Glossary
Active grid
The cell or cells that are currently active because the player is in/near them. When the player is in an interior this is a single cell. When the player is in an exterior, it is a 3x3 grid of cells centered on the player.
Actor
A creature or NPC.
AI
Alternatively the Abecean Isles project or artificial intelligence.
Bleeding
When two meshes intersect, they are said to be bleeding into each other.
BSA
Bethesda Softworks Archive. A file containing meshes and textures.
Caspering
"Caspering" is when part of a mesh with no backfaces, such as the top of a column or the outside of a room tile, is visible from an angle which the player can reach without console commands. It's different from floating because even totally solid meshes, like books, can float, and even correctly placed meshes can casper if they don't have the right neighbors. The word "caspering" comes from an old American comic book/cartoon series called "Casper the Friendly Ghost." The character is partially see-through, and a movie based on the comics came out in 1995, so it was a familiar reference in the English-speaking TES3 modding community back in the day.
Cobbling
"Cobbling" is when multiple objects are assembled together to create something new, rather than requesting a dedicated asset. Similar in concept to "kitbashing".
Content Files
The ESM, ESP, and BSA files, as well as all meshes, textures, audio, and video files. The game minus the engine.
CS
Alternatively TESCS or OpenMW-CS. Usually the former.
Engine
Alternatively Morrowind.exe or OpenMW. The game engine.
EoA
EPoS / EPS
ESM
Elder Scrolls Master. A master file on which other master files and plugins can depend. Composed of records.
ESP
Elder Scrolls Plugin. A plugin file dependent on a master file. Composed of records.
Floater
An object in the world that defies gravity. This is a common issue that should be reported so it can be fixed.
Greenlight
"Greenlight" refers to an error in Morrowind's lighting calculation in which orange lights can instead cast green lights when it either has too large a radius or is too close to an object's vertices. This should be avoided by either selecting a lower radius version of that light or moving the light to be closest to the center of the offending object's faces.
HR427
MCP
The Morrowind Code Patch. An unofficial patch for Morrowind.exe.
Mesh
A 3D model.
MGE / MGE-XE
The Morrowind Graphics Extender. Extends the graphical capabilities of Morrowind.exe.
MMC
The Morrowind Modding Community. A Discord server.
MOP
The Morrowind Optimization Patch. A mesh replacer that aims to improve performance while fixing issues with the vanilla meshes.
Morrowind.exe
The game engine created by Bethesda Softworks based on NetImmerse. Used in conjunction with content files to play Morrowind.
MWSE
The Morrowind Script Extender. Extends the scripting capabilities of Morrowind.exe.
Oldwind
See Morrowind.exe. Compare "Oldrim", the term used to refer to the original TES5: Skyrim release as opposed to the Skyrim Special Edition. In this case the new version of the engine is OpenMW.
OpenMW
An open source engine project. Used in conjunction with content files to play Morrowind as an alternative to Morrowind.exe.
OpenMW-CS
OpenMW's version of the Construction Set.
P:C
PfP
Patch for Purists. An unofficial patch for Morrowind's content files.
PI
Project Tamriel Rebuilt
Portmanteau of Project Tamriel and Tamriel Rebuilt. Used to refer to both projects simultaneously.
PT
PTR
PV
Record
An ESP/ESM file is a list of records and subrecords. Records include everything called an "object" in TESCS, as well as cells, scripts, sounds, classes, etc. Cell records contain references.
Reference
An object in the world; an instance. Called a reference because they reference a base record. Each reference also has its own data, separate from the shared base. For example: ownership, locks and traps, position, rotation, scale, etc.
Every reference has a number that uniquely identifies it within a file, the "RefNum". These numbers are not unique across different files. When loading the game, RefNums are combined with the index of the file that contains them in the load order to create an identifier that is unique across all files. These identifiers are not stable because the load order can change. When loading a file in the CS, a similar thing happens. Except in this case the load order is the list of master files the file depends on. This is the reason "plugins cannot edit/override plugins". Note that two plugins can still define a record with the same ID, overriding one another.
S:HotN / SHotN
T_D / TD
TES
The Elder Scrolls.
TES3
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. A way to refer to the game that is less ambiguous than "Morrowind" which could also refer to the province.
TESCS
The Elder Scrolls Construction Set. The editor used to create plugin files.
Texture
An image file used by a 3D model.
TR
Vanilla
Original. Depending on the context, either Morrowind.exe (the vanilla engine), or the original content files.