrowind community. I'll drink to that! :foodndrink:
Now get on with it.

Oops... I had forgotten about that tutorial. Time to work on finishing it, I think! :bolt:

@vtastek: I and most of the other modders at TR are well aware of, and rooting for, OpenMW. I have contributed a minuscule amount and I think various other people have made requests or made suggestions. I can't wait for version 1.0!

http://www.gamesas.com/redirect.php?site=http://www.tiny.cc/9w88j :toughninja:
Click safely. Just to be sure.

Heh. That was intentional.

The whole project sounds great, and those pictures are wonderful, I can't wait till the whole thing is complete.
I was wondering, is there going to be a wide level range? I have a couple high level characters I would like to send to the main land, but I was thinking I might make a new character and send him out as soon as I can, ignoring all the Vardenfall stuff. Would that be possible, or is the mainland a tougher place?

@eastbayray - and, in fact, lots of others: go forth and explore. Map 1 and 2 are out since ages - and yet people go "can't wait 'til it's finished" or "I'll certainly give it a try when it's done" all the time. Well, let me tell you that: both maps feature an absolutely awesome addition to Mw. The mainland is no tougher than vanilla Vvardenfell - but of course, as always, a low level character might encounter quests (in Map 1) that are way beyond them. Only by finding out what's there, you can provide TR with needed feedback! - if you wait another 5 years or so "until it's finished" and find a tree growing out of a rock, there might not be anyone around to fix it. The more people have a look now, the better for all of us. And besides: it is worth it, Map 2 being quested or not. Give your jaw a good dropping and go for it now! :goodjob:

The mainland will mostly be about the same level of safety above ground as on Vvardenfell. Difficulty in dungeons will likely be fairly easy to gauge. Really if you want to know the difficulty of the TR lands, just download the Map 2 release bundle and play that, it's a very worthwhile addition to your load order even without the rest of the TR lands.

I'd tend to regard the TR1+2 maps as "marginally" harder than Vvardenfell at low level. By the time your character can get there on his or her own, they're probably ready to tackle it. Even with only a fraction of the quests available, Map 1 is well worth visiting; No, make that "MUST SEE". Map 2 looks interesting, but soon gets a little short on stuff to do beyond basic exploring and killing wildlife, at least until the quests are added.

I love quests...can't wait until more are added!