Features

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Revision as of 17:47, 12 July 2014 by Scrawl (talk | contribs)
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This page attempts to keep track of features added to OpenMW that were not part of the original Morrowind engine.

Scripting

  • Stricter compiler and compiler warnings. Error handling in the vanilla MW script compiler was very limited.
  • Function arguments can now be expressions of arbitrary complexity. Vanilla MW would not even allow simple variable arguments for some functions.
  • Arbitrary limitations on code depth/size are not present anymore. For example, there was a limit on how deep you can nest if/endif clauses. And there was also a limit on the length of a if/endif block.
  • Fixed a large number of miscellaneous pitfalls and limitations.

GUI

  • World map adjusts automatically to fit new landmass from mods such as Tamriel Rebuilt
  • Improved save/load dialogs. Saves are organized by character
  • Improved item selection dialog
  • Improved and resizable alchemy dialog
  • Improved console (colors, tab completion of commands and object IDs)
  • Copy&paste from system clipboard

Input

  • Hardware cursors - this means the GUI cursor is always fluent, independent of the framerate.

Media

  • Image formats: all formats supported by FreeImage
  • Audio and video formats: all formats supported by FFmpeg

Graphics

  • Unclamped lighting
    • Morrowind used the fixed function pipeline which imposes a limit on the maximum amount of lighting. This typically made day-time lighting look flat. (Add comparison screenshots)
  • Support normal, specular, and parallax maps (TextureModding)
  • Support for all resolutions
  • Adjustable field of view
  • Anisotropic filtering
  • Depth shadow mapping
  • More accurate sun flare using occlusion queries
  • Smooth cloud transition when switching to a different weather

Terrain

  • Uses alpha-splatting (fixes all visible seams)
  • Built-in distant terrain support

Misc

  • Camera zoom in third person mode
  • Multiple data directories (see Mod installation)

Selected Bugfixes

Since OpenMW is written from scratch, almost all bugs in the Morrowind engine do not affect OpenMW in the first place. Attempting to list them all would be a futile effort, but the most game-breaking ones are worth mentioning:

  • Infinite merchant restock fix
    • Selling an item to a merchant would permanently increase the restock capacity of that item, making it easy to buy enormous amounts of an item very quickly. This exploit no longer exists in OpenMW.
  • Owner contamination fix
    • When an item owned by an NPC is stolen, it could "contaminate" a stack of similar items and flag the whole stack as stolen. OpenMW creates a separate stack for non-stolen items.
  • Savegame doubling fix
    • Morrowind's savegame system suffers from a design flaw that could cause objects to duplicate. This should never happen in OpenMW.