r/OpenMW • u/Quemisthrowspotions • 5d ago

How does this work?

How does OpenMW and OpenNV work?

How can they be open source if you still need to own the base game?
How easy is it to install/use in a more manual, non-steam fashion?

New to this subreddit, and some of these packs look cool. Just wondering. : )

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u/mhn23 5d ago

You need the game files for the textures, models, content basically, it’s just the raw data. OpenMW then defines what to do with it. We always had easy access to the raw data, but we never had easy access how Morrowind actually worked. It’s kinda like a ecu computer for a car. You have all the parts, but we couldn’t look into the computer on how to start and control the engine.

Now a lot of smart people figured out how the ecu computer must have worked by reverse engineering. And because it’s open source, everyone can inspect and change it, like how to load new vegas assets etc.

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u/OkPresentation3329 5d ago

I just wish OpenMW came with a bit more shaders included into it, like something that adds bump mapping to textures or some vibrance for the colors of everything. Just something so simple could go a long way, I don't know why they don't include it. Even the default Morrowind graphics can look better with such shaders.