https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mLiLixkKjo
This video was created by me. I am inexperienced with creating videos, and to my ears my voice may sound monotone, but I did it because of my passion for the game. I was going to replay morrowind about 3 years ago, but I learned about VR. Since then, Ive decided that I would replay the game in virtual reality, to get as close to the world as I could for this playthrough. My original game was on the Xbox, and before I actually finished it, my game became corrupt, so I have never actually finished the game. I cant wait to play through in VR, and so far it is awesome! I cant help but wish for a few features, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to reach out to this team! Thank you, hope OpenMW considers this important enough to add, and that modders are given tools in this game and others to add this kind of VR support! VR may not seem big yet, but it is already growing very fast, and this tech is amazing. Morrowind would be a perfect addition, and OpenMW could bring it to life!
What do you guys think?
Letter to the OpenMW team, my thoughts on the game, and VR
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PrimordialBronze
- Posts: 39
- Joined: 05 May 2016, 18:19
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Greywander
- Posts: 119
- Joined: 04 Dec 2014, 07:01
Re: Letter to the OpenMW team, my thoughts on the game, and
I'm all for this, but the last time it came up the consensus was that the VR SDK for both the Rift and the Vive were incompatible with the GPL license that OpenMW uses. There's still hope, though, as these options are still available:
Still, one way or another there's sure to be VR in OpenMW's future.
EDIT: Forgot to say, I've never seen the "point'n'scoot" method of Vive movement, it looks pretty neat. I've watched a few Vive Let's Plays, and they all either restricted the player to a room-sized area, used teleportation, or used regular joystick movement (typically for games not designed specifically for the Vive). I feel like VR movement is going to be kind of awkward until we can get full body tactile motion controls. And yes, I do have some ideas...
- You could write a 3rd party plugin giving VR support to OpenMW. OpenMW themselves would not be able to ship it with the engine, though.
- You could get the permission of everyone who's every contributed code to OpenMW to change the license to something more permissive, like MIT or BSD.
- You could use OSVR, which has at least a certain amount of support for the Rift and Vive.
- You could wait for either Valve or Oculus to release the source code for their VR SDKs in a way that is GPL compatible.
Still, one way or another there's sure to be VR in OpenMW's future.
EDIT: Forgot to say, I've never seen the "point'n'scoot" method of Vive movement, it looks pretty neat. I've watched a few Vive Let's Plays, and they all either restricted the player to a room-sized area, used teleportation, or used regular joystick movement (typically for games not designed specifically for the Vive). I feel like VR movement is going to be kind of awkward until we can get full body tactile motion controls. And yes, I do have some ideas...
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AnyOldName3
- Posts: 2671
- Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25
Re: Letter to the OpenMW team, my thoughts on the game, and
I'm curious about the whole licence thing. IIRC, when Dolphin Emulator, which is licenced under both the GPL 2 and 3, came across the same hurdle, they decided that, because of some of the extra freedoms granted by the GPL3, it was fine to compile against the Oculus and OpenVR SDKs. There's been a guy working on his own VR fork of that under the impression that everything's fine.
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Greywander
- Posts: 119
- Joined: 04 Dec 2014, 07:01
Re: Letter to the OpenMW team, my thoughts on the game, and
The HDK2 looks interesting, but I'll most likely save up for a Vive or 2nd gen VR. I don't have a PC that can handle VR at the moment and can't afford to buy one, but I should be starting a new job in a few months, so maybe by Christmas... 
That said, I like the idea of OSVR, I'm just not sure how it compares with SteamVR or OculusVR as far as features and functionality. It will be interesting to see where it goes, though. And I imagine that the HDK2 would be perfect for someone building/customizing their own VR hardware.
As far as GPL is concerned, I think it's a case of, "it's not illegal unless/until you get caught." Technically, you shouldn't be able to implement proprietary VR into your GPL app, unless either you are the sole owner of it or you get permission from everyone who has ever contributed. But the reality is that nothing is going to happen if you do, unless someone who previously worked on the project decides to make an issue of it. Of course, if someone does make an issue of it, then you either have to scrap VR or rewrite their contribution so that you don't need to use their work.
So think of it like a fan work for a major IP. You can make all the fan art, fan comics, fan animations, and fan games you want, up until the copyright holder sends you a cease and desist. At that point you have to either scrap your project or purge any association to their IP (Fighting is Magic comes to mind). Or you could just keep going and risk a lawsuit, but whatever.
The main problem here is that, as with most open source apps, there have been so many people contributing to OpenMW that it would be difficult to track them all down and get permission to change the license. In fact, some of them might not have any way of contacting them. We could implement proprietary VR and hope no one makes an issue out of it, but I don't know that we want that Sword of Damocles hanging over the project. OSVR would be a more acceptable option.
Also, I may be wrong, but I think OSVR is the only VR SDK that has Linux support. (Probably Mac, too, but I don't use Macs so I don't know.) I imagine Valve eventually wants to add Linux support to SteamVR, but it might be a while in coming.
That said, I like the idea of OSVR, I'm just not sure how it compares with SteamVR or OculusVR as far as features and functionality. It will be interesting to see where it goes, though. And I imagine that the HDK2 would be perfect for someone building/customizing their own VR hardware.
As far as GPL is concerned, I think it's a case of, "it's not illegal unless/until you get caught." Technically, you shouldn't be able to implement proprietary VR into your GPL app, unless either you are the sole owner of it or you get permission from everyone who has ever contributed. But the reality is that nothing is going to happen if you do, unless someone who previously worked on the project decides to make an issue of it. Of course, if someone does make an issue of it, then you either have to scrap VR or rewrite their contribution so that you don't need to use their work.
So think of it like a fan work for a major IP. You can make all the fan art, fan comics, fan animations, and fan games you want, up until the copyright holder sends you a cease and desist. At that point you have to either scrap your project or purge any association to their IP (Fighting is Magic comes to mind). Or you could just keep going and risk a lawsuit, but whatever.
The main problem here is that, as with most open source apps, there have been so many people contributing to OpenMW that it would be difficult to track them all down and get permission to change the license. In fact, some of them might not have any way of contacting them. We could implement proprietary VR and hope no one makes an issue out of it, but I don't know that we want that Sword of Damocles hanging over the project. OSVR would be a more acceptable option.
Also, I may be wrong, but I think OSVR is the only VR SDK that has Linux support. (Probably Mac, too, but I don't use Macs so I don't know.) I imagine Valve eventually wants to add Linux support to SteamVR, but it might be a while in coming.
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AnyOldName3
- Posts: 2671
- Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25
Re: Letter to the OpenMW team, my thoughts on the game, and
If anyone cares, apparently the VR fork of Dolphin is known to be a GPL violation, so it wasn't a case of OpenMW and DOlphin arriving at different conclusions in the same situation after all.