OpenMW 0.17.0

[Zini]

I moved most of the unclaimed and unfinished tasks from 0.16.0 to 0.17.0, except for a few that seem unpopular and are less important at the same time. So one again, I won't go over all task and instead highlight some.

Here are my tasks:

* Refactor mw*-subsystems

This is a rather big task and I wasn't planning to do it any time soon. But apparently there is a lot demand for it.

* Potion usage

Since the alchemy implementation is almost complete, we should also be able to use the created items.


Which brings us to the list of important unclaimed tasks:

* Alchemy Skill

Almost everything is ready by now and it would be a shame to have this skill sit around unfinished for much longer.

* Allow objects to cross cell-borders

Not hard if you understand the physics and rendering system.

* Object Movement/Creation Script Instructions

Pretty simple, but it should increase the number of working scripts a lot. Note that the task listed above this one and feature #59 are are prerequisites.

* Player Control

Nasty. But important.


I also added two new GUI tasks:

* Trainer Window
* Spell Buying Window

These should be fairly self-contained, I believe.


Besides the actual coding tasks, the most important thing now is figuring out the formulae. We are already too late for the lack of progress in this area not impacting the development of OpenMW. I hope we finally will get something usable, because else we will run into a heavy bottleneck soon.


It seems we will manage to get out 0.16.0 as another monthly release. And if we step up our game a bit, we have a chance to do the same with 0.17.0.

[Zini]

Hmmm. It's almost two weeks now since the last release and we have very little. Everybody on vacation? Unless we get more activity very soon, we definitely won't be able to keep up with one release per month.

[Chris]

I'm currently working on getting Ogre to handle animations, though I'm not sure if it's best to target 0.17 for them at this stage. I suppose it'll depend on how quickly I can get things back into shape.

[jhooks1]

* Player Control

Nasty. But important.

Could be done now, but I think it would be better to wait until Chris is finished with the new animation system. For first person player rendering, I think you just need to animate base_anim.1st.nif with hand, weapon, and shield parts. Then you need to place the camera in the right spot to make it look like your hands are right in front of you.

Third person should just be the usual way we animate an npc with base_anim.nif

[Zini]

Actually I would see the hand rendering as a separate task; maybe as a part of the weapon shield rendering task (which also could be split up further).

Player control has a high priority (among others to stop those "We are a slug" jokes) and I would rather see it implemented sooner than later, especially since it is sitting on the roadmap for four releases now.

Edit: In case you didn't notice, I have split up the player control tasks. Even if the last subtasks are better done later, nothing should stop volunteers to do the first couple of subtasks now.

[gus]

As we know there is little activity during summer, i think we should aim for a release end august.

If this is the case, i think i will be able to finish these two tasks before end august (plus finishing the current task):
* Allow objects to cross cell-borders
* Object Movement/Creation Script Instructions

[Zini]

Hmm. We will see.

btw. You will need to do the item dropping task first for some of the new script instructions.

[gus]

Well, I won't be able to code anymore during July (i probably won't even have a computer at hand), but in august it should be OK.

btw. You will need to do the item dropping task first for some of the new script instructions.

I guess i can take this one too :p (as no one claimed this task...)

[jhooks1]

Actually I would see the hand rendering as a separate task; maybe as a part of the weapon shield rendering task (which also could be split up further).

Player control has a high priority (among others to stop those "We are a slug" jokes) and I would rather see it implemented sooner than later, especially since it is sitting on the roadmap for four releases now.

Edit: In case you didn't notice, I have split up the player control tasks. Even if the last subtasks are better done later, nothing should stop volunteers to do the first couple of subtasks now.

Ah, ok. The slug problem shouldn't be hard to fix, just add an offset to the position that pmove outputs, based on the player's race. Whether morrowind handles it this way, or if it just "works" automatically in the physics system in morrowind I don't know. I can look into it.

[Zini]

The idea is to rework the player controls as outlined on the bug tracker. Applying a separate fix to the slug problem is a bit pointless, since this fix most likely will become obsolete when the new player controls are established.