[TOOL] Project Andoran Plugin Converter

We have trouble with LANDs' sizes at the moment. Real size is not equal to calculated size. And I do not know how it could be. But it is. So that is the problem. If I will fix it, I think that the land will work ok.

There is the exe of converter as it is. It has a memory leaks at the moment. Haven't time to fix yet.

Anruin, I got intrigued by your work on a converter.

I have several years of experience in several programming languages (I'm a computational molecular biologist). Maybe I could lend a hand or have a look at the code with you as well?

Send me a PM if interested.

Cheers 

Anruin

Mooncat, I think that it is good idea to have some plan of job to do in the nearest time. You guys can spend your time converting models with our nif-converter. RobertNeville has the copy. You can spend your time recreating NPCs and entering dialogues for them, putting into single ESP. Into that ESP you can later merge ESP(s ) with converted data that you will get with converter. Also I can provide you the converter as it is at the moment. You can convert most of translateable forms and interiors. So you will be able to make interiors at least. Later you will be able to merge-in the exteriors. But I think that it would be the best that you will decide what you will transfer first - Oblivion or Morrowind (Morroblivion). Maybe you will need to merge them into single file to have them converted without troubles.

I updated the plan in this thread last night: http://morroblivion.com/forums/conversion-to-skyrim/general/2421

Because of the way Skyrim handles quests, we can start working on those, too.  We'll just have to go in and hook up the aliases properly when we have the converter.  Based on the discussions we've been having, I believe the current plan is to start with Morrowind (Morroblivion).

Sjors Boomschors

It does not appear to do much.
When I run example_d.exe I get a very small files foo.gz 31 bytes.
When I run minigzip_d.exe it opens a black window, but that’s it.

 

 

What? 'O_o\ Converter has one and only one executable file named "Chuvakin.exe" and also it uses zlib1.dll library. Also optionally there can be ini file named Chuvakin.ini with io, localization and forms/groups skip parameters.

There are not any example_d.exe or minigzip_d.exe. O_o!

Hey, Anry, you here too!

Помогаем западным колегам осваивать esp/esm? И ответь мне уже в Skype :)

Anruin,

I do not see any link to download the Chuvakin.exe archived file,is it available.?

i think you'd need to pm Anruin. Personally i would wait till the Andoran team are happy with their converter to release it, whats the point in an unfinished converter? The finished product would be more bug free. ;)

Ok. The result of a lot of sleepless nights...

EDIT: Exterior cells are working OK. But we need to fix LANDs. Something with them is not OK - those square holes.

S.B. > How??? You do not understand what you're talking about :)

Is that part of the Oblivion Imperal City [top left] Anruin.?

And just a thought [a wild quess actually],is thier any water in those square holes.?

It does not look like a land size problem though as those holes are spaced a lot of grids apart.?

It is Magin city from the Andoran. Square holes in the land is sort of bug I can't get solved at the moment. There are always Quad 3 of cell landscape. All landscape data is ported as it is from Oblivion's es files. So I don't know why it happens.

Umm! It`s wierd,is there anything [another wild quess] you can spot about those holes [data wise] that might give you any clues.?

What I mean I quess is,is there any pattern to where they are,or are they just random.

Clutching at straws really but it definately looks like some data [land cell info] is corrupted.

 I am not very well informed about land cells,but is quad 3 x 3 == [[4 x 3] x [4 x3]]= 144 cells.?

Putting it another way,does the land miss out detail at those holes,or does the land continue after those holes as normal.?

If there would be something weird, I will see it. But no. I have not any clues. Landscape in Oblivion is OK, landscape in Skyrim is not OK. It is just copied as is without any transformations. So I have not any clues.

Like as I said, and as you can see with your own eyes that they are one quad of the cell in size, third quad.

Quad is the 1/4 of the cell. 4096^2 / 4 = 1024^2 game units. Try to press H in render window and then I key. And you will see quads texture info like an example of what quads are.

I see that it is corrupted somehow. But I don't know how. Because it is just copied. We don't make any modifications to it. Chuvakin unpacks Oblivion's landscape forms, removes base and additional textures information and saves Vertex Height, Vertex Normals, and Vertex Colors information. In the same time it calculates the size of data. Then it packs the data of the LAND form with ZLIB and saves it into output file, producing the complete Skyrim's LAND form in the Skyrin's data file.

I don't know where you have got that 144 cells, but that is wrong information.

As you can see, there is no land only in these holes. And around them there is normal landscape. I think that they can be fixed with heightmap editor until we wouldn't find the solution.

Guys, sorry about that, but if you don't know anything about the point of topic, like the structure of data files, programming, binary files in general, etc. don't write such comments please.

What I want to say. I will prepare readme file for the Chuvakin and then I will release its incomplete version, let us say, the beta. So, you all will be able to test it and maybe together we will get any results with those holes and find another bugs. Who knows? We haven't much time to test it, or to check output files which it generates. So it could be that it makes more errors in data files.

Anruin,

I think we have a slight lanquage problem between us when just using text.I am from the UK and therefore phase a lot of text differently than those in the US.

I did not get the cell info from anywhere,I just assumed,obviously wrongly that a "quad" which is 4 mean`t 4 cells.

If my thinking had been correct that would mean that 3 quads would be 12 cells, and 12 times 12 equals 144.

But like I stated I do not know much about how land cells are generated.

Was just trying to help,and my question about wether the land was missing at those holes was to indicate that if it was it might continue normally after the hole.And if that is the case then after the hole problem is solved it will all just fall into place.

Yes, I know it. Saw it. But there are no sources. So it is unuseful for us.

The testing version. Anyone who will use it please report any experience you will have with it. This is very important to make the app better.

All hail the Andoran team.

This looks AWESOME!!!

Hey, S.B., thank you for this.

We have tried to export raw data from the CS and import it into CK. It has holes too :D so I need guy proficient with HEX-editors and binary files analyze to study differences in the LAND/CELL forms in Oblivion/Skyrim/Chuvakin-converted files.

EDIT: Ah.. this program is used to extract RAW data from Oblivion. Not to import it into Skyrim. And like as I said CK imports that data broken and the reason is unknown.

EDIT: I fixed those square holes.

Good to hear your sorted out your problem, i had contacted the creator of TESAnnwyn, Lightwave, to see if you could use the source for that in your work but i'm yet to hear back, but looks like your sorted now :)

What was causing the problem?

I think you can simple regenerate you HeightMap - export this from Oblivion.
It just more simple.

Please explain it to me, and I will try it.

Och, forget it, I just understand that you can't get land textures from HiegthMap.

Macorn

I think you can simple regenerate you HeightMap - export this from Oblivion.
It just more simple.

Sorry guys. We tried to export heightmaps from the CS and import them in the CK. And we got those holes too. I have partially fixed this in the new version, but it somehow crashes with Oblivion ini while parsing the BOOK group. In the new version we have not those holes those cannot be fixed with CK. But we have about 1/3 of all world's landscape not opened in the CK. It shows it as the flat-default height land. But references are translated and the world heightmap can be fixed with heightmap editor in the CK. We are working on this bug. Also we are getting it ready to be released. Source C++ files will be included.

This is amazing! I'm really impressed on how far this project has come, I've been following it for 2 years now and it just gets better. Can't believe you guys are converting it to Skyrim.

Alright, I have a really noobish question:

We're getting tools that  convert oblivion.nifs to skyrim.nifs, and that's awesome. But this converter, it converts the esm, right? Meaning with it we'll be able to see the Oblivion Cyrodiil with all of it's buildings and items (minus quests and AI and those guys we can't convert over)?

Am I reading this right?

Like, we won't have to re-hand place every item in Oblivion / morrowind?

Thanks. :D

Right. It converts Bethesda plugin data files. We have no permission to convert Bethesda's master files. But it is true that their structure is the same as the structure of plugin files. Chuvakin will be released both with sources. So you can make it converting the master files. But it will be your own risk, let's say the custom build of the app not related to Andoran.

You will be able to get all base objects from any Oblivion's plugin, which are available for conversion (I have pointed them before). You will have all the references converted which will have base objects. Objects like buildings, nature elements like rocks and flora (and trees soon). So you won't have to manually place every item in converted plugin.

That's awesome, and I totally get what you're saying about esp's verses esms. I'm very glad that you are sharing the esp converter with us. :D

Thanks for answering my noob question!

Any news on the progress?

Yeah were all waiting for a new release ! Last version had gaps in the ground. Still hoping to get a version without those gaps so we can start rebuilding the entire Morrowind world space, and converting stuff over to the Skyrim standard. We simply can’t do anything if the result of our actions can’t be checked in game.

I can’t wait to hear more about new fixes and new possibilities of this converter.

dude! Can you upload it so we can take a peak?

Man that's cool!

Morrowind_sk.esp

[External image]

[External image]

As you can see, the objects are in the right place, it's just the land that is messed up. So hopefully Anruin and his team figure this out. 

Kudos to the Andoran team for letting us use their converter!

Also, I made a mistake before. The converter converted our esm to an esp. It's actually Morrowind_sk.esp for right now. So we need to make it into a master file sometime.

So objects work, but they're just "!" because we need to add nif file paths, as well as scripts etc?

Man, it's definitley a start!

Thanks Robert for uploading the first prototype, and thanks Anruin and team for making this possible!

Ice

So objects work, but they're just "!" because we need to add nif file paths, as well as scripts etc?

Actually, the paths are already there, we just need to put the Skyrim nif files there. 

Wow, that's perfect. So we just need to convert the nifs. And I believe someone has provided us with a nif converter. Sweet!
So, are we gonna do this organized, or just have people claim a 'section/folder' and when their done upload a link to those files, kind of divide and conquer until all the nifs are processed? 

I think maybe a little bit of both. We'll organize what needs to be done, cut it up into little manageable pieces, and post them up as claims. I think how David set out tasks is the most effective method for our project.

We should probably get in touch with Mooncat, since he had a pretty solid plan. He also seems to know the CK pretty well while I'm still familiarizing myself with it. I've also been messing around with 3DS Max to get a feel for it and since we need it to convert the nif's using Macorn's nif converter.

But yes, I think the best place to start is converting the nifs. I don't have much experience working with nif files, but I'm going to try to mess with Macorn's converter and see how far I get. If we get the nif's converted, we'll have pretty much most of the objects placed in the exterior world, but better yet we'll have most of the interior world made, since they pretty much consist of just nifs.

So in a rough plan, we should probably start getting the nif's converted and NPC's made.

Is there a link anywhere to Macorn's nif converter,I would like to try it out.?

Morrowind to Skyrim Plan

When I click on the link you have given above,or try clicking on the actual "Morrowind to Skyrim Plan" thread it is just showing a blank thread post by Mooncat,the thread is not showing for me.?

Sounds good. I'll see you all on Mooncat's thread. :D

What`s good about it Ice.? That thread ain`t opening for me,only a blank post by Mooncat.?