Open Source Morrowind

[loriel]

Continuation of the thread from the Tools and Utilities section of the old forum. Relevant parts of that thread are copied below:

Original post by Blockhead 10 August 2008:
Open source version of morrowind, including linux version.
openmw.snaptoad.com/

As it is an early version, I probably won't try it yet, but I know at least one linux person here (aside from myself) who would be fascinated by the idea of actually playing Mororwind without having to reboot into windows all the time.

Note - now moved to openmw.com

Reply by Neko 11 August 2008:
I stumbled across that one before, as well as a second sourceforge project which is attempting something similar (not sure if they're just different versions of the same code base).

It's certainly ambitious, but it'd be nice if they can make progress. Exult is really cool, and it started off as just a map viewer.

There's also the chance that the 3D renderer could be adapted for some sort of construction set like MWEdit, making it a feature-complete alternative to TESCS.

Comments by Loriel 12 September 2008:
First Impressions of OpenMW

Hijacking the thread back to its original topic, I'd like to give a very brief review of the program "OpenMW - the completely unofficial reimplementation of Morrowind", which attempts to provide an open source engine for Morrowind.

I took the "easy" route and downloaded the Windows version - not sure I wanted to face the problems of getting it to work with OGRE on Linux yet, but I've recently been experimenting with Worldforge which uses OGRE in its clients, so I'll give the Linux version a try later.

The README files are Unix-formatted - which means that Windows can't read the line-ends, so they display badly in the default application of Notepad.

Instructions are brief but adequate.

Installation excludes one specific DirectX file (copyright problems), leaving you to copy it from your Windows\System folder. My DirectX 9 installation was too old, so I had to download the current version, jumping through the WGA verification hoops en route, then copy and rename the requisite file to the OpenMW directory.

Morrowind must be installed on the same PC, but the program doesn't check for the Morrowind CD.

My Morrowind installation is in a non-standard location (C:\Games rather than C:\Program Files\Bethesda) so I needed to amend the OpenMW.ini file.

First run of OpenMW allows you to change various settings - principally video resolution. Also restarting with the -oc flags (ie run openmw -oc from a dos window) takes you to this "settings" screen.

Default starting point is within the Sud cavern - rather too dark to be an effective demonstration - so I tried again from a more suitable point - ie openmw "Balmora, Temple". There's no real interaction with the game, all you can do is to fly around a single sector in "God" mode, and no collision detection so you can fly through walls and floors. There doesn't appear to be any way to interact with doors, nor to move into "adjacent" sectors, and I've not yet found an outdoor sector which I can explore (needs a unique name).

The limited amount that's in the program so far works pretty well - installation is relatively straightforward and the graphics look similar to the "real" Morrowind ones. It's rather better than the typical "pre-alpha" release, but there's still a long way to go.

Comment by osiris 13 September 2008:
There is also another open source Morrowind engine in the working, which actually seems to be quite similar to OpenMW:

www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=876684&st=0&start=0

sourceforge.net/projects/crystalscrolls

crystalscrolls.sourceforge.net/

Comment by Loriel 13 September 2008:
OpenMW on Linux
Installation of OpenMW on Linux was fairly straightforward - instructions are aimed at Ubuntu (or any other Debian derivative), which suited me, but it shouldn't be difficult to adapt the procedure to any other distribution.

Brief comparison with crystalscrolls (as recommended by Osiris above):
They use completely different underlying technology (Crystal Space vs OGRE), so the requests that the two projects should be merged to make better use of resources are unlikely to be heeded.

Crystalscrolls is currently only available for Windows - Linux port should be available at some point in the future.
Installation is simple.
Current stage of development is a little more advanced - collision detection is enabled, and transfer between sectors works, so you can move around outdoors in a fairly conventional manner, unlike OpenMW's "God" mode.
Still no real interaction with the environment - you can't "click" on things to activate them, so no way to go through doors.

Performance in crystalscrolls seems rather poor - about 10 fps, against about 200 fps in OpenMW.
Not a fair comparison, as OpenMW test was indoors only, on better hardware and on Linux, but the difference is too large to ignore.
"Real" Morrowind is probably about the same speed as crystalscrolls on same hardware, and around a quarter of the speed of OpenMW on same basis.

Both are interesting projects, and I hope that they succeed.



Update:
OpenMW still seems to be under active development - currently being rewritten from D to C++, and subject to the rewrite it appears to have collision-detection and interior cells working, but not external cells, and loading of most file types (including mods), but much of the animation and interaction seems to be incomplete. Development is on Ubuntu Linux, which suits me, but some of the dependencies were rather obscure when I tried to install an updated version about a year ago. Must try it again sometime soon.
Crystalscrolls appears to be stalled - last update on the website is dated November 2009

Loriel

[loriel]

I've recently been struggling to get MW running successfully on Wine / Linux (it has run well previously, but some of the recent "improvements" in Wine and Linux don't seem very compatible with Morrowind).

I decided to revisit this topic again, and see what progress has been made here - this should solve my problems if/when it is finished, with a native Linux MW-compatible game engine.

First the good news:
Installation is much easier now - simply add the appropriate repository for Ubuntu systems, then install openmw from that repository.
Configuation is much easier - it detected my Wine installation of MW and configured itself to use that.
Performance was good - I haven't yet got fps to display properly, but it's clearly much better than in the corresponding Wine installation (where it varies from about 5 to 25).

Now the bad news:
There's still a long way to go.
In particular, saving and loading don't exist yet.

Comments from my brief testing (using version 20, released Dec 2012).

Installation was easy, configuration automatic, so it's just a case of typing "openmw" in a console and the game starts. Alternatively an entry "OpenMWLauncher" is added to your menu system, allowing the usual enabling/disabling of mods, but starting from the console allows various command line options to be passed - e.g. where to start.

By default, you start in a dungeon, or rather floating in some water below a dungeon, in God mode. If you fly up a bit into the dungeon proper, then toggle off God mode (F2 for the console, not ¬), you drop gracefully to the ground and can start interacting with objects, people etc.

Performance is impressively good whilst in God mode - less so once you switch it off, as the collision detection seems to degrade performance significantly.

Many of the other traditional console commands are available too - e.g. enableracemenu lets you change from your undefined status to a real race.

Reliability looks good so far - unlike the constant stream of warnings in the console when running on Wine, the console for OpenMW merely displays diagnostic information - e.g. changing cell, (un)loading cell, sound playing etc. No crashes or even freezes (apart from while waiting for cells to load).

Video options are better than on the original game - it offers widescreen display to match the laptop on which I was testing it.

Sound quality has been good so far - no stuttering or glitches.

Video quality is good, but not quite there yet - in particular foliage on plants and trees is surrounded by a grey "background".

Conclusion
Good to see the project still making progress. I don't know how much interest there will still be in Morrowind when the project finally matures to being fully playable, but I expect to be one of those who want to use it.

For now it's worth downloading it and having a quick runthrough, regarding it as a demo rather than a full implementation. It's easy to install (providing you merely want to use the latest "stable" version - getting the current "development" version running still looks rather challenging).

Loriel

[loriel]

Having recently heard good things about OpenMW, I decided to have another look at it.

Using the Linux version (Ubuntu, though I'm actually using Mint at the moment), installation was simple.

On launching, it prompted for a link to an existing Morrowind installation, or allowed installation from a CD. I installed Morrowind from CD, with no problems (without expansions, not having Tribunal or Bloodmoon CDs to hand).

Starting a new game, it was initially almost uncontrollable, but reducing the camera sensitivity to minimum fixed that, and there was little difference from conventional Morrowind as I again arrived in Seyda Neen to start my adventures.

There is a substantial bug list, but most appear fairly trivial - like "Ghosts in Ibar-Dad spawn stuck in walls" or "Mannequins in mods appear as dead bodies". I haven't noticed anything major from a quick skim through the list.

I haven't yet checked any yet, but mods should now work.

There's also an editor/construction kit under development, but it's far from ready - described as "alpha stage" so it's more of a preview than a working product.

Definitely worth a closer look now.

Loriel

[blockhead]

Oooooo, so nice to hear about progress in this. I would love to be able to play MW in Linux with the full experience (all my mods, etc.). Looks like the day when I can do that is getting closer.

p.s. Off topic: I ran Mint for a few weeks and eventually switched back to Debian because Mint was not as stable as I'd like. Specifically, it would randomly change the graphics settings (ie, it thought I had a different card some days). How has it been running for you?

[loriel]

May 25, 2015 13:08:29 GMT blockhead said:

Oooooo, so nice to hear about progress in this. I would love to be able to play MW in Linux with the full experience (all my mods, etc.). Looks like the day when I can do that is getting closer.

p.s. Off topic: I ran Mint for a few weeks and eventually switched back to Debian because Mint was not as stable as I'd like. Specifically, it would randomly change the graphics settings (ie, it thought I had a different card some days). How has it been running for you?

The only Mint problem I've seen so far is a known issue with my wireless router - I needs to make a configuration change in the terminal, and haven't found a way to make it permanent, so need to do that each time I boot up.

What is described as "Experimental Debian" repository for OpenMW might be worth a try, but the description warns of its potential instability, so perhaps it's better to wait a while longer.

Loriel

[loriel]

I've spent a bit more time looking at this, and I like what I see.

It's currently on version 0.35.1, with 0.36 imminent. The main engine is regarded as almost ready, but there is a major overhaul of the graphics engine in progress (porting the project from Ogre3D to OpenSceneGraph).

It's reported that the main quest can be completed, and most of the other official quests. Other mods vary - from a quick glance at the compatibility list most seem to be fully working, with some of the rest "almost" working, and some not yet compatible.

The intention is that version 1.0 will be compatible with the original Morrowind engine, and subsequent versions will add new features (for example the "missing" features that are provided by MWSE).

One interesting feature of the current release is the ability to use multiple "Data File" directories, so you can keep up all mods in separate directories without the risk of incompatible over-writing of files in the main directory. Editing the config file allows you to change the load order of these separate directories, and independently re-order the loading of esps and esms. Unfortunately I suspect this may break existing merged-list utilities, so they will need amending (or that capability needs adding to OpenMW).

There are plenty of minor bugs that need fixing - for example, the current restrictions on characters allowed in script and object names appear incompatible with Emma's usage in some (all?) of her companion mods.

Loriel

[Sniffles]

May 27, 2015 13:22:41 GMT loriel said:

One interesting feature of the current release is the ability to use multiple "Data File" directories, so you can keep up all mods in separate directories without the risk of incompatible over-writing of files in the main directory. Editing the config file allows you to change the load order of these separate directories, and independently re-order the loading of esps and esms. Unfortunately I suspect this may break existing merged-list utilities, so they will need amending (or that capability needs adding to OpenMW).
Loriel

That's a brilliant idea. Would be nice to have something similar with the Windows platform.

[loriel]

May 27, 2015 14:16:51 GMT Sniffles said:

May 27, 2015 13:22:41 GMT loriel said:

One interesting feature of the current release is the ability to use multiple "Data File" directories, so you can keep up all mods in separate directories without the risk of incompatible over-writing of files in the main directory. Editing the config file allows you to change the load order of these separate directories, and independently re-order the loading of esps and esms. Unfortunately I suspect this may break existing merged-list utilities, so they will need amending (or that capability needs adding to OpenMW).
Loriel

That's a brilliant idea. Would be nice to have something similar with the Windows platform.

OpenMW is available for Windows too, details here.

Loriel

[Sniffles]

With that being the case, I volunteer as the perfect play tester. If there is any way to cause the game to crash, I'll find it!

[loriel]

Version 0.36 released today.

Some minor improvements, I've not seen anything major yet.

Unfortunately Emma's companion mods still don't work on OpenMW.

Loriel

[blockhead]

May 29, 2015 18:43:27 GMT loriel said:

Version 0.36 released today.

Some minor improvements, I've not seen anything major yet.

Unfortunately Emma's companion mods still don't work on OpenMW.

Loriel

For full compatibility with most (all?) mods I expect that the Open Morrowind programmers will have to replicate bugs that exist in the original game engine.

[Sniffles]

May 29, 2015 21:49:37 GMT blockhead said:

May 29, 2015 18:43:27 GMT loriel said:

Version 0.36 released today.

Some minor improvements, I've not seen anything major yet.

Unfortunately Emma's companion mods still don't work on OpenMW.

Loriel

For full compatibility with most (all?) mods I expect that the Open Morrowind programmers will have to replicate bugs that exist in the original game engine.

............................................................ ??

[loriel]

May 29, 2015 21:49:37 GMT blockhead said:

For full compatibility with most (all?) mods I expect that the Open Morrowind programmers will have to replicate bugs that exist in the original game engine.

Yes, there will probably be some interesting discussions and decisions ahead

Currently main priorities appear to be switching the graphics engine and completing/debugging the support for vanilla Morrowind.

It's an interesting exercise trying to work out why certain mods aren't running on OpenMW.

In some cases it's quite easy like Emma's companions (OpenMW is stricter on various naming conventions, and I think they will relax these).

In others it's easy to see the cause, but not easy to see the solution. I've been looking at one mod where OpenMW spams the logs with error messages from one script which simply appears wrong (but it's possible that the original engine was lax enough to do something useful with it). The author is no longer around - should the mod be fixed and re-released or should some other solution be found?

And in some cases my scripting knowledge is too limited to understand what the script is trying to do, and why it is failing...

One interesting case I have seen, in two completely different mods - scripts which use of the command Placeatme with one parameter more than required, which OpenMW rejects. It should probably relax that from an error to a warning.

Another interesting one is where the syntax used in one of the scripts is wrong according to the documentation I have seen, but worked on the original engine. I have tried changing the syntax to agree with the official form, which removes the errors from the verification process, but the mod still silently fails somewhere...

Loriel