Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

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jermungand
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Joined: 08 Jun 2016, 22:45

Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by jermungand »

Hi. So ever since noticing this project and the progress made on Tamriel Rebuilt, I've been thinking about reinstalling and playing Morrowind (actually getting through the whole game and it's entire main quest for once). Then I noticed a handful of normal and parallax mods for OpenMW, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be really nice to play MW when these effects are being fully implemented?"

How close is the project to that point? Personally, I'd like to significantly lighten the heavy painted-on shadows of the game's textures, once the normal mapping is in place and is taking over a lion's share of the game's shadowing.
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Capostrophic
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Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by Capostrophic »

Not sure if I understood you correctly, but normal mapping and parallax mapping are fully supported (that is, returned back) since 0.39.0 version. Why would you think that without it such mods would appear then?
jermungand
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Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by jermungand »

Capostrophic wrote:Not sure if I understood you correctly, but normal mapping and parallax mapping are fully supported (that is, returned back) since 0.39.0 version. Why would you think that without it such mods would appear then?
I'm well aware that it's supported, and that this is why those mods exist. The question is over the degree to which that support is currently being made use of. Are there only three or four sets of assets for which normal/parallax maps have been developed up to this point, or are there significantly more? Basically, I would prefer to play a game of MW in which Vivec, Balmora, and Dwemer ruins aren't the only normal mapped textures in the entire world.
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Capostrophic
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Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by Capostrophic »

For all things except sky, water (uses its own shader, but non-shader water should work too) and interface. It'd be hard to do it differently.
Chris
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Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by Chris »

He means if mods have added normal and parallax mapping to most/all of the game world (the engine can do it, but people still need to create the maps for it to use).
jermungand
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Joined: 08 Jun 2016, 22:45

Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by jermungand »

Capostrophic wrote:For all things except sky, water (uses its own shader, but non-shader water should work too) and interface. It'd be hard to do it differently.
I had taken this statement to mean that normal maps already exist throughout the current release of OpenMW (which would mean that the handful of normal map mods out there are replacers, rather than first-time implementations of a normal map), which would be great. Chris seems to be implying the contrary, however.

I'm not a technical guy. I just want to know if I can currently play a game of Morrowind with normal-mapped textures, and if I can't, how long will it be until I can?
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damiel
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Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by damiel »

As everyone seems to be pretty much dancing around answering your question: No, as of now you wont be able to play a fully normal mapped (and parallax mapped ) Morrowind. Openmw support proper normal maps and parallax map but there arent many mods using them to full extend. To my knowledge the only one doing such texture packs is lysol, you can take a look at his (amazing) work here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3526 .

Sadly enough there are a couple of texture packs around that use fake bumpmaps, but those dont work with openmw as they (ab)used environmental maps, you will be able to recognize them quite easily, they look super shiny and sort of like plastic toys.

It will probbaly take a while till you can play a fully bumpmapped morrowind with openmw, sometimes news take a while to spread but i am quite sure that with more exposure of openmw's features it will attract some more artists, fixing this little problem...
jermungand
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Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by jermungand »

Thank you for your comprehensive answer, damiel. I may wait several months to see if normal mapping begins to take off, but I'll wager that in the more likely outcome, Skywind will be out before all of OpenMW is normal mapped. If that appears to be the unfolding trend over the next few months, then I should probably just go ahead and play OpenMW as it is.
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Capostrophic
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Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by Capostrophic »

jermungand wrote:Thank you for your comprehensive answer, damiel. I may wait several months to see if normal mapping begins to take off, but I'll wager that in the more likely outcome, Skywind will be out before all of OpenMW is normal mapped. If that appears to be the unfolding trend over the next few months, then I should probably just go ahead and play OpenMW as it is.
OpenMW is not a mod or a game, dammit.
damiel wrote:To my knowledge the only one doing such texture packs is lysol
Also PeterBitt, but he makes accent on MGE XE's PBR. I asked him about "OpenMW version" of his nix-hound replacer, and he answered that it will be to much work to maintain both versions and he'd just wait until someone implements PBR in OpenMW.
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psi29a
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Re: Where is the project at with normals/parallax?

Post by psi29a »

PBR is just a shader that uses physics based rendering... OpenMW supports shaders. There is nothing 'magical' about it and there is nothing that the openmw devs can do about that.

What PB would have to do is port his PBR work to using standard GLSL shaders instead of the ones supported only by MGEXE. Easier said than done of course, and he is right.. he would have to support both which is a PITA.
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