questions & suggestions

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PeterBitt
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questions & suggestions

Post by PeterBitt »

Hi OpenMW team, I have a few questions & suggestions:

play sounds multiple times
In MW you can not play the same sound from the same source multiple times at the same time.

fade music and sounds
A scripting feature that allows music and sounds to fade out/in for a setable duration.

play multiple music tracks at the same time

new audio filters
Will there be a better underwater-filter than the vanilla pitch-effect? Will even new filters get added, or is it possible for modders to add e.g. a reverb filter to cave interiors?


paint decals on objects and terrain
A tool for the CS that allows easy painting of customisable decals on terrain and objects. Something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vnRV-1S65I

dynamic decals in game
For effects like the magic impact effects in Skyrim, footprints in snow and most importantly: blood. Such decals (is that even the right word?) would be great to have on characters too. If blood effects would be aplied to the exact spot you hit with your sword, that would be awesome.

change textures on objects and terrain in game
If you confirm the ability to change the land textures on the fly, I would like to prepare a vanilla-season-ground-texture-mod for OpenMW 1.0 release.
The ability to change the textures on objects in game would offer a lot of really nice new stuff!

different water layers for interior and exterior
To have different water graphics and sound in interiors than in exteriors.

realtime shadows for other lightsources than the sun
I am sure this was suggested before.


Another question is if you are aware if someone is already preparing bump-maps for the vanilla textures?

I am looking forward to version 1.0 of this fantastic project!
Chris
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by Chris »

PeterBitt wrote:play sounds multiple times
In MW you can not play the same sound from the same source multiple times at the same time.
I don't imagine we can do that without breaking compatibility. As it is, some things play too loud because multiple instances of the sound play from different sources (e.g. Ghostfence), which seems to suggest that Morrowind has purposely placed limits on the number of concurrent identical sounds.

Maybe there can be ways to work around it, but I'm not sure how much utility it would have.
new audio filters
Will there be a better underwater-filter than the vanilla pitch-effect? Will even new filters get added, or is it possible for modders to add e.g. a reverb filter to cave interiors?
I plan on it. It will probably wait until near or after 1.0 though, since it would be an enhancement over vanilla.
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PeterBitt
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by PeterBitt »

Chris wrote: I don't imagine we can do that without breaking compatibility. As it is, some things play too loud because multiple instances of the sound play from different sources (e.g. Ghostfence), which seems to suggest that Morrowind has purposely placed limits on the number of concurrent identical sounds.

Maybe there can be ways to work around it, but I'm not sure how much utility it would have.
Ok I didnt think about that. My main problem with that solution is the magic hit sfx for projectile magic when it hits something - if two projectiles hit at the relatively same time, only one of the two sounds will play. I guess I have to live with that in the next ten years too.
Chris wrote: I plan on it. It will probably wait until near or after 1.0 though, since it would be an enhancement over vanilla.
Knowing that this is possible engine wise is enough for me. Great!

Thank you very much for the fast reply! Are there chances that someone will look into my other questions too or are these already answered somewhere on this forum?
Chris
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by Chris »

PeterBitt wrote:My main problem with that solution is the magic hit sfx for projectile magic when it hits something - if two projectiles hit at the relatively same time, only one of the two sounds will play.
That likely depends on what we make "play" the hit sfx. If we make it play from the character, then yeah, I can imagine having that problem. But if we make it play from where the projectile was, it should allow multiple instances to play (within reason).
Thank you very much for the fast reply! Are there chances that someone will look into my other questions too or are these already answered somewhere on this forum?
I can try answering a couple more, although someone else will have to comment on the rest.
fade music and sounds
A scripting feature that allows music and sounds to fade out/in for a setable duration.
Fading out music that gets interrupted would be nice to do. Not too sure how to do fading in though, at least without ruining the initial second of the track.
play multiple music tracks at the same time
Why would you want multiple music tracks at once? This would be tricky to do, particularly if you want them in sync (music tracks with different sample rates would be nearly impossible to keep sample-accurate synchronization).
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PeterBitt
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by PeterBitt »

Damned I thought I already answered ... lets type it all again:
Chris wrote: That likely depends on what we make "play" the hit sfx. If we make it play from the character, then yeah, I can imagine having that problem. But if we make it play from where the projectile was, it should allow multiple instances to play (within reason).
Yeah I guess its the case that in vanilla the PC emitts that sound, but I am not sure. If you manage to add the sound to the spot where the projectily hits that would be great.
Chris wrote: Fading out music that gets interrupted would be nice to do. Not too sure how to do fading in though, at least without ruining the initial second of the track.
Fading-out alone would be a huge improvement. If you manage to implement fading-in that would be even better.
Chris wrote: Why would you want multiple music tracks at once? This would be tricky to do, particularly if you want them in sync (music tracks with different sample rates would be nearly impossible to keep sample-accurate synchronization).
Its not nessesary to play multiple tracks in sync, my idea is a procedural/random music script that plays a number of short-tracks randomly with silence inbetween. Have a look at the following video at 3:00 to get a feeling for what I am talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RamX0MTZedM

Our current implementation works like that: From a set of many short tracks the scripts randomly pics one, plays it, waits for a random delay and plays another one.

The ability to fade music and play multiple tracks at once would allow us to let two tracks fade into eachother. Also it would allow to e.g. play a deep bassy song and at the same time randomly add bits of violine music. This is how its done in Skyrim and Fallout NV and IMHO its the best way to implement music in a openworld game with good environment sounds.

Thanks for your reply!
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sirherrbatka
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by sirherrbatka »

So in fact you are looking for crossfade!

BTW
This video is AWESOME! Never heard about this mod before.
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PeterBitt
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by PeterBitt »

Yeah I am neither a native english speaker nor a audio engeneer so thank you for clearing that up! Crossfade it is.
And thank you for the compliment!
Chris
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by Chris »

PeterBitt wrote:The ability to fade music and play multiple tracks at once would allow us to let two tracks fade into eachother. Also it would allow to e.g. play a deep bassy song and at the same time randomly add bits of violine music. This is how its done in Skyrim and Fallout NV and IMHO its the best way to implement music in a openworld game with good environment sounds.
We definitely need a better music system after 1.0. I couldn't really wrap my head around Skyrim's music system when I looked at it, though (it has so many layers, a good bit of it looking redundant). A massive script like Better Music System has also isn't very flexible or resource friendly. I'll need help in designing a better one.
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PeterBitt
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by PeterBitt »

Chris wrote: We definitely need a better music system after 1.0.
I think that it would be great to have a very basic music system first: all vanilla, exept for proper music for dungeon-like interiors.
Chris wrote: I couldn't really wrap my head around Skyrim's music system when I looked at it, though (it has so many layers, a good bit of it looking redundant). A massive script like Better Music System has also isn't very flexible or resource friendly. I'll need help in designing a better one.
I can not help you with the coding side of Skyrim's music system, but I certainly have good knowledge of the music tracks in Skyrim & Fallout and could easily come up with good sounding combinations. For our music mod I already have properly fitting sets for day/night for all regions (280 short tracks) wich are sorted by music type and go together pretty well. It would be possible for me to come up with a detailed list/plan/theory for how to play those tracks with new features like fading and multiple tracks in mind (the music mod for vanilla MW is almost done).
I haven't really played Skyrim/Fallout but due to listening to those tracks over and over again for months now, I might get a rather good idea about how their music systems work once I test that a little bit.
Obviously there are copyright concerns to consider, but in this case a little batch programm to copy the tracks from Skyrim installation to MW could work for a release ... provided that in OpenMW the volume settings in scripts and construction set work reliable, wich is not the case in morrowind.

BTW our mod is not based on BMS, we have a own implementation with a base addon in wich invisible activators are placed in every single cell and those activators have the scripts attached instead of constant getcell checks ... hopefully thats even correct as I am not in charge of scripts. My 'partner' Logitech has come up with the basic construct of the music mod wich he is currently overhauling again, its very flexible and almost all my ideas turned out exactly as imagined. Still this addon seems to impact performance and stability very little.
Logitech and I anticipate OpenMW so much, there are some bugs (like broken "say" command in combination with "stopsound") wich required workarounds and it will be great to get rid of them.
Here is one other video wich shows how flexible even that scripted solution can be - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcbrwMrotI
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sirherrbatka
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Re: questions & suggestions

Post by sirherrbatka »

So this mod does not work with TR?

Maybe it would be better to base the music no on the region but instead on the weather?
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