Skywind Developer Plug Video

Not about OpenMW? Just about Morrowind in general? Have some random babble? Kindly direct it here.
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sirherrbatka
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by sirherrbatka »

*cough* morroblivion *cough* had to been taken out from tesnexus.
Biont
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by Biont »

More info here:
What are the rules on utilities that facilitate porting?

I personally have no issue with utilities that require you to have both games and that help you to port content yourself. I think it's a great thing. However, a case came up a few years back with such a utility called "Morroblivion" that helped users port content from Morrowind to Oblivion. You needed to own both games in order for the utility to work but Bethesda personally requested that the utility be taken down. I had no wish to argue with Bethesda on the matter.

Bethesda aren't spiteful and they must have had a good legal/law related reason why they made this request. From my understanding it has to do with them licensing some of the Morrowind assets from other companies. As part of the deal Bethesda agreed that the assets would only be used in Morrowind and were obligated to prevent any of these assets from being used in other games.

As a result such utilities have generally been avoided in this community. I know a few people have sought permission from Bethesda to create similar utilities to facilitate porting between Fallout 3 and New Vegas and have been denied permission, so at the moment it is best to ask before you even start working on them, or upload them here.
That's probably as official as it gets, sadly.


EDIT: But to be brutally honest, I do not have anything to back up my specific words about forward- and backporting, or why one is okay while the other isn't. This might be misinformation since it's "I read it somewhere"-territory
Last edited by Biont on 07 Jan 2014, 12:48, edited 1 time in total.
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psi29a
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by psi29a »

That makes more sense, thank you. So that is a carefully treaded area, which is a pity.

Understand OpenMW's position isn't the same as Bethesda's Skyrim/Oblivion back-forward porting. To make a logical leap, think about this:
OpenMW is also not Morrowind, why isn't the above applied to OpenMW using Morrowind content? Since it does not apply, then shouldn't also make sense to (possibly) support Oblivion or Skyrim bits in OpenMW?

What if, big IF here guys, OpenMW was forked to be OpenOblivion... or OpenSkyrim. You see my point, Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim are Bethesda's and OpenMW is ours, we just happen to support reading back and rendering these file formats allowed to us by laws governing reverse engineering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_e ... g#Legality

My question now is, what assets/models/meshes/textures/etc were created by Skywind creators. The copyright to those belong to them and not Bethesda.

What are the parts used by skywind that are part of Skyrim? These are things that we, at least for now, should stay away from.
indiedeveloper
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by indiedeveloper »

I understand that its easier to show off visuals to get people excited. We made the video specifically to get recruitment rather than interest, and it worked. We've effectively doubled the team in two days.

So with recruitment in mind, you could do a bit of smoke and mirrors and setup scenes of the "potential" future graphics.

I'd need to ask for permission, but you could show zbrush models and state that you are working with Skywind modelling team to eventually develop complex animations and shaders with these and future models.
Do like a few environmental scenes rendered with some high polys and amazing shaders in a dedicated 3d program and state that "anything in the future is possible through this project". Seems a bit devious but actually that is a potential goal. The idea is to get gaming websites to pick up on it and then it get attention hopefully from coders wanting to join.

You can't do forward or back porting. Bethesda only has the license for the game they were built for, as some of the work is sub contracted. We've had a few conversations with Bethesda staff members and they seem to be supportive of the general idea of the project, but cannot discuss porting of assets. So until the mod uses 100% non morrowind resources topics will be locked. Hence the video so that we can get more people to help with making new assets...phew we will get there!

We do use a lot of Skyrim assets, so yeah it would be a tricky business getting the landscape to work for OpenMW. But not impossible as most are custom environmental assets, and those that are not can be remade down the track.
Because I for one would like to see another home for all the work done by landscapers done in Skywind.
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psi29a
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by psi29a »

indiedeveloper wrote:Because I for one would like to see another home for all the work done by landscapers done in Skywind.
This! :D

I understand the motivation to use Skyrim, it is there and good looking. :)

We need to get OpenMW up to snuff as well, it would be nice to have some eye-candy to help though. We need assets to show off how shiny OpenMW can be.
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Sslaxx
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by Sslaxx »

indiedeveloper wrote:Because I for one would like to see another home for all the work done by landscapers done in Skywind.
Ravanna for one (and most crucially) does not share your point of view.

That said, it would be interesting to see some of the Skywind re-interpretations of Morrowind's bestiary available as a mod for OpenMW.
PaulMesh
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by PaulMesh »

BrotherBrick wrote: OpenMW is also not Morrowind, why isn't the above applied to OpenMW using Morrowind content? Since it does not apply, then shouldn't also make sense to (possibly) support Oblivion or Skyrim bits in OpenMW?

What if, big IF here guys, OpenMW was forked to be OpenOblivion... or OpenSkyrim. You see my point, Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim are Bethesda's and OpenMW is ours, we just happen to support reading back and rendering these file formats allowed to us by laws governing reverse engineering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_e ... g#Legality
That's right. OpenMW is not Morrowind so basically every Morrowind asset used in OpenMW is ported to an engine which is different than the Morrwind engine. This is not illegal (reverse engineering) and it means if OpenMW could read and render Skyrim meshes/animations there wouldn't be any problem. But I think it is illegal to modify Skyrim meshes in order to use it in an egine other than Skyrim and you would have to modify them.
But (just an idea :D ) would it be possible to make OpenMW able to read meshes/animations made for Skyrim??
That would make OpenMW VERY attractive for all the Skyrim modders out there.
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psi29a
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by psi29a »

PaulMesh wrote:OpenMW is not Morrowind so basically every Morrowind asset used in OpenMW is ported to an engine which is different than the Morrwind engine. This is not illegal (reverse engineering) and it means if OpenMW could read and render Skyrim meshes/animations there wouldn't be any problem. But I think it is illegal to modify Skyrim meshes in order to use it in an egine other than Skyrim and you would have to modify them.
But (just an idea :D ) would it be possible to make OpenMW able to read meshes/animations made for Skyrim??
That would make OpenMW VERY attractive for all the Skyrim modders out there.
No Morrowind assets are ported by OpenMW, we are reading them as is and rendering them.

I was just saying that OpenMW can and does render things other than assets from Morrowind. Doing so with Oblivion or Skyrim, while currently not possible technically, can be done so legally in the future.

There are different things to think about here:
1) Porting the work done in Skywind to work with OpenMW (think of it as Morrowind capability mode).
2) Support Skywind/Skyrim assets as-is in OpenMW.

Both options have their pro and contras.

Porting Skywind to OpenMW is not like porting to Morrowind, so we side step that legal issue and also give you access things in OpenMW (Skyrim like) that are not in Morrowind.
PaulMesh
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by PaulMesh »

I think it would be better to make OpenMW support Skyrim assets. Its a lot of work but i would be done once. I think it would be harder to port every mod/asset because one would have all the work everytime again. Further, Skyrim modders would love OpenMW for this, they could simply use their models and stuff in OpenMW instead of messing around with porting, which is quite annoying for statics and almost impossible for animations.
Just imagine how powerful OpenMW would be if it could handle Oblivion/Skyrim assets :D
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Okulo
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Re: Skywind Developer Plug Video

Post by Okulo »

indiedeveloper wrote:So with recruitment in mind, you could do a bit of smoke and mirrors and setup scenes of the "potential" future graphics.

... you could show zbrush models and state that you are working with Skywind modelling team to eventually develop complex animations and shaders with these and future models.
Do like a few environmental scenes rendered with some high polys and amazing shaders in a dedicated 3d program and state that "anything in the future is possible through this project".
I'm not a team member so who am I, but I would actually very uncomfortable with that approach. This project, as far as I can remember, has always been honest and has continuously shown a certain measure of integrity and honour. What you see the team doing is real - accuracy and openness above all. Giving the whole project an almost commercial or political spin to appeal to the masses feels to me like "selling out", a breach of that culture of integrity.
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