What Is Holding Back Dynamic Shadows In Oblivion?

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mikjames
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Joined: 08 Dec 2016, 06:00

What Is Holding Back Dynamic Shadows In Oblivion?

Post by mikjames »

You probably already know the history. Various e3 2005 videos showcase Oblivion with full dynamic shadows on npcs, items, objects, and architecture. Fast forward to release and we are left with only Npc shadows, possibly due to performance issues.

Shademe has tried to hack them in somehow, quite unsuccessfully. While the in game vanilla npc shadows are relatively reliable and bug free, the shadows added by the shademe plugin might decide to occasionally fade in if you make a generous offering to the Nine Devines.

I don't understand enough about this to know what is going on here, surely there must be some shadow code left over from the prerelease versions that would provide the framework for bringing back full shadows? Is it just impossible to access that part of the Oblivion engine/code to figure it out?
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DestinedToDie
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Joined: 29 Jun 2015, 09:08

Re: What Is Holding Back Dynamic Shadows In Oblivion?

Post by DestinedToDie »

mikjames wrote:I don't understand enough about this to know what is going on here, surely there must be some shadow code left over from the prerelease versions that would provide the framework for bringing back full shadows?
The code source for Oblivion is closed. That means you cannot directly access it and read it. You have to hack it. This includes datamining for info, then making a code injector that would inject code into the game in order to modify it.

The job would be much easier if you had direct access to the code. You could read it, edit it, compile your own version. It's one of the reasons for OpenMW to exist - so that people can modify the engine side of the game with greater ease.
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Pherim
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Joined: 27 Aug 2014, 15:37

Re: What Is Holding Back Dynamic Shadows In Oblivion?

Post by Pherim »

I think at some point Alenet had plans to add shadows to Oblivion Reloaded, but the current version (6.0.0) doesn't have them, and that is supposed to be the last one after the remaining bugs have been fixed and missing features from previous versions have been added back in. He's said that before, though... anyway, I don't know what became of these plans. As MGE XE adds them to Morrowind, it would seem possible to do, but then again in MGE XE it is tied to the distant land system which is completely under the program's control and not connected to Morrowind's original engine, as I understand it. However, I know little of how these things work, but I'd imagine that it would probably be an entirely different thing to add them to Oblivion.
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