17 réponses à ce sujet

[kamal_]

Someone's building (slowly) an open source reimplementation of the Aurora Engine.
drmccoy.de/gobsmacked/
code
github.com/DrMcCoy/xoreos

It does very little now. But I suppose if you can code, and you're interested in something like that...

[Androrc]

I think this is a great idea.

[Empyre65]

NWN's code has the D&D 3.0 rules deeply embedded in them, which is why Bioware couldn't legally release the source dode for NWN. I fear the same legal problems would plague this project. They would have to leave out the D&D stuff, which would make it not work with NWN's mods, haks, etc. If they have figured out a way around this, that's awesome!

[Androrc]

There's the Open Gaming License which was released for D&D 3rd edition, so they should be able to use the rules (they just would have to change the name of some spells and etc.).

[PlasmaJohn]

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall that the OGL only applied to non-interactive media. In other words, you can't use it for a computer game.

[WebShaman]

As long as one needs a valid version of NWN to play, I don't see the problem here.

[NWN_baba yaga]

It´s like with the nwshader for me. The only thing I´m realy interested in as a tileset creator is a workaround or implementation of real "shadowmaps/lightmaps" for nwn. Just some way to make the aurora engine able to read extern lightmaps and apply them to an area or object whatever. That would increase the quality of every tileset drastically. We could basically kick nwn2 of the edge w/o a doubt. I would even donate some money to someone capable of doing this...it´s worth 50 euros for me so think about it;)

Modifié par NWN_baba yaga, 10 août 2012 - 04:18 .

[Androrc]

PlasmaJohn wrote...

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall that the OGL only applied to non-interactive media. In other words, you can't use it for a computer game.

I've read the license many times, and I have found no such reference. Nor any other reference that would exclude computer games.

[slowdive.fan]

Keep in mind that this has already been done for previous d&d game engines (dungeon craft - gold box, GemRB - Infinity Engine) and neither of them have received a cease and desist (as far as I can tell). It is very hard to copyright a rules system (just the documents, art assets, etc.).

[NWN_baba yaga]

Problem with nwn is to many companies has their foot in it... WotC, Atari, Bioware EA...the devil too?

[slowdive.fan]

I agree, but fortunately those are all the same people who have their foot in the infinity engine yet we still have GemRB even with bgee on the way.

[OldTimeRadio]

NWN_baba yaga wrote...
The only thing I´m realy interested in as a tileset creator is a workaround or implementation of real "shadowmaps/lightmaps" for nwn. Just some way to make the aurora engine able to read extern lightmaps and apply them to an area or object whatever.

String dumps from NWMain indicate the original lightmapping code is in NWN.  The ASCII model setting is "lightmapped".  As in "lightmapped 1", I believe.  The setting also exists in the binary model structure (search for 0x0264).  Now, although it's not really a secret, most people are unaware that NWN models "technically" (note the quotes) support up to four textures per node- texture0->texture3  Those are also ASCII model commands from the nwmain.exe string dump, BTW, and they work like just like the "bitmap" command does.  As in, "bitmap mytexture".  Time for another clue, this one from the KotoR modding community.  This would seem to indicate that usage of texture0 (diffuse) and texture1 (lightmap, 8 bit?) in NWN might be the beginning of getting closer to that unexplored functionality.  There's a light mapping guide for KotoR called "Lightmapping for Dummies", though I don't have the link for it at the moment.  That would walk you through what they do.  Also, it appears that KotoR's lightmapping takes place in area lighting which would essentially be "Interior Torch-lit Only" so the ambient lighting blow everything away.

There are still a lot of things floating around in the code and a debugger and a string dump can help you find interesting bits here and there.  For instance, this is using a command which was sitting around in the game.  So was this.  The latter was discovered by Virusman last month and the former by myself about a year ago.

100% functional.  Just laying around for 10 years waiting for someone to find them.  Only somebody like Scott Greig really knows what made it in there and how it works.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 15 août 2012 - 03:32 .

[virusman]

While there is some logic associated with this field, I don't see any other methods in Aurora referencing lightmaps, so I guess it's just a field in the mdl format, never really implemented in the game itself.

[OldTimeRadio]

virusman wrote...
While there is some logic associated with this field, I don't see any other methods in Aurora referencing lightmaps, so I guess it's just a field in the mdl format, never really implemented in the game itself.

First, thank you for taking the time to look into it!  Second, any way you could cross-check something for me?  The reason why I think it might not show up in the code is that it's being passed to OpenGL as some kind of parameter.  If you look at the TXI commands (strings like "bumpreplacementtexture") do they also appear not to have methods?

[NWN_baba yaga]

VEry interesting guys, very interesting. Keep diggin bro´s;)

[Empyre65]

slowdive.fan wrote...

Keep in mind that this has already been done for previous d&d game engines (dungeon craft - gold box, GemRB - Infinity Engine) and neither of them have received a cease and desist (as far as I can tell). It is very hard to copyright a rules system (just the documents, art assets, etc.).

Are you saying that those earlier D&D games have had their source code released, including the D$D rules embedded in them, or did I misunderstand?

[slowdive.fan]

I seriously doubt that the source code was released. That would be to risky legally with no real reward for a dev. Plus the devs may have some cool tricks of the trade that they don't want to just give out to everyone. I'm sure someone just recreated all the functionality of the engine with their own code. I can see why a developer wouldn't want to give our their source code, but also not care if someone created their own code that recreates their engine.

[kamal_]

The source code to those games was not released. The people behind dungeon craft and GemRB developed the engines.