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Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:37 pm
by luciusDXL
I posted this several days ago in the Bethesda forums (Past Elder Scrolls Games) but I thought some people might be interested here as well:
DaggerXL is a modern Daggerfall Engine Recreation for current Operating Systems and hardware. It will ultimately fully emulate the game of Daggerfall and then optionally enhance it by refining existing features and adding new gameplay elements that were originally intended. The game will make use of hardware acceleration providing higher resolutions, color depth, greatly improved visibility, better texture filtering, enhanced performance and more.
DaggerXL is/will be just an engine, you need the original game data to play. I will not distribute any Daggerfall assets or knowingly provide information on obtaining free copies of the game. This is a legal project, I do not intent to step on Bethesda’s toes or violate their copyrights. Daggerfall was one of the most ambitious RPGs ever made but was marred by limited technology, bugs and limited time. Many features were cut that I intend to
optionally restore. You'll be able to play classic Daggerfall if you think it was perfect as is or enjoy new features such as sailing your boat, proper morphing spells, properly saving items you place in your house furniture and more.
Now I'm sure you're thinking now, oh yeah right - how many of these have been tried and abandoned before getting anywhere... But I'm working toward a demo that you will be able to play soon featuring the first dungeon, Privateer's Hold, will full collision, monster combat, working doors and switches, UI and more. I'm not there yet but I do have a custom engine running Privateer's Hold with simple (though still buggy) collision, textures, flats, camera light (which needs to be tweaked). All the geometry is there and I can actually wander around the dungeon in first person.
...
I'm not allowed to post links to the blog, movie or screenshots here so for more information see the post at the Elder Scrolls forums on Bethesda's site under the same title for more information. It will show an early dungeon run through movie showing my progress so far, screenshots and my wordpress blog. You can also find the blog as the website in my profile.
...
Also I'd like to apologize for posting before reading the guidelines, I just found these forums - oddly enough since I've used information on this site about Daggerfall extensively - and wanted to mention this project.
This probably seems like "advertising" for DaggerXL but considering its purpose it seems appropriate.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:08 pm
by Kestral
I saw that post and posted in in the thread, looks pretty cool (and useful!).
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:07 am
by luciusDXL
I just wanted to let everyone know that there has been an update, including Dynamic lighting, working doors, fixed texture swaps and more. Please see the elder scrolls forums or my wordpress blog for more information. There is also a new movie showing the current progress in action.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:23 pm
by Dogmantra
I borrowed Daggerfall, and couldn't get it working. When this is done, I'm going to have to borrow it again.
[offtopic]Oh, and don't worry about not having read the rules. Your post is fine[/offtopic]
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:41 pm
by The Raven
Sorry for posting a bit late, but did you the combat system? Or is still the "hold and drag" system?
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:56 pm
by luciusDXL
The Raven wrote:Sorry for posting a bit late, but did you the combat system? Or is still the "hold and drag" system?
Initially it uses the "hold and drag" system. There will be other optional combat options in the future.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 7:31 pm
by The Raven
luciusDXL wrote:The Raven wrote:Sorry for posting a bit late, but did you the combat system? Or is still the "hold and drag" system?
Initially it uses the "hold and drag" system. There will be other optional combat options in the future.
Nice. Thank you.
Thanks for doing this

!
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:35 am
by Elliot
I can't wait for it to be completed! Good luck!
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 4:53 pm
by luciusDXL
If you visit the DaggerXL wordpress blog, you'll see that the first DaggerXL demo is out!
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 5:57 am
by The Edgy Redguard
Pssst, post the link in your sig. Ace62394 was allowed, and you should be also. I wish you luck with your endeavors, and I am looking forward to the release. Any ideas when?
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 4:24 pm
by luciusDXL
The Edgy Redguard wrote:Pssst, post the link in your sig. Ace62394 was allowed, and you should be also. I wish you luck with your endeavors, and I am looking forward to the release. Any ideas when?
A had a link to my DaggerXL blog in my sig. before and it was removed. I tried to put it back but its not allowed.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:43 pm
by The Edgy Redguard
luciusDXL wrote:The Edgy Redguard wrote:Pssst, post the link in your sig. Ace62394 was allowed, and you should be also. I wish you luck with your endeavors, and I am looking forward to the release. Any ideas when?
A had a link to my DaggerXL blog in my sig. before and it was removed. I tried to put it back but its not allowed.
Well thats not fair. Ace was allowed, but you weren't?
Anyways I found the Blog, I likey so far.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 11:58 pm
by Codex
Hmm, that is strange. I can try adding it for you, if you want.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:28 pm
by luciusDXL
Yeah I just tried it again and I get the "You are not authorized to post non-Elder Scrolls URL links, please remove or rename..." error message when I try to include a url in my signature or in a post.
There's a new post on the blog and an updated demo for those that are interested. Its at
http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/ (sorry for the funky web address with no link, its due to the error above). Sorry posting the address like that is against the rules, but this does seem relevant to Daggerfall.
And Codex if you want to add the address to my signature or a proper link in my post, please do.
Anyway post any comments you may have.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:57 pm
by Codex
luciusDXL wrote:And Codex if you want to add the address to my signature or a proper link in my post, please do.

Done

If you want any changes, just leave me a PM.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:59 pm
by luciusDXL
Thanks.

Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:51 am
by Kestral
The thing looks more promising than the last time I saw it. I have one question, this engine takes Daggerfall's files, reads and interprets them? Am I correct?
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:39 am
by luciusDXL
Kestral wrote:The thing looks more promising than the last time I saw it. I have one question, this engine takes Daggerfall's files, reads and interprets them? Am I correct?
Yes. The models, layouts, sprites, UI, item information, etc. come from Daggerfall.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 6:52 pm
by luciusDXL
I have a blog post about city rendering but in addition I've done some more work on continuous world map that I haven't posted about yet (except in the DaggerXL forums).
Anyway I've got the continuous map working. The way it works is that the game tracks which map cell the player is in (a map cell is the same size as a City block, so for example Daggerfall is 8x8 cells) and the player's coordinates within that cell. DaggerXL reads the location data from disk and stores 2 different hashes which are keyed from the map tile coordinates, one stores the location data - the location name, number of blocks, name of the blocks, etc. and then one stores the loaded block data itself (which I call "tiles"). As the player moves and changes tiles, the relative coordinates are adjusted accordingly and then the tile locations are updated. New tiles are loaded or unloaded as necessary based on the location map, and neighboring tiles are rendered or collided against based on the tile map (which has loaded tiles only). In this way tiles are loaded from location data as needed, the coordinate system is tile relative so there are no precision issues regardless of the size of the world, collision only occurs on neighboring tiles and terrain is rendered everywhere where no tile exists (or is not loaded yet). So I can travel around the Daggerfall region and go to any location. All the cities are showing up. I'm still not rendering secondary objects and flats, that is the next thing to get working.
Combine this with the increased view distance, which still won't be as far in the demo as I'm eventually planning, and you get interesting effects such as being able to see Daggerfall city from a few neighboring cities and being able to see Gothway Garden from the exit of Privateer's Hold.
Here's some screenshots of this in action:
That's Daggerfall in the background. Note that it takes a few minutes to run to Daggerfall from here. This place shows up directly south of Daggerfall on the map.
http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/files/200 ... l_map1.jpg
http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/files/200 ... l_map2.jpg
http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/files/200 ... l_map3.jpg
http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/files/200 ... l_map4.jpg
A more distant city, barely visible from Daggerfall.
http://daggerxl.wordpress.com/files/200 ... l_map5.jpg
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:11 pm
by nyk45
Oh my god!
Looks so hot. Do you have any idea of a full release date?
Also, can you make any side by side comparison with the original game?
Thank you for doing this.

Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:28 am
by Kestral
luciusDXL wrote:{text}
Are you shortening the distance between towns? It looks like it.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:17 am
by luciusDXL
Kestra wrote:Are you shortening the distance between towns? It looks like it.
Believe it or not, no. The time it takes to run between towns is about the same as Daggerfall and the character speed and FOV match up. The closer of these two towns is one "map pixel" away though, the further town maybe 1.4 pixels (diagonal). So these are supposed to be relatively close towns. They don't take long to get to at all in the original game - its just with the viewing distance you'd never know they were there.

Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:21 pm
by luciusDXL
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:39 am
by luciusDXL
I put up a new blog post that talks about the world map, flats in cities, secondary objects and foilage. Read the
blog post and let me know what you think.
Edit - there's an even newer post now about time of day, sky rendering and interiors. Let me know if you have any comments.
Re: Announcing DaggerXL - A daggerfall engine recreation
Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:16 pm
by luciusDXL
In addition to another post since my last update, I'd also like to mention that I put up a short/mid term roadmap for DaggerXL. You can find it
here. It talks about the upcoming demo (the second demo so far) as well as future demos and builds.