Can I help?

Everything about development and the OpenMW source code.
Chesko
Posts: 2
Joined: 24 Jan 2012, 17:08

Can I help?

Post by Chesko »

Hey all,

Long time MW modder. My only programming experience so far has been in scripting languages (PHP / AutoIT / some Python). I'm just now getting my feet wet in C#. I feel like I understand the basics of OOP.

I'd love to see this project succeed. With my skillset, is there anything I can help with? If not, what skills do I need to acquire to contribute to this project?

Thanks,

Chesko
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Zini
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Joined: 06 Aug 2011, 15:16

Re: Can I help?

Post by Zini »

Difficult. To work on the code you need a good working knowledge of C++. We are mostly out of beginner friendly tasks. Unfortunately your skillset does not have anything, that would allow you to jump into C++ more quickly. Different people pick up C++ with different speeds, but even if you start learning C++ now, it will probably take at least half a year, before you can seriously work on the code.

There is the option of non-coding contributions though. There is still a lot of research to do about how exactly MW works. We have a formula page on the wiki, but it is anything but complete. Occasionally other auxiliary tasks come up (wiki editing and such).
Even if you can't work on the code yourself, it might still be useful to learn how to get the source from the repository and how to build OpenMW from source. From your posting I gather you are on Windows, which makes building a bit harder, but then at least you can help with testing.
Chesko
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Joined: 24 Jan 2012, 17:08

Re: Can I help?

Post by Chesko »

Understood, thanks. Maybe down the line I will have moved on to C++ for some other reason, and I will become useful at that time 8-)
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sirherrbatka
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Joined: 07 Aug 2011, 17:21

Re: Can I help?

Post by sirherrbatka »

One more thing from me.

Morrowind had no demo and we could use sort of a test cells combined into one esm with no morrowind data needed. It's not that important but this idea was here for a while now.
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Zini
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Joined: 06 Aug 2011, 15:16

Re: Can I help?

Post by Zini »

Yes, and we have abandoned the idea since then. Little point in having a custom test ESM, when we can use all of Morrowind.esm and (hopefully) soon also the two other ESMs and any other plugin we need.
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Greendogo
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Joined: 26 Aug 2011, 02:04

Re: Can I help?

Post by Greendogo »

sir_herrbatka wrote:One more thing from me.

Morrowind had no demo and we could use sort of a test cells combined into one esm with no morrowind data needed. It's not that important but this idea was here for a while now.
Zini wrote:Yes, and we have abandoned the idea since then. Little point in having a custom test ESM, when we can use all of Morrowind.esm and (hopefully) soon also the two other ESMs and any other plugin we need.
This was something I was doing a lot of research on way back in the Google Group days. It would really be nice to have something to work with OpenMW if someone didn't own the actual game or have a copy with them. The idea was originally supposed to be that all the textures and models in the demo ESM would be public domain stuff, so there would be no legal grey area and we could put it in the main OpenMW download package. It was supposed to basically have a little bit of everything you could do with the engine: a couple models with animations and textures, along with some scripts running on them to show that each scripting feature worked.

Someone else eventually said they had a working example or something, but nothing ever came of it and I think the deal was that they weren't using completely public domain models and textures, or didn't take that mandate very seriously.

It could still be useful for people just wanting to toy around with our progress on the engine, even if they don't have Morrowind installed on their computer. But this task is certainly not high priority unless someone wants to take the time to make a quality ESM file containing all of the required stuff.

It might be something that is more looked at when the OpenMW editor is being worked on, as a way to test out both it and the engine's progress.
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Zini
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Re: Can I help?

Post by Zini »

This was something I was doing a lot of research on way back in the Google Group days. It would really be nice to have something to work with OpenMW if someone didn't own the actual game or have a copy with them.
Sounds difficult, because that means you can use absolutely nothing from the original game. That means icons have to replaced (including window furniture), background textures, creatures and animations including animations (and I believe that is the hardest part). For most of these replacements exist in the MW modding community. But probably not for all. Might be possible some day, but I don't see it happening any time soon. At least it is way too ambitious for a one-person effort.
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Greendogo
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Re: Can I help?

Post by Greendogo »

Zini wrote:
This was something I was doing a lot of research on way back in the Google Group days. It would really be nice to have something to work with OpenMW if someone didn't own the actual game or have a copy with them.
Sounds difficult, because that means you can use absolutely nothing from the original game. That means icons have to replaced (including window furniture), background textures, creatures and animations including animations (and I believe that is the hardest part). For most of these replacements exist in the MW modding community. But probably not for all. Might be possible some day, but I don't see it happening any time soon. At least it is way too ambitious for a one-person effort.
Yeah, it was ridiculous! :D That's why I gave up and I was happy that someone else had come along to give it a go. And then they too failed at the task.

What makes it harder is the weird quirks of the vanilla construction set, as it doesn't like it when you don't want to use morrowind.esm. Also, creating a completely blank esm to start from is kind of a big research project by itself.

The easiest thing to do would be to start this kind of thing alongside OpenMW editor production and to just use community available textures and models (and menu textures); I was pretty confident back then that all the required items existed in some form or another.

edit: most of the time filler textures could be used, like just a bright colored texture with the words "OpenMW!!!" scrawled diagonally on it could be used in all kinds of places (backgrounds, menu textures, w/e). But yeah, still, it's a metric fuck-ton of work. Not as much as the engine, obviously, but still kind of a pain in the ass.
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pvdk
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Joined: 12 Aug 2011, 16:34

Re: Can I help?

Post by pvdk »

I made a test interior back in the days. It used only public domain modder's resources and no Bethesda stuff. It had a tomb interior and a cave connected to it. It had creatures, particles, water, doors and more. Sadly the laptop I used to create it died and the stuff is now collecting dust on a harddisk I retrieved from it.
I still have the OpenMW Debug.esm and .bsa, but it fails to run with the current OpenMW as there's no player object.

Here's the thread from the old forum with pretty pictures.
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Greendogo
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Joined: 26 Aug 2011, 02:04

Re: Can I help?

Post by Greendogo »

Interesting, I don't remember that this came to fruition, neato.

edit: It would still need the GUI graphics (like the spell effects in the lower right), but I think those types of things are hard-wired into the vanilla engine. There might be something to separating out the "Morrowind"iness from the engine when you have no esm/bsa files loaded. I don't know, I mean, I really doubt Bethesda cares about the tiny little things like the GUI and the wilderness terrain texture among other things.

edit 2: Sorry for the derail Chesko!!!
Last edited by Greendogo on 31 Jan 2012, 18:51, edited 1 time in total.
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