xoreos - Reimplementing BioWare's 3D games

xoreos - Reimplementing BioWare's 3D games

Postby DrMcCoy » 07 Feb 2015, 10:05

Image

Brief

xoreos is an ongoing FLOSS project to reimplement BioWare's Aurora engine (and derivatives) as used in their 3D games, beginning with Neverwinter Nights, up to and including Dragon Age 2.. The goal is to have a portable program to play those games even on operating systems they were never meant to be played on, such as GNU/Linux and Mac OS X.

While xoreos itself is free software licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or later (GPLv3+), it requires the original (proprietary) game data of those games and as such, xoreos is akin to projects like ScummVM, ResidualVM and GemRB

Current status

In its current state, xoreos is still far away from its goal. At the moment, we are able to load resource archives and read basic file formats. Video and sound playing works, models are partially supported, and for earlier games, areas are shown and even some very basic gameplay exists.

Image Image Image

Specifically, the "most implemented" game in xoreos is the first Neverwinter Nights game. The main menu works partially, and you can select a module or game to play and a character to play it with. Then the module loads, showing its entry area in which you can fly around in a kind of "spectator mode". Clicking on objects or creatures starts their default action, for example starting a conversation with an NPC. Scripts are partially evaluated: the door in the entry area of the NWN OC opens itself after telling the NPC beside it that you don't require a camera tutorial. Of course, with a lot of systems and script functions still left to implement, the game does not progress much further.

Secondly, there's the two Knights of the Old Republic games. Again, the main menu, modules and areas work partially, but the script system is not hooked in yet, and dialogues don't work either.

Recently, I worked on getting the Neverwinter Nights 2 areas in a similar state. I wrote a blog post about it.

Currently, I'm reversing the model format for Jade Empire, and when those are implemented, I plan to extend basic area loading to Jade Empire as well.

Help wanted

With such a massive project, there's of course a lot of demand for additional contributors. We need people who have fun reverse-engineering the games, implementing file format loaders and furthering the game engines in xoreos. There's no real roadmap, but there is a (non-exhaustive) TODO list with some pointers on where to start.

So please, contact us! :)

Further information

User avatar
DrMcCoy
 
Posts: 14
Joined: 05 Feb 2015, 06:49
Location: Braunschweig, Germany

Re: xoreos - Reimplementing BioWare's 3D games

Postby beoran » 13 Feb 2015, 21:20

Cool to see someone is working on this. I'm too busy with my own projects but I hope you'll hang in there and be successful!
beoran
 
Posts: 35
Joined: 03 Feb 2013, 22:27

Re: xoreos - Reimplementing BioWare's 3D games

Postby DrMcCoy » 02 Feb 2016, 15:14

In case anybody is interested in an update, because it's been a year since my original post here:


I also wrote an end-of-the-year retrospective and thanksgiving-type of post.

There's also a recording on YouTube of xoreos running Neverwinter Nights here:

youtu.be/_EZRvDIB7wI

It's from the 0.0.2 release, so some things (reflective environment mapping, speech bubbles for one-liners) is missing there, but in general, that's still the visible state of things.

All in all, it's been a pretty productive year. I still need more contributors, though. Anybody interesed, please contact us. :)

EDIT: I'm also still interested in having the xoreos blog within one of the planet RSS feeds. I'm not getting any answer on any contact option, though...
User avatar
DrMcCoy
 
Posts: 14
Joined: 05 Feb 2015, 06:49
Location: Braunschweig, Germany

Re: xoreos - Reimplementing BioWare's 3D games

Postby DrMcCoy » 02 Feb 2016, 17:33

Oh, and here's an interview I did with The Linux Gamer:


youtu.be/kDEmpUJviRM

In my badly accented, nervous, mumbly English. :)
User avatar
DrMcCoy
 
Posts: 14
Joined: 05 Feb 2015, 06:49
Location: Braunschweig, Germany

Re: xoreos - Reimplementing BioWare's 3D games

Postby Imerion » 03 Feb 2016, 00:01

Nice to see this project is doing well! I remember playing the Linux version of Neverwinter Nights a bunch of years ago, but I doubt I would get it to run on my current system. Would be nice to play it again, together with some other Bioware games. Good luck with your project!
Try my games! : My Games - Read my FOSS Games Blog! : Free Game News
Imerion
 
Posts: 100
Joined: 09 Apr 2011, 19:37

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest