Free asset proof of concept

[johndh]

I managed to quickly put something together to show off, and the workflow I used could get some characters and equipment into the example suite pretty quickly I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAcG08enYtw

This is a test and proof of concept. The human model and rig are from MakeHuman (CC0), the gauntlets and sword are from FLARE (CC-by-SA), and the animation is a free motion capture file from the Carnegie-Mellon Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database (essentially public domain). There are obviously a lot of adjustments that need to be made before it's ready to go into OpenMW, but this just shows how to generate game-ready assets using free/libre resources with very little effort. If requested, I'll expound on my proposed workflow a lot more.

Here's a handy tutorial I found for how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPYbdnPwHuQ

[sjek]

: D that's cool.

As for technical part made this to androis section:
"Moving possibly to ogre format to make that easier would need loader o openmw and some kind of conversion tool to keep morrowind still playable. Only what is found with quick google is for milkshape. The ogre format is open and nif has been researched by nifstools althought it will need something like what scrawl is doing with save format to get the details. And solution to handle next ones benefits.

In nif it basically works by action keys, animbuffer for characters and textkeys whitch are written in 3deditor texteditor to be hauled with the file. What happens on attack, idle, walking, running, etc"

If and then the loader for ogre is written there is couple of things to consider.
https://ogre3d.atlassian.net/browse/OGRE-241 for 1.9 (but coming to 2.0) the non uniform scaling is not supported althought there is at least one workaround..
http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=423030

Second ogre supports atm 4 bone per vertex max and deletes the lowest weighted extras if remember correctly.
Fot this keeping the polycount at reasonable levels will do the trick. (Edit typo)

Then it's what you want to do as there is bullet and and smartbody
http://www.bulletphysics.org/Bullet/php ... 17&t=10189
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1811

There might be a way to add functionality to recent format by blender export python scripts and loader tuning but idk exactly.

As of concept that is awesome. Did you bake that on blender .?
Obj is currently supported in nifskope althought the animations have to be exported separately. Blender 2.49 script gives 4.0.0.2 version and with blender script bundle it can be extended somewhat to 2.5 -6

[psi29a]

@johndh: That is pretty awesome work!

Can it all be exported to NIF to be used directly in OpenMW?

It would be a great step in the right direction for open-content in OpenMW.

[Tinker]

I have been playing around with makehuman and it is really easy to use and quick compared to what I was doing 10 years ago, animations take the most time, especially to get them looking right.

Nif is the big problem though, Blender to nif exporter stopped getting updated after Blender 2.49 , current is 2,73. Exporting to Ogre format is supported and in theory OpenMW should support Ogre meshes which should be OK for the Example Suite at least.

I was sorting out some old 'puters this weekend and came across several hardisks of 3D graphics I made years ago, mostly static objects, crates, chests and containers also furniture and boats, even Stonehenge. Some were made for commercial games others for mods but I have copyright of them all. I was thinking of reworking a few and releasing them as a resource for the example suite, all under a CC licence. Once again getting them into nif format might be the problem.

[psi29a]

Not sure it is enough to store the ogre mesh, as NIF also has animation information in it. We would need, in OpenMW, a method for combing both the mesh and it's various animations. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.

[Tinker]

You are correct, blender to Ogre export looses the animations.

As I understand it OpenMW will only accept one ancient form of nif file and currently Blender cannot export to any kind of nif. If OpenMW is sticking to just the one model import filetype the either I have to downgrade Blender (with is not acceptable) or dust off my python and try to write an exporter, which may take some time.

[psi29a]

Does blender support newer NIF versions for export?

If so, then this gives more wait to our discussion about supporting newer versions of NIF.

[Tinker]

Blender no longer supports any sort of nif export. The old nif exporter plugin might be tweakable to run under current blender but I am not sure what nif it supported.

[psi29a]

Blender no longer supports any sort of nif export. The old nif exporter plugin might be tweakable to run under current blender but I am not sure what nif it supported.

Can you tweak it?

[sjek]

versions
4.0.0.2 (morrownd)
10 (bunch of other games)
20.0.0.? (oblivion)
30.0.? (Skyrim)

Those at least. They have been waiting for skyrim to get the support and it should be around the corner what have read. Supporting newer nif could have file limitations itself as it have to be made trought nifskope.

What have speeked at the script they seemed to take blender properties and baking them to nif kinda directly. This might be wishfull thinking also.

One way to keep combapility and support new features would to bake extras to morrowind nif keeping the header version intact. This way it would only need to be added to openmw loader and the process treamlined for direct conversion. The skyrim and other nif files could be easy to optimize and convert for openmw althought out of the box combapility wouldn't be the case anymore and mod author's permission would be needed for openmw publishing. ?

Question is what kind of licence gamebryo's nif format has and is it bound to morrowind assets ?