Climbing Skill for OpenMW

[Tes96]

I'm still confused, what does OpenMW do that OGRE doesn't and vice versa? Why do you need both?

OpenMW is a game engine, specifically designed to run the assets from Morrowind. It handles gameplay, game mechanics, game data, etc. Ogre is the renderer that OpenMW uses to actually get graphics on the screen. Ogre just takes graphical data that it is handed (like models, textures, shaders), and draws it to your graphics card. Ogre is a system that OpenMW uses, but instead of writing the renderer from the ground up, we just use the already-available code from Ogre to do our graphics.

Ah, so the graphics of Morrowind will only be as good as what Ogre can render? Isn't Ogre kinda old? Will Morrowind be able to look better than modded Oblivion or Skyrim with a "graphically modded OpenMW"? Or is it still too early to speculate? I personally think the MGSO mod makes Morrowind look better than OBGE (Oblivion graphics extender). However, Skyrim graphics extender is a little hard to beat as of now.

[Ace (SWE)]

Ah, so the graphics of Morrowind will only be as good as what Ogre can render? Isn't Ogre kinda old? Will Morrowind be able to look better than modded Oblivion or Skyrim with a "graphically modded OpenMW"? Or is it still too early to speculate? I personally think the MGSO mod makes Morrowind look better than OBGE (Oblivion graphics extender). However, Skyrim graphics extender is a little hard to beat as of now.

Considering the fact that Ogre is the graphics rendering engine used in the game Torchlight, and reused in the sequel Torchlight 2, you could just look at that for an example of how good something can look with Ogre. And though Ogre might be an old project that doesn't mean it isn't still being developed actively, I would find it very unlikely that - at any point during OpenMWs development - we'll be held back from making it look better due to Ogre.

[Greendogo]

Ogre is a very powerful engine, and when it's functionality is fully implemented and available for modders to take advantage of we will most likely be waiting several years before modders figure out the best ways that they want to do that.

For instance, look at Skyrim's water, how it flows around rocks in a stream bed, that's not going to be something that you can just turn on. Modders will need to implement that, and tell it which direction to flow, etc. Texture artists will need to do a total overhaul on the Morrowind texture and model situation to take advantage of advanced texture shading capabilities on every object you can think of.

If we ever get around to enhanced physics on objects, modders will need to adjust all kinds of objects in Morrowind (and mods) so that they are sitting on shelves and tables correctly, or else you might walk into an interior and have a bunch of limeware bowls fly all over the place.

Like I said, it's not an on-off thing. With great power comes... a lot of work! Not only do you need to make it possible in the engine, but you also have to change the game's data (in some cases, a lot) for something to actually be an effective improvement.

[Tes96]

Ah, so the graphics of Morrowind will only be as good as what Ogre can render? Isn't Ogre kinda old? Will Morrowind be able to look better than modded Oblivion or Skyrim with a "graphically modded OpenMW"? Or is it still too early to speculate? I personally think the MGSO mod makes Morrowind look better than OBGE (Oblivion graphics extender). However, Skyrim graphics extender is a little hard to beat as of now.

Considering the fact that Ogre is the graphics rendering engine used in the game Torchlight, and reused in the sequel Torchlight 2, you could just look at that for an example of how good something can look with Ogre. And though Ogre might be an old project that doesn't mean it isn't still being developed actively, I would find it very unlikely that - at any point during OpenMWs development - we'll be held back from making it look better due to Ogre.

Eee gads, This video of Torchlight 2 looks worse than vanilla Morrowind. I'm sorry but that's just too cartoonish for me; too many bright colors and anime-looking characters.

Ogre is a very powerful engine, and when it's functionality is fully implemented and available for modders to take advantage of we will most likely be waiting several years before modders figure out the best ways that they want to do that.

For instance, look at Skyrim's water, how it flows around rocks in a stream bed, that's not going to be something that you can just turn on. Modders will need to implement that, and tell it which direction to flow, etc. Texture artists will need to do a total overhaul on the Morrowind texture and model situation to take advantage of advanced texture shading capabilities on every object you can think of.

If we ever get around to enhanced physics on objects, modders will need to adjust all kinds of objects in Morrowind (and mods) so that they are sitting on shelves and tables correctly, or else you might walk into an interior and have a bunch of limeware bowls fly all over the place.

Like I said, it's not an on-off thing. With great power comes... a lot of work! Not only do you need to make it possible in the engine, but you also have to change the game's data (in some cases, a lot) for something to actually be an effective improvement.

I had not thought of it like that before. Since your engine was built by you guys, you'll be able to tell the modders any and everything they need to know about what they want to accomplish and how to go about it?
It sure would be revolutionary to have Morrowind looking like Crysis.

[Rippl]

Eee gads, This video of Torchlight 2 looks worse than vanilla Morrowind. I'm sorry but that's just too cartoonish for me; too many bright colors and anime-looking characters.

Tes96. We're getting offtopic here, but it seems that you need few words of clarifying...
You're confusing the Design (or Style) with Engine.
Graphics engine provides a game with a necesary tools to display everything on screen properly. This means: displaying textures, models, shaders, lights, shadows, particle effects, normal maps, specular maps, post processing, composing, etc...
However the overall "visual feeling", or style, is a choice of artist's design. So if the game looks cartoonish it is not necessarily engine's fault.
For example DC Universe Online and Gears of War are using the same engine (Unreal3), yet the styles of those two games (and overall visuals) are totally different.
Sure, sometimes engine limitations forces artist to use one style over another. For instance it is hard to recreate a photorealistic look if an engine is not handling lights and dynamic shadows correctly. However artist can cover engine's flaws using proper textures, models, and fewother tricks (like making game looking more cartoonish). But it is very hard to cover poor artist work using the engine. In other words if you have a bad 3D model with a low quality texture, then no matter if this is Ogre or CryEngine 3, this 3D model, on both engines, will look equally awful.

[Tarius]

For instance it is hard to recreate a photorealistic look if an engine is not handling lights and dynamic shadows correctly. However artist can cover engine's flaws using proper textures, models, and fewother tricks (like making game looking more cartoonish). But it is very hard to cover poor artist work using the engine. In other words if you have a bad 3D model with a low quality texture, then no matter if this is Ogre or CryEngine 3, this 3D model, on both engines, will look equally awful.

Yea, and for an example of photo realistic textures, take a look at Half Life 2. That game may have come out in 8 years ago, but the textures are better than Dead Space 2, which came out last year.

[tronvillain]

A climbing skill would be a neat feature to implement some day. I know I spent quite a while attempting to exploit a combination of jumping and collision quirks in an effort to climb different things when I first started the game on the XBox. Yes, eventually you can fly and (my personal favourite) leap tall building in a single bound if you want to, but it would be nice if a combination of relatively sane levels of acrobatics and climbing could permit you access to )(at least some) rooftops and balconies.

It wouldn't even necessarily need animation to begin with - simply creating the option might prompt someone to create them.

[Br0ken]

Ah, so the graphics of Morrowind will only be as good as what Ogre can render? Isn't Ogre kinda old?

Walker3DII - MMORPG engine, based on Ogre3D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0zbOsCWsRY

[Tes96]

Ah, so the graphics of Morrowind will only be as good as what Ogre can render? Isn't Ogre kinda old?

Walker3DII - MMORPG engine, based on Ogre3D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0zbOsCWsRY

Wow, the environment looks pretty good. Characters and creatures are still 2006ish but the atmosphere is impressive, especially the physics.

[ezzetabi]

... physics is not from Ogre3d...