want us to cross morrowind and oblivion NIFs? I would love to convert an Oblivion Daedric ruin for morrowind,but last I heard it is actually illegal to do.

Because Bethesda doesn't own all of the artwork in either game. I also think they lisensed both engines from third party sources.

Oh I always thought they owned everything in the games. Would it still be illegal if you just imported an Oblivion NIF into Blender then modified it in some small way then export it for morrowibd? technically it would work.

It's quite illegal. You can't use any Oblivion resources in Morrowind, or vice versa. Period.

They own all the art, as far as I know. They don't own the engines, and with the differences between the games (technically being separate products licensed under separate licenses), it would probably just make a mess for Bethesda's legal team.

It really svcks cause I like the look of Oblivion's Daedric ruins so much better, and I svck to bad in Blender to make my own.

There aren't any daedric ruins in Oblivion, unless you mean something else.

you can do it and use it just for yourself. no one can sue you for something you do to enhance your own game. you just can't release it for all people.

I am refering to the buildings within the plane of oblivion.

Beth doesnt want to deal with the milions of pms asking "Can i use this mesh for morrowind" or w/e Just make the buildings yourself or try useing other mods meshes and retexturing them. You will need their permision tho.

I think this is considered illegal topic so it will probably be closed. Probably wont for a while because administrators are inactive in this forum.

Aww, I don't think it hurts to ask, otherwise how will new modders know why they're not allowed?

There really should be a thread stickied regarding policies on resource usage, covering licensing and modder's etiquette, but I guess that's covered in the Morrowind Modding FAQ in the modding section.

It could either Beth's choice, to keep their license situation simple or a restriction of the licenses they negotiated with Gamebryo et al.

I suspect the former, as other companies using the same Nif engines actually released converters to port assets from older versions for you.

For example Irrational games encouraged people who had Freedom Force (4.0.0.2 Nifs same as Morrowind) to convert them to FF vs the third Reich (10.1.0.0 Nifs) with an automated tool.

Irrational games is a very special case: the "distance" between 4.0.0.2 and 10.1.0.0 is actually not that big, and they have used in both games significantly not modified (original) game engine (I guess they are simply using nif converter that is included in the package). On the other hand MW (4.0.0.2) and OB (20.0.0.5) have very different nif formats and both games have several serious modifications and additions (e.g. FaceGen implementation in OB, released by NDL viewers and Max exporters are not totally compatible with MW nifs). Such conversions will be simply not professional: MW models in OB will look too out of place primitive, and OB models simplified and too heavy for MW performance.
We are in the "bad" situation: NDL/EGT owns the engine but produces no games; Bethesda (and others) produce games, artistic resources but have no full rights for the engine, programming. Another situation is with e.g. Quake, Unreal, Crytek engines and games, these guys have available more advanced modding tools, regularly updated exporters. Moreover, codes of old versions can be released (complete codes for old Quake are available for not commercial use).
Anyhow, they have rights and can do whatever they want. They are serious informed interested people and have sensible reasons to do or not to do certain things.

It doesn't hurt to ask, but they flat out said "no, never" to the entire issue of inter-game ports.

Freedom Force is a special case because they paid their artists enough to produce all of their own art Bethesda were cheap and (I assume) bought a license to use http://www.gamesas.com/redirect.php?site=http://www.kitrae.net/fantasy/other_knives.html (http://www.kitrae.net/fantasy/other_16.jpg) for the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:MW_Weapons_Daggers.jpg. I assume they paid him...

wow that was made before Morrowind?! I gotta get me one and make it look as daedric as possible!

Good luck finding one

BTW, there's a collection of quotes regarding asset conversion in the http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8354#p8354. Unless you've made it yourself (in which case you should have the source files), it's not allowed.

(Mods might want to close this thread & put something in a sticky regarding this, since it seems to come up every month or so.)

Agreed

check it out!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/UNITED--CUTLERY-KNIFE-%22LEVIATHAN%22-UC1149-NEW_W0QQitemZ370266707710QQcmdZViewItem

I honest to God might buy that, just to be able to say "Yup. I own a piece of Morrowind in real life!"

EDIT: Yeah, mods will close this probably. It's already gone a little off topic.

Wow I was just watching a show calld The First Wave and the dude had that Dagger.

I think he mean the world-planes inside the Oblivion gates.

Sister has it right: you can do so for your own use, and the Bethstapo are not going to hunt you down and break down your door, but you cannot distribute it to anyone.

Also, invoking the Morroblivion rule, you cannot distribute a tool for doing so, even to people who own licenses for both games, and these forums cannot be used for how-to discussions.