Demo game data

[Greendogo]

Ok, here's what I need to finish things.

At least 1 custom race with non-Bethesda animations. This means anything using Better Bodies or based on them are off limits as they use the same animations that were created for the original races (animations created by Bethesda). Unless someone has a compelling argument why I should disregard this requirement, it's going to stay.

Several meshes for rocks of similar types.

I need a texture library to work from for ground textures. This is easy, we can just use a texture replacement pack and use the ground textures from that.

I need sounds for all kinds of stuff, like coastal birds, forest sounds, different door sounds (heavy door, light door, etc.). I need miscellaneous materials sounds, called when activating stuff like books or eating ingredients.

I need complete sets of meshes for Town buildings (this can be the TR Necrom set, which Haplo gave me permission to use), and Dungeon buildings (Tarius just said we could use his Aylied meshes, so if they have interiors, exteriors, and doors then we're set).

Here's my most recent plan for the Example Suite:

First, I call it the OpenMW Example Suite, since this is name really gets at what it is for. True, it is a demo, but I think this name suits it a lot better.

I decided not to string a series of unrelated rooms together in order to exhibit all of the available engine abilities. Instead, I have decided to package it as more of a micro-game, so that aside from exhibiting the engine's functionalities, it also is aesthetically pleasing and not a jumble of disorganized feature-display rooms.

The basic plan is going to be a small island with a fishing village built using the Necrom meshes. There will be a dungeon, hopefully using the Aylied meshes, if they work out. Also there will be a crypt, which is already built, and has been the entirety of this project for months now. In addition, there will a few wilderness areas like a pine forest (hopefully using vurts pine trees) and some small fields.

The idea is that through creating a small island with some generic kill and fetch quests, we should be able to find some place to display the functionality of each feature the engine can perform. Graphical features that don't already exist in Morrowind (either originally or through modding) won't be present until we can get someone to make a piece displaying that feature. This included stuff like bump mapping or shaders (after we're done with the basic layout of the small island, we can start asking someone to play around with shaders, scrawl's Shiny system is another feature we need to show off).

So basically, you're a resident of this tiny island village sent off to kill some monster and fetch some pretty object from the dungeon or escort someone from the crypt. Additional quests and dialogue can be implemented until we round out the feature showcase. Once each feature has been showcased at least once, we can consider the OpenMW Example Suite feature complete, and any additions are just gravy.

Here are the tasks that can be given out to individuals:

1. Layout of the island cells with basic topography done
2. Cell by cell exterior work, including forest and fields as well as coastal edge work.
3. Layout of the village, including building exteriors, appropriate ground textures and clutter
4. Layout of the dungeon, including dungeon exteriors, appropriate ground textures and clutter
5. Interior work on the village and dungeon, work on showcasing scrawl's Shiny library can start here too.
6. Work on the NPCs and distributing monsters and animals can begin here.
7. Questing can begin, along with script showcasing.
8. Create list of features not already showcased and decide on an appropriate way to include them into the Example Suite.

These are what I need volunteers for. Who would like to try creating the basic layout of the island? It needs to be large enough for a fishing village in one corner, a forest in another two corners, and filler area with varied wilderness throughout the rest. The first step is creating the height maps and deciding on the basic shape of the island. We can't move forward until this step is done.

If I get any volunteers to do work for steps 1 and 2 I'll start getting the files we already have together and ready for upload (this includes the crypt and the ESM file we're going to build from).

[Greendogo]

What if they are a separate download and not bundled with OpenMW?

The Example Suite is definitely going to be a separate download. We'll probably host it on TES Nexus for the short term.

[Greendogo]

How does this sound? What other things would need to be included in the demo cell?

Hey everyone,

The OpenMW team is requesting help from the modding community to create a demo cell that will allow anyone, who does not yet own Morrowind, to test OpenMW. We hope this will boost our user/developer base and result in more people purchasing Morrowind and putting OpenMW to the test of running the original game.

The demo cell needs to:

- Be 100% free of Bethesda owned art assets.

-Be representative of game features
Containers, items, different light sources, non-loading doors, even and uneven terrain, water, swimming, creatures, NPCs, etc.

If you are willing to help, please visit this forum thread http://forum.openmw.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=642 and acquaint yourself with the task, what's already done, who can be of help to you. Thanks for your time. Cheers to keeping Morrowind alive!

This is a good call to arms.

[ElderTroll]

Thanks for your replies Greendogo. I will add some of the (great) information you provided and get to work on finding a team. There will soon be posts on the Bethesda forums, elder scrolls nexus, moddb and open game art. If you have any other further suggestions of where to post, what you want included, or how to support you just let me know.

Let's aim to have the engine, the editor, and the example suite being developed in parallel and available for download by the end of year. The OpenMW project just keeps getting more exciting.

[Greendogo]

I would like you to also post in the "Off Topic" sections as Tamriel Rebuilt, SHOTN, and Province: Cyrodiil. All three have volunteers working to do all kinds of modding work, from interiors and exteriors, to NPC distribution, questing and dialogue. They have knowledge of the proper way to go about organizing all of the steps necessary to carry something like this to fruition. More than any other Morrowind groups they have honed their craft over long periods of repetitive world creation.

I would be happy if someone from one of those projects joined in some capacity, as it will add a desirable level of professionalism to this endeavor.

So like I said before, we have a start which I'll upload when we actually get some volunteers. I'd like to give credit where it's due though, PVDK was the originator of almost everything we have so far (the crypt). Werdanith and I had just corrected some majors errors with getting it to work as intended and we experimented with adding sound to the plugin. But we really need capable interior and exterior modders in order to move past that point.

[ElderTroll]

Are you going to be helping out with the making it from this point forward? If yes, then it makes sense to stay with the fishing village (which I think is a fine idea). But if not, and someone else is doing the work, then the setting can be of their choosing, since that might entice modders. Any setting where different features can be displayed would be fine.

[psi29a]

For Ubuntu is the Demo Suite not a problem. This can be a separate deb package like we are already doing for openmw, openmw-launcher, openmw-editor... thus: openmw-suite on launchpad.

Eventually individual distributions will host it themselves.

Windows and OSX are another story.

[ElderTroll]

If anyone knows the best way to contact Praedator, please let me know.

[jvoisin]

You can find some good sound sample on freesound.org.

For textures, you can check Flickr, free3dstextures.com, ...

For Morrowind-centric ressources, you can take a look at the resources section of Wiwiland, it's the website of the French TES-modding-centric community (and Google translate does wonders ;) )

[worsas]

You can sign me in here. The idea actually sounds quite interesting.

How to start? At first somebody could come up with a very rough map and from there on things can gradually get defined.