Openmw and Skywind

[lysol]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql3FNCrYkGU

Gotta bump this thread after I saw this video. Haven't looked at skywind at all for a very long time. Until now.

I just can't help but feel kinda sad that so much amazing work gets done for a skyrim mod instead of an engine that has the possibility to become so much more. They are so very well organized and passionate (or so it seems at least) in what they're doing. It's really admirable, but still: when I start a new character in Skywind, I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to choose neither birthsign, nor major/minor skills. I will have to pick perks when I level up instead of attributes. The conversations with NPC's (dat voice acting! ) will be awesome but at the same time, very very messy if they include as many topics as Morrowind has to offer. As so many others have already said: It will be Skyrim but in Vvardenfel during the arrival of the Nerevarine.

So... Here's to hoping that the guys behind the TES Renewal project realises that OpenMW is the future for Morrowind and starts to port the stuff into it instead.

(I do very much hope that they still have all the master files for the models and textures somewhere so that it can be converted to whatever format that works best for OpenMW)

[psi29a]

They are doing amazing work! They have accomplish so much in Skywind and I hope that Bethesda takes notice and offers to make it an official mod and/or more. I wish them luck and success!

On an interesting note, I read through their forums/comments just last week and from what I gathered (please Skywind people, correct me if I'm wrong) that anything that goes into Skywind and/or posted on Skywind's website is "theirs", meaning that the content creators have given up their copyright and placed it in the care of the Skywind project. It is listed in their FAQ so to stop the "waaah waah waahs" of people later saying that they no longer want their work in the project.

What I later read was they, the developers, mentioned that they wouldn't have a problem with seeing the Skywind assets being run by OpenMW. Again, I hope I'm getting this right. I mean assets as in models and textures, as they seemed rather ambivalent about the voice acting/music.

It would be interesting if someone, not the OpenMW developers (we're busy with the engine), would be interesting in taking OpenMW-CS for a spin and see about restarting the asset replacement project in the other thread, but using Skywind's models. Maybe even Skywind team themselves would even like some collaboration? Cross-pollination is a wonderful thing.

[lysol]

Totally agree. It would have been amazing if there could be some collaboration between the moar-project and Skywind.

[dEnigma]

Wow, the Skywind project looks really professional now. I wouldn't have expected such an amazing outcome when I first heard about their effort (which was in a very, very early phase). Would be really great if some of the assets would be ported to Morrowind/OpenMW. I have already seen some Morroblivion assets for OpenMW, don't know how much work it is to port them (and integrate them into the game world)

[lysol]

At the moment you'd just port assets to morrowinds .NIF format and then you would have automatically ported them to OpenMW. The thing is though, in my opinion, the morrowind version of the .NIF format is not something that should be focused on. There are other formats that would be better and more future proof, preferably open source formats. What kind of new model format this might be is not decided yet I believe (I think I read somewhere that you devs are interested in some format made specifically for Ogre 3d?).

This is the reason why I hope that the Skywind team stores the master files (meaning .3ds files for models made in 3d studio max, PSD files for textures made in photoshop, etc) somewhere, because that would probably make porting to a new format for OpenMW soooooo much easier. Assuming they are interested in making a OpenMW version of their graphical part of the mod at all of course.

[HiPhish]

I see several solutions for compatibility:

a) The Skywind team converts their models to the Morrowind format
b) OpenMW adds support for an open format and the Skywind team converts their models to that format
c) OpenMW adds support for the Skyrim NIF format

Option a) would be the easiest for OpenMW, but information will be lost when the models are downgraded to a more limited format. Option c) would be the easiest for Skywind, but there is no real point for OpenMW to support Skyrim assets, aside from this one instance.

Option b) seems to be the most sensible to me and it's a sort of middle ground for both team. I can imagine there will be interest from other modders for more modern asset formats and on the Skywind side it should be possible to export the raw 3DS Max, Blender or whatever models to a common format. And even if one would have to write a converter from scratch a program that exports to an open format would be more useful than one that exports to an ancient proprietary format no one else uses.

[psi29a]

OpenMW, by default, supports whatever Ogre3D supports... so if it is 3ds or collada... that pretty much is a no brainer.

[Slissith]

OpenMW, by default, supports whatever Ogre3D supports... so if it is 3ds or collada... that pretty much is a no brainer.

I have been interested in making a weaponry mod that would contain numerous weapons, inspired from real counterparts, but with efforts to make them all fit into the Morrowind Lore. Unfortunately I lost interest after an unresolved issue with one of the textures not showing. However something tells me that once OpenMW's (and OpenCS's) development goes further, and since we won't have to use NIF, the task of adding objects to the game will be easier and present more capabillities.

So, my question is, what is the team's rough estimate regarding the time what we can use OpenCS in such a manner (adding weapons with custom models and textures)?

[Chris]

OpenMW, by default, supports whatever Ogre3D supports...

Not for models. The way Morrowind handles models is quite different from how Ogre3D does, so we have to go through an extra layer that explicitly expects .nif (and .kf) type files and manually creates Mesh and Skeleton objects. Besides that, Ogre only natively supports its own .mesh, .skeleton, and .material formats for models, which are not as flexible as .nif, and it handles some things differently.

[psi29a]

Would it be interesting then to abstract it out a bit? I mean... allowing assets (models/textures) from other formats will be beneficial. NIF should just be treated as any other format and not just THE format. Otherwise we'de be stuck having to shoe-horn everything into NIF which isn't ideal.