OpenMW 0.16.0

[Zini]

Time to start planning for the next version.

I won't do my usual task posting, because a large number of tasks have been carried over from 0.15.0.

Instead I am only highlighting some new tasks. Seems the focus will be mostly on skills this time. These will all need a lot of research though, since we don't have all the formulae yet (time to involve the non-coding community more?)

* Mercantile skill

* Acrobatics Skill
* Atlethics Skill

* Alchemy Skill (can't use potions yet, but that shouldn't stop us from making them)
* Alchemy Window (this is one of the few cases where a slight GUI redesign might make sense even prior to 1.0)

And a collection of various tasks of low popularity:

* Dropping Items
* Allow objects to cross cell-borders
* Interaction with non-load-doors (very complicated; talk to me first, if you want to do this task)
* Auto-Close MW-reference related GUI windows

Apart from the skills, I am somewhat optimistic that we will get the spell window for 0.16.0, which would mean we finally could start tackling magic for 0.17.0 in earnest.

The development activity has gone down a bit recently, but we are still in a good position. I am not sure if we can keep up the 3-4 week release cyclic. But let's try anyway.

[EmbraceUnity]

Looking good!

Few comments on the latest master.

1) With collision on in Beshara, I'm able to walk through certain free standing rocks. However, I did at one point use PyFFI on my Meshes directory, so it is possible this is related. This is bad because I can't even leave the water in the cell when the collision is on. EDIT: I don't think this was a problem for me in 0.14, so it is probably related to the latest collision changes.

2) If you resize the inventory screen vertically, the left panel shrinks and grows.

3) If you are on the inventory screen, neither pressing q or esc causes the game to quit

4) Dragging and dropping works really great except that you can cause objects to drop in a way that they float. I believe a similar bug was present in the original morrowind, or at least you could stack things oddly. Still, I think this is something that could be fixed.

5) You cannot increase or decrease your offers when bartering

6) When bartering, you are able to set the item # slider to points that I assume are not real integers. If there are 2 items, you can set it to something between 1 and 2, at least.

7) Could use a confirmation dialogue when exiting

8) Sometimes if you load a cell that is small with a single person, like the Telvanni Canton's Alchemist, you get a brief flash of nudity. Probably best to black out the screen until everything is rendered.

[WeirdSexy]

What would a good process be for figuring formulae?

Like if I wanted to figure out all the stuff for Acrobatics skill:
Figure out all the stuff the skill does (I guess something like jumpHeight and fallDamageReduction? Seems like everything else involved in jumping would be dictated by gravity and the player Speed attribute and Athletics skill.) How would I figure this out?
Then figure out the math behind calculating jumpHeight and fallDamageReduction? Any good pointers on where to start looking for clues? This stuff isn't just laid out in the CS as far as I can tell

If someone can give me a pointer or two, I'll try my hand at it. I'm probably much better at just making videos though, haha.

[Zini]

Run Morrowind and measure. Make sure to vary only one parameter at a time and then try to figure out the formulae.

For jumping we need formulae for jump height, fatigue increase, fall damage reduction and skill increase per jump. Parameters to vary are the skill itself, possibly some attributes and maybe current fatigue.

[werdanith]

2) If you resize the inventory screen vertically, the left panel shrinks and grows.

This is how it is supposed to be, given that this is where the player ragdoll will be.

4) Dragging and dropping works really great except that you can cause objects to drop in a way that they float. I believe a similar bug was present in the original morrowind, or at least you could stack things oddly. Still, I think this is something that could be fixed.

5) You cannot increase or decrease your offers when bartering

8) Sometimes if you load a cell that is small with a single person, like the Telvanni Canton's Alchemist, you get a brief flash of nudity. Probably best to black out the screen until everything is rendered.

These are known issues and there are bugs filed in the issue tracker in order to improve them.

[sirherrbatka]

yo,

I tried to get jumping height formulae before and I want to say that it's clearly based on acrobatics skill and strength attribute. Fatigue seems to do not effect jump height, as well items weight (this conflicts with my experience, maybe it was placebo... if someone can check it correctly it would be great). There is also "jump" magic effect.

My problem when getting physics stuff is that it requires a lot of attempts since it's hard to get precise result with one try + more than just one parameter effect it. So i gave up as physics stuff was to distant. :/

[Tarius]

Allow me to just say something on the non-load doors. The only difference in action between them and load doors is that instead of loading a new cell, they simply rotate around the z-axis.

[ezzetabi]

Yes, I am curious about the complexity. It is something I cannot see.

[Zini]

Yes, I am curious about the complexity. It is something I cannot see.

First, while the mesh and the physics shape of the door rotate, the door can't do the some in its representation in the world model.

Then there are possible precision issues. If done wrongly, this could lead to misalignment if a door is opened/closed repeatedly a lot of times (somewhat similar to NPCs slightly shuffling around across a large number of save/load-cycles).

And finally, from what I remember the door doesn't simply jump to the other position. It actually moves (I could be wrong about that though). Currently that is not supported by MW, but we have several cases where something similar will be needed, so we better build an implementation that is general enough. Also, the movement may have implications regarding the physics (stuff blocking the door).

[Rhys]

Doors rotate with the motion visible, I believe switches do too. Definitely doors anyway. A more memorable door opening would be the dwemer ruin type sphere doors to the entrance.