TESPort-Discussion

[Pjstaab]

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index...pic=599029
TESPort: Utility to help port Morrowind mods to Oblivion., Currently imports cells, landmass, NPCs and books.

[Killamike718]

WOW thats absolutly amazing!!!!!!! Really awsome! I think it will help the Vvardenfell mod lets just hope its legitamite, and not against any copyright laws.

[KuKulzA]

:confused: huh...

well what you mean to say is that this could really help us TES4 Vvardenfell modders right?
it could... though I dunno if its as good seeing as how there are things that are changing in Vvardenfell to the extent, that in my opinion, could make starting from scratch easier. However, I do see its potentials, thank you.

If anyone much more knowledged of it than me would like to speak on this TESPort, please do, I know only from what I've heard and seen and though i think its pretty cool, I am somewhat skeptical of such transfer type things

[Lightwave]

Originally posted by KuKulzAIf anyone much more knowledged of it than me would like to speak on this TESPort, please do, I know only from what I've heard and seen and though I think its pretty cool, I am somewhat skeptical of such transfer type things

Care to elaborate?
Are the concerns technical, legal or basically a fear of creating something too close to the original that it might restrict you from and betray your vision for a larger, different kind of Vvardenfell?

I fail to see how some things can't be of help. Anything that can help speed up the process is bound to help moral. Specific customization can still take place when you're nearing completion of the project.

Even if you don't want the original heightmap (which I should also be able to automatically retexture with Oblivion's textures and maybe then RGB too sometime soonish too) or the ready-placed positions for the NPCs in their original towns, forts, camps etc (which I also have) then at the very least I can't see much point in manually recreating the 2675 NPCs that exist in the game by hand, filling in their name, race, gender, class, stats etc when its already been done for you. And having them ready equipped with the essentials (shirts, pants, robes, shoes, armour and weapons). In no way does this prevent throwing out, changing or adding NPCs, their faces, their weapons/clothing/armour for ones that are more in line with new Morrowind style meshes when they become available.

for example, here's a TES4 ESP containing all the NPCs for Morrowind: MW_NPCs.esp which can be loaded in to Oblivion. Say yes to OB conflicts and the record header warning at the end, because the following 8 NPCs already exist in both games:

Boderifarano, Neesha, Greythroat, Volanaro, HamlofRedtooth, Umbra Termanwe & Umbacano.

There are other things TESPort can export too (such as books) and there'll be more in future.

What Vality7 has also shown is that it is possible to legally re-use some converted ESM content if you ask carefully (and with your skills at moderation and diplomacy KuKulzA you should have no problem). Had you wanted to start with the original Vvardenfell heightmap, chances are you could have if you asked them. Using the original NPC names and characteristics should be possible, indeed if not it would be a stupid restriction.

I've been dabbling with scaling landmasses up and down too, but if you want something completely new, so be it.

On the plus side, sounds like you now have more heightmaps/heightmappers than you can throw a stick at.

Lightwave

* edit * Woops, brain fade on Vality7's name.

[Killamike718]

By the way, lets say, you want to make an exact morrowind remake, could this tool import quest's and export them for use in oblivion, I probably dont know what im talking about but, I hope you understand me.

[KuKulzA]

well NPC-wise that would be cool...
tell me, can I still import the NPCs? and... if I do... they won't be in the right coordinates because it will be a new Vvardenfell? the NPC idea IS cool, though we are considering having a race called "native Dunmer" which will look a bit guant and more nativre and have tatoos, but it shouldn't be a huge problem...

[Lightwave]

Originally posted by KuKulzA
well NPC-wise that would be cool...
tell me, can I still import the NPCs? and... if I do... they won't be in the right coordinates because it will be a new Vvardenfell? the NPC idea IS cool, though we are considering having a race called "native Dunmer" which will look a bit guant and more nativre and have tatoos, but it shouldn't be a huge problem...

You don't need to import NPC's co-ordinates to get the NPCs. In both TES3 and TES4 the NPC_ records are stored near the top of the ESM/ESP. Placed NPCs (i.e. copies of the originals with X,Y,Z co-ordinates) appear as sub-records of CELL records so they're in entirely different locations. If you don't import cells then no placed objects will be imported either. The ESP I linked to in my previous post gives the 2675 NPCs ready for placing in any new internal or external cells. It's just an ESP contained NPC_ records. They'll appear in the NPC drop-down list in TESCS and contain the following data from the original Morrowind.esm:

1. Name
2. Race
3. Gender

4. Class (there are a handful that don't exist as same-name classes in Oblivion, but there's a commar-delimited lookup file that comes with TESPort that covers all the matches). The few that haven't got an equivalent have become commoners (Wise Woman and Shipwright looked to be the only two significant classes that have been reduced to Commoner).

5. Vital stats (strength, fatigue etc).

6. Skills (Blade, Blunt, Alchemy etc.) For Oblivion's dumbed-down skill system the higher skill has been chosen. e.g. The better skill score for Axe & Blunt has been used for Blunt & the better score for LongBlade and ShortBlade has been chosen for Blade.

7. Basic AI (fight, flee, alert etc). These work slightly differently to MW though and as they stand atm, above normal aggression guards of different classes start murdering one another. If you run TESPort as it is on Morrowind.esm and walk/ride in to any town, such as Balmora, the Hlaalu (sp!) Guards systematically start murdering the locals, starting with the ones of opposite race. Racist b@$t@rd$! It's the guards that seem the guilty ones. The Imperial guards do the same, but then every Morrowinder might expect no less from a bunch of tin-header oppressors. I should maybe reduce the fight values a bit from the MW numbers.
The guards don't attack you however, whereas dreamers and some ashlanders do, just like in the original game. I did find one aggressive Orc woman perched out on the edge of a hill near ghostfence who knocked my horse tumbling down the slope with one lucky punch - with me still on it. I didn't know that was even possible in OB!

8. Each race/gender combination has a specific face/hair combination - 20 in all. Generating more specific ones takes time (e.g. most races have 5 different faces in MW, some like Dumner have even more). Ideally I'd have a set of faces roughly similar to the MW ones which would create more accurate diversity amongst races. i.e. All Male Imperials look like other male imperials atm.

9. All Armour has been replaced with Oblivion's equivalent. In most cases the match is simple (Imperial Armour becomes Legion Armour). Steel, iron, silver, glass etc exist in both. Templar armour is replaced by Oblivion's Dragon Armour. No pauldrons or bracers exist in OB so they were thrown out. Left/right gauntlets are replaced by 2 pairs of gauntlets (OB does not distinguish between hands). Obviously only one of those pairs gauntlets will be equipped. Chitin was replaced by deer skin or leather. I think bonemold had something similar (deer skin/leather) but not quite the same. Visually bonemold has no equal, these are just the best equivalents for strength and value.
Of course ideally you'd want to put Morrowindish style armour on these NPCs when you have the meshes available. OB's Legion late-medieval/LOTR style armour looks especially dull compared to MW's Roman-style emblem armour. I think Ordinator stuff ended up being replaced with Mithril, there were no other heavy distinct armours available in OB.

10. All Weapons have been replaced similarly. Stock OB lacks many of the MW weapon types so crossbows became longbows, all shortbows, longbows became longbows, halberds became battle-axes. spears became daggers (yeah, I know, they're quite different, it's just that all Imperial archers in MW have a bow+arrow and a spear and the most logical thing for an archer to use as a secondary weapon is a dagger).
Items like chitin weapons became iron weathers (the lowest category of weapon in OB). Dart throwers are a problem. Currently they are given arrows, but with no bow they'll go hand-to-hand.

11. All common/expensive/extravagent and exquisite pants, shirts, robes, and shoes have been replaced with the closest colour combination match in OB.

All the lookup files for swapping MW classes, armour, weapons and clothing to OB are contained in CSV text files (which contain the MW name and the OB FormID), so they're simple to customize. e.g. If you already have working MW armour, you can just change the entries in Notepad or Excel. I could even, if you have better equivalents available.
I should put races in an equivalent lookup file (they're hard-coded atm) so if you wanted to replace all the imported 'Dumner' with 'Native Dumner', you just use a different FormID.
If you wanted to do something more specific (e.g. change all Ashlanders to 'Native Dumner') I could tell TESPort to do that. All I'd need is the FormID of the newly created 'Native Dumner' race - e.g. gathered from the Oblivion TESCS.

NB. Faction information is currently not imported - they're all set to Generic. That seemed another tricky one to go through to create an equivalent working list since so many factions do not exist between the games. However, it can be done with a lookup list, but I haven't bothered generating one.

Also spells have not been imported, there are just so many differences between OB's and MW's spells, it'd require another manually created lookup list.

Lightwave

p.s. To make it easy to find MW NPCs in the Oblivion TESCS, I could prefix all the NPC EditorIDs with, say, MW_ or something. That'll also make it easier to identify which NPCs might have been overlooked and not been placed.

Originally posted by Killamike718: By the way, lets say, you want to make an exact Morrowind remake, could this tool import quest's and export them for use in oblivion,

Not yet, but it's something I started decoding the ESP format of for both games, I'm just scratching my head trying to understand TES4's texture format atm - some of it looks pretty weird and unintuitive thus far. The dialogue and quest systems work a bit differently, until I get my head around it I won't know how plausible it is, but I'm sure getting dialogue in should be possible at least. They're all eventual goals of TESPort anyway.

I'm not sure whether the Neravine quests form part of this TES IV: Vvardenfell project though since there's something like 6 years difference between TES3: Morrowind and TES4: Oblivion. It would probably upset Bethesda too - half of Morrowind is the game, graphics, land etc. The other half is the main storyline - and most players don't play much past the main storyline. But I really don't know ...

[Mormacil]

I think the Nerevar will be part of Akavir

[KuKulzA]

Originally posted by Mormacil
I think the Nerevar will be part of Akavir

and Nerevarine will be part of Vvardenfell

[Mormacil]

mutliple personality disorder? In that case Dagoth Ur is alos joining us?