Agaist Bethesda's wishes?

[haloblivion]

Is it against Bethesda to export the heightmap from Morrowind to a bitmap and then import it into Oblivion?

At the moment, I do not want to reveal what program I used, but it worked perfectly. And now I can enjoy

running around Vvardenfell.

 

But if anyone can answer my question, I would be very greatful.

Thanks.

[Ghogiel]

Ask them. PM Gstaff on the bethesda forums.

 

probably no.

 

oddly though...

 

IIRC The Vvarandenfel mod team from silgrad tower did something similar, can't remember exactly what.... someone, I beileve lightwave, asked bethesda and what they did was sanctioned at one point. iirc a 4x sized morrowind was the project or something. sorry vague memory. not that it'll do you any good, the beth forums purge topics after a certain time of inactivity.. so everthing from that era of oblivion modding is wiped.

 

either asking a (ex)team member or snooping around their old forums on silgrad tower might shed some light on what happened there.

[TodaY]

I don't think they will allow it, as using content from one game in another game is illegal, but you can always try

[Vagrant0]

They'll probably say no, but honestly I don't think they'd care in this particular case. The heightmap from one game won't have the same proportions when used in another, and even a partially functional mod based on that heightmap would require countless hours of work. Added to the fact that there are currently dozens of Morrowind re-creation attempts, and it would be pointless to try and track down who has done what and how, especially when you will almost certainly be making changes to the terrain at some point,

 

That said, you're probably better off doing something NEW, or helping one of those projects that are already in progress instead of taking from one game and trying to put it in another. Had you not asked, nobody would have likely noticed this, given what it is, and regardless, it's been done before and will likely be done again.

[Dark0ne]

Bethesda have often said something along the lines of "not asking is better than asking" and "if there's a problem we'll let you know", like they did Morroblivion. To be fair, I don't think anyone knows for sure.

[Megatarius]

Why would it be illegal if you're just doing it for yourself? As long as you pay for the games of course....

 

Uploading it, yes, that would be wrong because you're distributing content.

[bben46]

If they are not sure and you don't ask, they are very likely to ignore it. But, if you ask, then they must recognize it and respond. Even though they would probably just let it slide otherwise. When you ask a company if something is 'legal' they must refer it to their lawyers - who make their living finding illegal things to sue for.

 

So even if Beth really doesn't care, you will be told No. Because some lawyer who really doesn't understand precisely what it is you are doing says no to cover his tail.

 

Where if you do it without asking, you risk spending a lot of time, then being ordered to cease and desist if it really is something they don't want modders to do. The actual probability of being sued is extremely small. If you try to make money from whatever it is, then they will either demand you stop or demand a royalty, or both. If there is no money involved the worst case, you get a nasty letter from a lawyer saying don't do that.