Developing a Novint Falcon mod for Oblivion

[novintfalcon]

We are looking to create a mod for Oblivion that allows users to play with our 3D touch controller, called the Novint Falcon (www.novint.com). The Falcon allows you to feel realistic sensations of weight, texture, and physics when playing enabled games.

 

Currently, we have a Half-Life 2 mod that achieves this - it allows users to play the full game using the Falcon in place of the standard mouse. The users are able to feel the weight and recoil of weapons, the impacts of enemy attacks, environmental explosions and effects, the sensation of piloting vehicles over terrain, and they are able to lift objects around them and feel their heft.

 

In order to create the HL2 mod, we needed a certain level of access to the game, essentially physics-level access. This allowed us to feed the Falcon all of the existing physics information already in the game.

 

Based on your experience and knowledge, do you think Oblivion would allow us enough access to accomplish the same with a mod?

 

I would appreciate any advice or input you could give that would help us determine if this is worth looking into further. Thank you for your help.

[Vagrant0]

From a modder's perspective no. Most of the physical stuff is pretty well locked away, and as is Oblivion didn't really seem to like game controllers until the latest patches. If anything like this were to be done, you would either need to contact Bethsoft directly to see if they would be willing to work with you, or if such a thing is even possible with their engine as is.

 

Otherwise, what you'd probably need to do is create an outside program that looks for changes in RAM related to what the game is doing at that particular time, and convey that information to the software used by the controller. Assuming that the controller even wants to work with Oblivion from a pure function standpoint, this outside approach would probably be buggy at best, and may cause some loss of performance. Needless to say this option would also be quite labor intensive, and require fairly high programming skills.

[novintfalcon]

Thanks, Vagrant0. It doesn't sound very promising.

[Vagrant0]

Thanks, Vagrant0. It doesn't sound very promising.

Well, I don't know much about your product or what Bethsoft had incorporated into their game. Most of what I know is from what is available to the modding community. I answered from a modding perspective, according to what is and is not doable within the engine. However I don't know much about how game controllers are used by the game, or if there is any application of force-feedback or not. This really isn't a question the modding community can answer, it's something you would have to ask Bethsoft about. Oblivion, although reasonably mod friendly, does have alot of functionality locked off from modders, limiting us essentially to only what can be achieved within the CS. Since any control functions aren't regulated or controlled by the CS, something like this is beyond the scope of mere Oblivion modding.

[SickleYield]

Sorry I missed your question earlier - I wasn't being rude, I just didn't see your answer until just now. Sadly I am not able to add anything, since I know vastly less about the structure of the game than Vagrant does - I'm pretty much just a modeler and a texturer.

 

I do know that Oblivion is far from the best engine for structural-level modding - nothing like, say, the Unreal engine in that respect.

[novintfalcon]

No problem, SickleYield. Thanks to you both.

 

A modder's perspective was exactly what I was looking for, so I appreciate your time. The question really is whether the type of functionality we'd need is locked away or not, and it sounds from your responses as though it likely is. If it's okay, I may have a few more questions for you in a bit, but what you've shared so far has been really helpful.

 

best,

J

[Jumonji]

Novint - if you want to check with the modder group most involved at that level of the engine, you should checkout the Oblivion Script Extender programmers here: http://obse.silverlock.org/ They have built a plug-in architecture for extending the game engine functions that modders can use, but I don't know if they've gotten in to the physics level.

 

Good luck - I hope it works out. Btw, I'd like a free controller for my help. :)

 

-Jumonji

[novintfalcon]

Hi Jumonji,

 

Thanks for the tip. Can I tell them you sent me?

 

If we end up being able to create a mod as a result of your tip, email me and we can talk about that controller. :)

[worm82075]

Hello,

I just checked out your website and I have got to tell you that I am very impressed. But I must ask why are you here in the modding community with this innovation when we should be your last resort? If I were you I would be knocking on Bethesda's door with this (trust me, they are much more open then most people might think and especially in your situation as Bethesda considers themselves pioneers in the field of innovation). You should have enough time (if you act now) to get compatibility with your product incorporated into their next game. I for one would definitely buy one of those controllers if it were compatible with The Elder Scrolls V.

 

If you have come here as a last resort then good luck and I hope the OBSE team can help you because I would just as surely buy your controller if it could be used with Oblivion and/or Morrowind.

[novintfalcon]

Hi worm82075,

 

Sorry for the delay in my response, and thank you for checking out the site.

 

I also appreciate your feedback. We definitely try to obtain rights to publish the "3d touch" version of a game whenever possible, by approaching the developer or publisher directly. However, we often try to create a mod for the game simultaneously as something to provide Falcon users in the meantime (or as a "proof of concept" to help convince publishers/developers of the value of the device). Because the process of integrating the Falcon into a game is usually fairly straightforward, we feel as though we can add a great game to our lineup quickly through a mod with a minimal amount of time and effort. (i.e. we're not spending time changing the content of the game - only the way in which the game is played. The game otherwise remains the same.)

 

Of course, all this assumes that a Falcon mod would even be possible, which I'm not sure of at this point. :)

 

thanks again,

J