Importing/Recreating FONW in the FO4 Engine

[Koopak]

So I have been contemplating the feasibility of bringing the FO4 Engine improvements to New Vegas (since it will take ALOT of DLC and mods to make FO4 as enjoyable to me as FONV)

 

So this discussion id like to discuss two particular points, the legality and issues there of, for instance would it be enough to write a EULA and File check to confirm the installer owns all of the appropriate software and accepts responsibility for the repercussions of not owning NV and FO4 plus dlcs.

 

Second Id like to discuss the technical difficulties such a project would face, I'm not worried about work load, only how much would HAVE to be recreated from scratch.

 

I am somewhat new to the modding scene, having not done anything iv released save for a small project in HW:RE but I have been poking around with using the tools for Skyrim as they came out.

[Dhegonus]

either bethesda or obsidian will tell you to take it down or face legal action. Bethesda did it with the 2 or 3 mods that tried in the past to "port" one game from the other with the elder scroll series of games and i do believe they are not allowed to be discussed here for that very reason. So it would stand to reason a mod like that would be shut down, too.

 

But you could recreate the entire game from scratch and make every single texture your self and write very bit of scripting yourself and then get all the hundreds of voice actors to do lines. But that would take a long while, a very long while. Generally it is not a good idera for a new modder as people will be unwilling to help on such a scale for some one who has no gravitas and is unproven.

 

So i say to you. Prove to the modding the community you can do something. Create a new world space with a series of quests and stories and go from there. We all start somewhere.. but jumping into the deep end and going straight for a mod that would require atleast 2 years to make from scratch? A bit too much too soon if you ask me.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Dhegonus

[Perraine]

One way to avoid having the corporate dogs hunting you down is to not include any assets whatsoever from the source game. This has worked for a couple of mods for FO:3/NV. Basically you create all the files required (.ESP, .BAT etc.) but the downlaoder must then copy the assets files over from their own installation of FO:3/NV.

 

So if you want to re-create an armour asset from NV, you create the .ESP which inserts it into the new game engine, then tell people they must extract and use the files from "xxx.bsa" from their own copy of NV and place them into the "xxx/xxx/xxx" directory.

By not including any copyrighted assets in your mod, you are not violating any rules or T&C's, and Bugthesda cannot claim any infringement on their IP.

[holytimes]

Honestly the closet thing you probably could get would be the same as the guys doing OpenMW... Make a new engine by your self/team and then have the player import the assets them self. At that point your just making a "emulator" and emulators are in totally legal. As long as you dont include the orginal assets in any way, shape, form, idea, concept, wildest fantasy, your golden! You just have to make it clear you are strictly building a way to play the game in its original state. And thats where the problem lies... To do this takes a nearly unfathomable amount of work and honestly not really worth the effort... I would love to see it although.

 

Mind i am not sure calling it a emulator would be totally right but it's honestly the closest thing i can think of to call it. So not to be a party pooper but this same idea happens every time big B releases a new game. If you honestly plan to do this ask your self, are you willing to dedicate 3-5 years to the project? If you are not willing to say that then there is little hope for the project. I am not saying it will take 3-5 years it could take less it could take more the point is your basically making a whole triple A game. No matter what path you take you have to recreate large parts of the assets the code and the framework that it all runs on in one way or another. If you haven't ever made a game (Not a mod cause at this point you have past the point of "mod" as we use the term.) then its extremely hard if not impossible to judge the time this will take.

 

I wish you luck if you do start the project and may the great software gods watch over your project.

[Koopak]

This is mostly scouting the idea, I'm well aware i have no reputation but I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. I'm actually planning on releasing my first pass of some kit bashing weapon reworks for FO4 soon as I finish my own testing.

 

As far as the legality, Perraine basically took the words out of my mouth for the legal work around.

 

I'm well aware of the EXTENSIVE project this would be, even a dedicated full time team could expect something like this taking between one and three years depending on the amount we could successfully copy rather than recreate. However, its this or wait for Obsidian to get another crack with the engine, which I hope they do. As my goal and career is game design I have no fear of committing to a project like this if I choose to as it will only help me in the long run.

 

 

So focusing on the technical difficulties, I'd like to ask about the actual process of importing NV files, obviously id need to make an automated installer that did this for each individual install but that's simple comparatively, I have some code experience and have several resources for that.

 

What I want to know if the specifics, say I want to port in the over world into the FO4 Engine, what would be necessary, Would I need to open the packed NV files and repack them under a new packer for the new engine, would i need to re bake the meshes, so on, what exactly do I need to accomplish. Basically what functional differences are there in how FO4's engine handles its resources compared to NV that we know about (obviously cracking open the game is an ongoing process, especially with the GECK not yet out.)

[Koopak]

I was hoping to have more technical conversation at this point

[Dhegonus]

if you want to "port" you have to do everything from scratch, all the coding, textures, models, meshes, scripts etc from scratch. There is nothing really technical to talk about beyond that currently until you actually get into it.

[TheTalkieToaster]

This is mostly scouting the idea, I'm well aware i have no reputation but I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. I'm actually planning on releasing my first pass of some kit bashing weapon reworks for FO4 soon as I finish my own testing.

 

As far as the legality, Perraine basically took the words out of my mouth for the legal work around.

 

I'm well aware of the EXTENSIVE project this would be, even a dedicated full time team could expect something like this taking between one and three years depending on the amount we could successfully copy rather than recreate. However, its this or wait for Obsidian to get another crack with the engine, which I hope they do. As my goal and career is game design I have no fear of committing to a project like this if I choose to as it will only help me in the long run.

 

 

So focusing on the technical difficulties, I'd like to ask about the actual process of importing NV files, obviously id need to make an automated installer that did this for each individual install but that's simple comparatively, I have some code experience and have several resources for that.

 

What I want to know if the specifics, say I want to port in the over world into the FO4 Engine, what would be necessary, Would I need to open the packed NV files and repack them under a new packer for the new engine, would i need to re bake the meshes, so on, what exactly do I need to accomplish. Basically what functional differences are there in how FO4's engine handles its resources compared to NV that we know about (obviously cracking open the game is an ongoing process, especially with the GECK not yet out.)

There's a lot of topics already open on the differences between F3/NV->F4 assets. Notably, the archive and texture formats have been changed (the texture format substantially), so you could start there. However, you *will* need to completely rewrite all the scripts- old Bethscript was a very simple affair, Papyrus is an OO language which particularly handles references in scripts very differently.

 

Really though having a technical conversation before we have most of the forms fully decoded and the GECK isn't out is basically a waste of time.