Morrowind into Oblivion

[Galadrielle]

Tanks a lot for having translated my readme file :goodjob:
A new version of my program will be available soon on wiwiland (when, I don't know :confused: )

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Ah, so you're the wonderful modder that created this awesome utility! Thanks a ton, I love it so much!

And it isn't illegal at all, because to use it you must have already purchased Morrowind.

Is there any way you could manage to get a converter in there for Tribunal and Bloodmoon, which will also merge them to the main Morrowind converted file?

[Galadrielle]

Ah, so you're the wonderful modder that created this awesome utility! Thanks a ton, I love it so much!

Thank you!

Is there any way you could manage to get a converter in there for Tribunal and Bloodmoon, which will also merge them to the main Morrowind converted file?

Normally my program can convert Tribunal.esm and Bloodmoon.esm, but dependencies from morrowind.esm won't work (some objects will be missing).

I posted 2 new videos on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8ofiamahrk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMJKENz604g

[Dave_91]

Lightwave posted some screenshots over at the Vvardenfell forum showing the converted meshes placed onto the 2x sized Vvardenfell landmass. It's very impressive, likewise is the program. Very well done. :goodjob:

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Hmmm, would it be possible to incorporate the two expansions and Morrowind to be converted together in a second utility which will then just merge them to the main Morrowind file?

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Well, I use this awesome utility, but I was wondering how to make everything visible when distant like what Lightwave did. I suck with distant land. I thought this generate LOD was the right thing, but when I did it there was no distant land. And how did Lightwave manage to get Firemoth in there? Did he merge it to the master file?

Also, do the morrowind things need to be in the C drive to be converted? I changed the utility to point to my other drive, F, but it only converted a fraction of the meshes and textures. Eventually it got them all, but it was also with a lot of hard work on my part (I had to convert a LOT of meshes in 3ds max)

[Galadrielle]

Hmmm, would it be possible to incorporate the two expansions and Morrowind to be converted together in a second utility which will then just merge them to the main Morrowind file?

In a future version it will be possible to convert an ESP/ESM that depends on a previously converted ESM file (typicaly Tribunal.esm that depends on Morrowind.esm). No merging will be necessary, it will work like in TES3.

Well, I use this awesome utility, but I was wondering how to make everything visible when distant like what Lightwave did. I suck with distant land. I thought this generate LOD was the right thing, but when I did it there was no distant land. And how did Lightwave manage to get Firemoth in there? Did he merge it to the master file?

I really don't know how he did!? :eek:
For LOD I don't know exactly how it works, I've never tried, sorry

Also, do the Morrowind things need to be in the C drive to be converted? I changed the utility to point to my other drive, F, but it only converted a fraction of the meshes and textures. Eventually it got them all, but it was also with a lot of hard work on my part (I had to convert a LOT of meshes in 3ds max)

Normally you just need to specify all paths in "NIF_conv.ini" file, it should work, but there is a bug if you don't have any "Meshes" or "Textures" folder in your Oblivion "Data" folder.

A new version of my program is available here, it can convert a lot of new stuff and it fixes many bugs. (and there is an english readme file of course )

[Lightwave]

Actually Solstheim is there also, but I just didn't take any shots of that end (there's no placed content on the island so it'd be boring from a distance, but the grasses on the south-east coast are lovely). Firemoth exists in the 2x landscape too, but for some reason it's missing from the LOD (maybe I distributed a pre-February LOD mesh). The screenshots aren't actually from Morrowind_ob.esm, but from a worldspace imported using TESAnnwyn, so it uses Oblivion's high-res textures and 3D grass etc, not the TES3 versions.

The 2x landscape and placement files have been available for a while, but if you want to visit the world and create your own shots on this version of the landscape, I've archived them up here: Vvardenfellx1.7z. The LOD files and a script to create the full VisibleWhenDistant files are included.

These are how each file was produced:

1. Worldspace

This is easy enough to create:

tesannwyn -c -z morrowind.esm,firemoth.esp,bloodmoon.esm
tesannwyn -i 4 -c -z -x -56 -y -32 -w Vvardenfell tesannwyn.bmp

This creates the textured landscape in TES4 (TESAnnwyn, TESPort and TEStroi all use the same texture lookup file for TES3<->TES4 conversion). The -x and -y values centralize the worldspace back to the original game co-ordinates and the worldspace is called Vvardenfell. -c and -z specify that the vertex colour map and texture map should be exported (and imported) respectively. -i 4 means import the heightmap to TES4.

2. NPCs

I have a little program called TES4scale that dumps the co-ordinates of all placed content to some files and can re-import them (including the ability to scale those positions and/or shift the co-ordinates around) to a parent worldspacein another mod. I took the NPCs from TESPort's versions (TES4 clothing and weapons):

tesport morrowind.esm
tes4scale -e tesport.esp
tes4scale -i -p Vvardenfell tesannwyn.esp

The first ports morrowind.esm to TES4 (many of the same things as Galadrielle's only it replaces all TES3 content with TES4 equivalents, which is different) and creates a file tesport.esp.
The second command exports the object groups and placement positions of all NPCs and statics from tesport.esp to dump files.
The third reads tesannwyn.esp (the TES4 landscape) and places all NPCs (-p mean's "don't place statics or activators etc") and creates an ESP with the correct objects placed in each cell. I did the same for Bloodmoon.esm too (ran it through TESPort) so the NPCs are there also.

3. Statics, activators, furniture, trees, lights.

A similar thing is done for the statics, this time using the data from Galadrielle's converted file:

tes4scale -e -0 morrowind_ob.esm
tes4scale -i -n Vvardenfell tesannwyn.esp

The first dumps all placement data in to dump files. -0 turns the FormIDs of the dumped records to modindex 00 so they can be used for LOD purposes (otherwise they get screwed up by load order differences).
The second creates an ESP with all the STAT/ACTI/FURN/LIGH (etc.) records from Galadrielle's file placed in to the cells for the VVardenfell worldspace in tesannwyn.esp. -n means "ignore NPCs".
I renamed this file to Vvardenfellx1_PlacedObjectsV1.esp.

If all 3 files are loaded in the game and CS, all the elements are there (land, NPCS, placed objects) and the LOD will be reliable.

4. VWD and LOD textures.

TES4qLOD has an option to simulate the effect of ticking VisibleWhenDistant on all placed objects, so I generated the Distantland textures and DistantObject files at the same time:

tes4qlod -E -T -q 2 Vvardenfell tesannwyn.esp,Vvardenfellx1_PlacedObjectsV1.esp

(-E makes everything VWD and "-T -q 2" generates textures at 2048x2048 quality). Both files could have been done separately, but it's just as easy to combine them using commars. I made a simple batch file to copy all the meshes produced by Galadrielle's program to _far.nif versions. This is also included in the .7z archive.

The DistantLand mesh is the only thing I still needed to use the CS for; my LOD2 replacement land system demands too much of the game engine for any land much bigger than 2-3 quads. The .7z archive contains the files ready produced and batch scripts you can run to generate the LOD textures (and optionally, the VWD files, but you'll need a seriously beefy machine to cope with running this that in the game).

The same programs can be also be used to scale Oblivion, something Cryonaut asked about a while back.

Galadrielle: Right now the LOD will not be displayed reliable with morrowind_ob.esm atm due to a load order design flaw in TES4, but it's very easy to fix. For LOD to work reliably, all Worldspaces should always be created in modindex 00 (the FormID must start with 00, not 01 or anything else). When the FormID is 00, the game engine doesn't keep changing the modindex when the load order varies. To reduce the chance of FormID conflicts, both TESAnnwyn and ScripterRon's TES4Gecko are using the code in this thread. It increments every 18 seconds and should not recycle the FormID for another 8 years. You can choose a different format, but we're all using the same algorithm atm so we shouldn't conflict with one another. If you want to make any STAT/ACTI/FURN/TREE records VWD (VisibleWhenDistant) then they also have to be put in modindex 00 or the same load order problem occurs - maybe make that a command line option? TES4Gecko has an option to do this on worldspaces after they've been created (called "Move Worldspace"), including updating all references to the worldspace in the ESM/ESP and renaming any already generated LOD files. The TES4Gecko option should be able to fix the issue in any ESM/ESP. Ideally though it's best if the esp_converter code does it on the fly.

Now if only I had a program that does all my 9-til-5:30 weekday work for me and I'd be much happier ... ?(

Lightwave

[Galadrielle]

A new version 0.93 correcting a big bug in 0.92 is available here or here

[Wolvman]

So the only problem with this program now is that you have to own a copy of Morrowind right? It sounds pretty legal if you still have to own a copy of MW anyways so it isn't like it is giving away free MW stuff. Even if using this requires an actual copy of Morrowind and it's expansions to use couldn't their be a second version of each ST or Vardenfell release that doesn't require it but only has the stuff their actuall teams have finished? If this was used then it could speed up many projects like Silgrad Tower and Vvardenfell by litterally years right? It could even help Skyrim get out a Beta by using Solstheim stuff couldn't it, and the MW stuff could atleast be used as place holders until the teams get out their actual Oblivion version of whatever gets used. This program sounds like something sent straight from god .