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Wrye Mash for OpenMW -Need omwgame, omwaddon info.

Posted: 29 Sep 2018, 11:18
by polemos
Hi guys,

I am the the guy behind the "Wrye Mash 2018, Polemos fork".

I am also working on Wrye Mash for OpenMW and eventually TES3mp (as a matter of fact I started working with Wrye Mash so I could create a version for OpenMW, but I got sidestepped with bugfixing and adding things).

I believe I am ready to release my Wrye Mash version for OpenMW but before doing so I would like to check some things.

As a starter, is there somewhere I can read for the differences (all of them) and incompatibilities of omwgame and omwaddon with esm and esp?
I have searched but haven't found anything.

Thanks

Re: Wrye Mash for OpenMW -Need omwgame, omwaddon info.

Posted: 29 Sep 2018, 22:05
by AnyOldName3
Right now, the only difference is that OpenMW's CS doesn't compile any script bytecode, so if you renamed an omwaddon to esp, the only problem you'd have is that if it used scripts, you'd need to open it in the vanilla CS and resave it to get the bytecode. However, in the future, as post-1.0 features are added, omwaddon files will need to start holding extra data to control these extra features, so more differences will appear over time.

Re: Wrye Mash for OpenMW -Need omwgame, omwaddon info.

Posted: 01 Oct 2018, 10:46
by Zini
Here are our plans for post 1.0 development: https://gitlab.com/OpenMW/openmw/blob/m ... -stage1.md

That's only a rough outline and nothing is final yet anyway, so we have little that is actionable for you right now. I guess if you do have spare time and want to get a head start you could prepare for all text changing from legacy encoding to UTF-8. That is probably one of the first things we will change for 1.1. But then, this is still a good while away, so there isn't any hurry.

There is one useful change you could do right now. We added an additional format field to the TES3 record (you can find the source in components/esm/loadtes3.cpp), because the original way the format is specified is garbage.

The sub-record has the ID "FORM" and it contains a single integer (the file format version number). If this version number is 0 (legacy file format, essentially compatible with esm/esp) this field is not written to the file by OpenMW-CS (but when reading a value of 0 would still be valid).

So what you could do now is to check if this field is present (and has a value larger than 0) and if that is the case either show the user a warning or flat out reject the file as "too new"/not supported yet.

Re: Wrye Mash for OpenMW -Need omwgame, omwaddon info.

Posted: 01 Oct 2018, 21:10
by polemos
Nice, thanks guys.

Re: Wrye Mash for OpenMW -Need omwgame, omwaddon info.

Posted: 08 Nov 2018, 22:30
by i30817
What i most want out of this is that the installers tab actually recognizes opwaddons and unzips them correctly into Data Files. It's a bit touch and go if it'll happen right now (apparently depending on the folder structure being recognized or not, you can force it by adding a 'Docs' folder at the toplevel with the opwaddon)


Honestly, i want the openmw-cs to create a 'export' format that packages a mod instead of the jungle of 20 year old legacy that the morrowind mods are. Any new game that doesn't standardize on a package format to prevent modders from being idiots and preventing automatic installation and verification is asking for trouble and headaches from the users.

Re: Wrye Mash for OpenMW -Need omwgame, omwaddon info.

Posted: 09 Nov 2018, 01:36
by Ravenwing
Don’t recall where it was said, but I believe this is actually part of Zini’s master plan. I believe it’s part of his reason for not incorporating a mod manager into the launcher, because it should be moot once this has been implemented. Someone correct me if I’m wrong!

Re: Wrye Mash for OpenMW -Need omwgame, omwaddon info.

Posted: 11 Nov 2018, 00:30
by i30817
The problem is also pretty much cultural. There are still mods coming out with 'btw, move these meshes to the dir for no collision' or 'put these esp on the top level for compatibility with other mods'.

It's a mess. Some mods even give the impression that they work unzipped, fool wrye mash and then have all the textures missing like "On the Move".

IMO, if you want to allow the user to configure, and if doing it at runtime is problematic... make a new package and don't.

It would also be helpful if the new format also has a specification for incompatibilities and requirements - i know openmw already warns of required esps unselected, but i'm thinking of things like 'texture replacer earlier in the install order' and 'bsp file' or 'one of these but not both' too.

Make both wrye mash and mlox unnecessary (although you probably should have a mechanism to add rules outside the format for those mods that are completely unmaintained).

Re: Wrye Mash for OpenMW -Need omwgame, omwaddon info.

Posted: 29 Nov 2018, 22:06
by polemos
@i30817
Make both wrye mash and mlox unnecessary...
Well I begun working on Wrye Mash mainly to use it as a mod manager, so regardless of mlox, I think it will be a nice mod manager even without any advanced abilities (which can always be added later anyway).

For instance, Wrye Mash (my fork) is not only manipulating the order of mods (omwgame, omwaddon, esp, esm and bsa files) but also taking advantage of OpenMW virtual folders. In fact I draw ideas from Mod Organizer concerning virtual folders implementation. Plus in the near future it will also synchronize with TES3mp.

I think it is very useful having a mod manager which does that for you, among other things.