Editing Textures

[LiquidissSnake]

Where or how can you open up textures in photoshop, where are they found in the kotor folder?

[Achilles]

Originally posted by LiquidissSnake

Where or how can you open up textures in photoshop, where are they found in the kotor folder?

 

Using the Kotor Tool (link to it can be found in the "so you want to mod" stuck thread at the top of the page), open ERFs>Texture Packs. You'll have to explore the subdirectories here to find what it is you're looking for, but once you do double click on the .tpc file.

A separate Image Viewer window will open. In the bottom right-hand corner of that window is a button that reads "Write File". Click on that button and you should see a "Save As" window appear. If you have tpc2tga.exe (also found in the aforementioned thread) saved in the same directory as the Kotor Tool, and you have your options automatically set to convert tpc files to tga (Tools>Options>Always convert TPC files to TGA upon extraction in the Kotor Tool), then the file will be converted for you when you save.

 

Go to where you saved the file (desktop, etc) and double click on the file. Photoshop will open the TGA file.

 

I hope that helps,

 

Achilles

[LiquidissSnake]

seemed a bit confusing but ill try it thanks

[LiquidissSnake]

The conbverter doesnt work on my computer

it diesnt nothing i have xp

and its a dos based program isnt it

it wont work? it just shuts down without letting me see anything

[tk102]

Easier way:

In KotOR Tool, choose File: Manage Paths. In the Image Viewer field, browse to your Photoshop .exe. Then according to Fred's Readme:

- To view tpc files in an external app, hold down the Shift key while double-clicking.

The readme also says you need tpc2tga in the same folder as KotOR Tool, but Fred has later said that he has incorporated that code into KotOR Tool so tpc2tga isn't necessary in this case.

[LiquidissSnake]

Thats done it thankyou

But now how to i find stuff, just by searching through all the sub directories?

[Achilles]

Originally posted by tk102

Easier way:

In KotOR Tool, choose File: Manage Paths. In the Image Viewer field, browse to your Photoshop .exe. Then according to Fred's Readme: The readme also says you need tpc2tga in the same folder as KotOR Tool, but Fred has later said that he has incorporated that code into KotOR Tool so tpc2tga isn't necessary in this case.

 

That's good to know. Thanks!

[LiquidissSnake]

When u use kotor tool to chane textures it comes out funny. Now i know this is probably how it should be but is there any way to view the armour textures as how they would look from a frontal view and a rear view?

[Mav]

the only way I know of getting a frontal and rear view is by putting the armor on in the game sorry.

[Prime]

Originally posted by LiquidissSnake

When u use kotor tool to chane textures it comes out funny. Now i know this is probably how it should be but is there any way to view the armour textures as how they would look from a frontal view and a rear view?

I wish.

 

Alas, maverick187 is right. You can only see what they look like by actually putting them into the game. Skinning for KOTOR is a major pain in the ass.

[svösh]

Originally posted by LiquidissSnake

But now how to i find stuff, just by searching through all the sub directories?

 

open KT

 

open the ERFs

 

Texture Packs click the swpc_tex_tpa.erf this has the high resolution textures in it

 

most npc’s are in the N dir. and Players are in the P dir. In the image viewer window you will see to the bottom left of the image a little window with text this is the texture information. For the shader copy and paste this to notepad and save it as (the name of the texture) .txi not txt you have to type it in manually.

The texture must be saved at 32 bit with alpha channels or the game will fail to see it.When the reskin is done save it to override folder of kotor and drop the txi file in there as well some files will not use the txi and you will have to edit the appearance .2da file

 

hope this helps svösh

[Seprithro]

indeed, try this though, open your tga, look at all the differnt textutes, then put solid color boxes over all the diff. ones bright easy to see colors, then load it up, and see where the colors are on the model, it sould help you ditermine what goes where, the bioware guys were appertly drunk when they made the skins, as anyone who has done a saber will tell you

[Darth_ToMeR]

Originally posted by Seprithro

indeed, try this though, open your tga, look at all the differnt textutes, then put solid color boxes over all the diff. ones bright easy to see colors, then load it up, and see where the colors are on the model, it sould help you ditermine what goes where, the bioware guys were appertly drunk when they made the skins, as anyone who has done a saber will tell you

You're Right! The armors are the hardest. All the skin parts look the same.

[Mav]

you are righ ton that one Sep, looking at the damn hilt and then trying to figure out which is which???? It gets frustrating....lol

[svösh]

The bio guys used planar mapping in 3d it helps reduce the map size by using two sided materials or mirroring the image although it’s a nightmare when looking at the tga.map as sep said paint as many bright coloured areas to see the deferent places things are mapped on the character. Load it up and snap a lot of screen shots for reference. I also will take the original map and invert it some times you can see things better and use that as a guide. Also as thing start to come together and there are still problem areas one colour bleeding onto another ect. an easy way to find them is paint little different vivid colour dots on the areas that you are unsure of. Remember to not reuse the same colour twice or you defeat the purpose. And only paint the solid fills and dots on new layers so you don’t damage all your work

 

svösh

[LiquidissSnake]

Thank you for your replies i will try painting the colors

[LiquidissSnake]

Thank You!!

[svösh]

No problem I’m always willing to help if I can

 

svösh