Darth InSidious' WIP

[Quanon]

Darthy, you still have the landscape files from your Terragen?

I've got Version 2 on my PC I could make you some high res background: say 4096x4096 a piece or is that to low

[Slstoev]

Darthy, you still have the landscape files from your Terragen?

I've got Version 2 on my PC I could make you some high res background: say 4096x4096 a piece or is that to low

 

Wow. I wonder if my PC will handle all the hi-res textures now.

[Dark_Ansem]

you reskinned tomb is spectacular.

[harark1]

I perfer the lighter fog. Also your lemon-soaked paper napkin is in the mail .

[Snard]

I perfer the lighter fog. Also your lemon-soaked paper napkin is in the mail .

 

I agree. Also if you use too high resolution skyboxes then it will look unnatural compared to the actual area model.

[logan23]

Hey!

 

Awesome updates!

 

With the choice of which version ...I would say the best way is to do a quick video per each setup, 10 sec

 

This will help to see how the fog looks ingame.

 

Keep up the great work!

 

Logan

[Rinku]

Amazing updates. I really like the Starkiller style robes they look very cool .

[Darth InSidious]

Try editing the lightmaps a bit. I think it may help you out a bit with those odd lighting issues. Darkening it can go a long way.

 

Thanks for the advice! This turned out to actually be the thing I'd overlooked. >_<

 

of the two sets, I prefer the second where you adjusted the fog setting

 

I like the heavier fog, although it cancels out a certain level of detail in that beautiful skybox...

 

I perfer the lighter fog. Also your lemon-soaked paper napkin is in the mail .

 

Thanks for the feedback (and paper napkins) !

 

Darthy, you still have the landscape files from your Terragen?

I've got Version 2 on my PC I could make you some high res background: say 4096x4096 a piece or is that to low

Thanks for the offer, Q, but I think the present size will be OK for now . If it takes that much longer to finish the mod, I may well take you up on that offer, though.

 

Wow. I wonder if my PC will handle all the hi-res textures now.

I don't think you'll need a new graphics card for this mod...

 

you reskinned tomb is spectacular.

Thanks!

 

I agree. Also if you use too high resolution skyboxes then it will look unnatural compared to the actual area model.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Hey!

 

Awesome updates!

 

With the choice of which version ...I would say the best way is to do a quick video per each setup, 10 sec

 

This will help to see how the fog looks ingame.

 

Keep up the great work!

 

Logan

 

Thanks! And don't worry, there will be video updates on the mod eventually.

 

Amazing updates. I really like the Starkiller style robes they look very cool .

 

Thanks!

 

Well, since the last update, I've released the Starkiller robes, but I've not been idle on my other mod projects, exactly. I have been a little busy, though, so apologies if the update seems a bit... well, bitty.

 

After some consideration, I decided I liked the lighter fog setting better:

 

However, I also noticed that this still didn't quite look... right, somehow, and at Canderis' prompting looked at the lightmap, which it turns out I had never got around to changing >_< . I also noticed that I had never changed the window texture for the Ebon Hawk, which was still set to Korriban (the default setting for the Droid Landing Arm, since the lighting of the Droid Planet and Korriban isn't that different), and that the Ebon Hawk itself was looking rather low-res and dowdy.

 

Also, the background buildings were beginning to look decidedly low-res and blurry, so after a couple of false starts trying to replace the textures completely, I simply upped the resolution by mirroring the existing texture. The overall result is, I think, a much higher quality of finish:

 

 

This also really heightens the contrast with the original, unedited module:

 

This hasn't been the sum total of the progress made in the last few months, however. I finished the texture for the KYD-21 blaster:

 

And I also began work on a new version of Ulic Qel-Droma's lightsaber. I built one before, but it was very poly-heavy, and I don't think it actually looked very good.

 

Naturally, the UV map has decided not to export properly, leading to the thing looking as it does >_< . I've no idea what's up with it; it doesn't appear to be a random glitch, as it's happened several times now. And unfortunately, separting the model into different elements isn't possible with a lightsaber hilt.

 

The landing pad dialogues are now about 65% finished, and there's just some scripting and global adding to do before it's more-or-less finished, I think. I've cut out some bits of party interaction, because I couldn't make them work, and there's one more piece which will need to be added for Bao-Dur before the area is complete. Overall, the player has a fair few choices to make on the landing pad which will have repercussions later in the mod. Although this isn't exactly a piece of open-world, sandbox design, I am trying to ensure that the player has more than one option with a real consequence in most situations.

 

Once this area is complete, I will probably start work reskinning the major areas of the base, and then move to completing the Tomb, and other areas which are less affected by plot changes, and are more-or-less complete in and of themselves. There are one or two of these. I will then move in to working on the 'core' areas of the Trade Outpost in terms of populating and plotting, and eventually to writing in sidequests and other such features.

 

One other thing I have been working on, which I had hoped to keep quiet until release but which is taking rather longer than I had anticipated is a mod to add lightsaber forms to K1.

 

Although deathdisco has already done this very nicely, I have been looking for a solution which allowed the player to swap them a bit more easily, and to avoid using up an armband slot. I have managed to go one further, and find a way for the player to acquire the lightsaber/force forms like they could force powers or forms in TSL. The player can even learn them from Holocrons which I intend to seed across the world, of both Jedi and Sith varieties. To this end, I have created a Jedi holocron placeable:

 

 

And I will be releasing the Jedi and Sith holocron placeables after the lightsaber forms mod is released, as a modders resource for both KotOR I and TSL. At present, the mod comprises 10 lightsaber forms (I-VII as in TSL, plus Sokan, Niman/Jar'Kai, and Shien [no Djem'So]), 4 force forms, which are different to the TSL ones owing mainly to engine limitations, and 2 non-Jedi, unarmed forms. These will be available mainly from holocrons, and at present the mod is planned to add material to Dantooine, Tatooine, Korriban, Kashyyyk and the Unknown World. So far, Dantooine has been completed, and Korriban is a work-in-progress.

 

And since it's been a while, I think you all deserve to see another spoiler for Rhen Var:

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[Zhaboka]

That holocron placeable is NICE! Might be impetus enough alone for someone to start another TSL Holocron Restoration mod. Rhen Var looks very nice, you seem to have improved the textures vastly. I love the color of Ulic's lightsaber, although the blade seems to clip the model in the second screenie from the right. Perhaps this is an unavoidable TSL thing?

[Sith Holocron]

That holocron placeable is NICE! Might be impetus enough alone for someone to start another TSL Holocron Restoration mod.

 

I too love the Holocron placeable. Will the Holocrons glow? Seeing this after just posting in Exile007's new GenoHaradan thread about someone restoring the cut material of Disciple's "Holocron Quest" makes me wonder if you might be up for doing such a thing. (For folks unfamiliar with this particular cut content, mentions of the Holocron quest are in both the Ebon Hawk and Dantooine sections of Wookieepedia's TSL Cut Content page.)

[newbiemodder]

Everything looks great DI...jedi holocron looks great, kinda mad I didn't think of that myself.

[Fallen Guardian]

Looks good DI.

[Warlord664]

Wow. All your work looks amazing SI.

[Quanon]

Really nice update Darthy. That's a mighty bunch of work

If that lightsaber keeps bugging you, I'm willing to take a look at it to fix the UVWmapp'n issue. I've had stubborn uvws on weapons before aswell. Always found a way to get them to work properly as intended

[Marius Fett]

I was wondering when this thread would rear its head again.

 

Great update as always!

[Exile007]

That spoiler for Rhen Var... I must have more!

 

Great progress, InSidious!

[Darth InSidious]

That holocron placeable is NICE! Might be impetus enough alone for someone to start another TSL Holocron Restoration mod. Rhen Var looks very nice, you seem to have improved the textures vastly. I love the color of Ulic's lightsaber, although the blade seems to clip the model in the second screenie from the right. Perhaps this is an unavoidable TSL thing?

 

Thanks! There's a Sith Holocron (!) model, too, which I didn't have a screenshot of last time:

 

 

It doesn't look quite as good in the bright lighting of the Dantooine academy, but it should look better in one of the Korriban interiors. The 'glass' shines as well as the metal, but it's quite difficult to get a decent shot of that.

 

The lightsaber blade does clip the model slightly, you're right; that's probably because I was trying to situate the blade so it appears to come from within the emitter, rather than above it. But I haven't altered the blade at all yet, or made a crystal for it, and the width of the blade can be altered at that point.

 

I too love the Holocron placeable. Will the Holocrons glow?

They don't glow, no. I should add that the texture is static. I tried to animate it, but without much success, and it got to the point where it just wasn't worth the amount of time wasted making each variation, then trying to line them all up exactly on a grid, and so on.

 

Seeing this after just posting in Exile007's new GenoHaradan thread about someone restoring the cut material of Disciple's "Holocron Quest" makes me wonder if you might be up for doing such a thing. (For folks unfamiliar with this particular cut content, mentions of the Holocron quest are in both the Ebon Hawk and Dantooine sections of Wookieepedia's TSL Cut Content page.)

 

It's a cool idea, though as I recall there wasn't much left of either of those quests to work out what to do with them.

 

Everything looks great DI...jedi holocron looks great, kinda mad I didn't think of that myself.

Thank you!

 

Looks good DI.

Thanks!

 

Wow. All your work looks amazing SI.

Who's SI?

 

Thank you!

 

Really nice update Darthy. That's a mighty bunch of work

If that lightsaber keeps bugging you, I'm willing to take a look at it to fix the UVWmapp'n issue. I've had stubborn uvws on weapons before aswell. Always found a way to get them to work properly as intended

 

Thanks, Q! And your help with this hilt would be greatly appreciated.

 

I was wondering when this thread would rear its head again.

 

Great update as always!

It's an unpredictable beast, this thread. Thank you!

 

That spoiler for Rhen Var... I must have more!

Patience, padawan.

 

Great progress, InSidious!

Thanks!

 

I don't have much to update on Rhen Var (what with Christmas and all that - Merry Christmas, everyone, by the way!), but I did want to update about a little thing I've been playing with, on and off, since the start of the year, and which looking at Khrizby's WIP thread has finally prompted me to try and fix up so it might actually work as a release .

 

A long, long time ago, ChAiNz.2da released a darksword mod, which was pretty exciting stuff, and is still a very cool mod. But I have to admit, I was a little disappointed with the effect he got for the blade. Not that I could do any better, but I suppose I had wanted to see something with the blade crackling with electricity.

 

Well, earlier this year I had an idea about that, so I tried replacing a lightsaber hilt with a sword, and the blade with a copy of the sword blade, textured with the game's electricity texture. I managed to get one of two results: either a blade with an electric current running on it all the time (whether the player was using it or not):

 

Or I got a blade which "activated" when the player was using it, but which just had some random blue... stuff floating about it:

 

Well, with a bit of prompting from Khrizby, I finally got the effect I was looking for today (thanks to a blank lightsaber blade texture and some hex-editing), and am proud to present my attempt at a darksword:

 

 

 

This one will activate and deactivate as the player uses it, just like a lightsaber (partly because, at the moment the game classes it as a lightsaber). I have yet to give the weapon its own baseitems.2da row, which should allow me to stop it deflecting blaster bolts, although it may also break Force Jump (which seems to be an engine bug caused whenever someone adds another lightsaber-style weapon to baseitems.2da - IIRC, this was discovered in the making of the USM.)

 

I'm not sure whether I intend to carry on using this weapon model for the darksword - this was really just a 'proof-of-concept' mockup I made, and doesn't look much like the design of a darksword that I'm familiar with, or ChAiNz's beautiful model.

 

[Canderis]

If you want the holocron's to glow, you could use a re-colored CM_Bright as the TXI.

[Warlord664]

Who's SI?

 

Oops guess I hit the S key insted of the D key. Awesome blade by the way.

[Zhaboka]

Nice! Seems more subtle than Chainz's.

[Dark_Ansem]

sith holocron, YES!

[Darth InSidious]

If you want the holocron's to glow, you could use a re-colored CM_Bright as the TXI.

 

That's true, but then it wouldn't have a metallic shine on the parts I want to shine.

 

Oops guess I hit the S key insted of the D key. Awesome blade by the way.

 

Thanks!

 

Nice! Seems more subtle than Chainz's.

 

Thanks! I'd say it was a different interpretation, myself.

 

sith holocron, YES!

Thanks!

 

OK, well, not a lot has got done since I last updated this thread (so no surprises there), but I have done some work on the Darksword. I was hoping to keep the jian sword model as a sword, so I went back to look at the source material for the Darksword, and what came out of that is that the pictures show either a katana (which experience shows I can't model to save my life), or a kind of straight japanese sword, closer to ChAiNz's original (awesome) darksword model:

 

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So I went back to the drawing board and built my own model from the source images I had, partly to produce a "flatter" blade in the hope that the electricity on the blade would look a bit more... well, electric. I finally finished making and tweaking that (and the electricity effect):

 

 

The hilt texture isn't quite right (more woes exporting textures at the moment... le sigh), and the electricity texture looks much better on one side than it does on the other, though I think I can fix that with some nifty UV-mapping (hopefully). Overall, though, I think this is a better model for the darksword, particularly as the electric blade seems much more... well, electric on this.

 

I've also done some work on the damage the darksword will deal. The weapon is meant to be a kind of halfway-house between a sword and a lightsaber, so I've put the basic damage at 2-14 - two less than a short lightsaber, with an electrical damage bonus of +1-4. So it's a fairly powerful weapon, at least in the early-to-mid game, but I think it's still reasonably balanced. I may tone it down a little to try and balance it a bit more, as I'm not a fan of hugely unbalancing the game (more than it is anyway, at any rate).

 

In terms of upgrades, the weapon is upgradeable like a lightsaber, just like ChAiNz's. I hade hoped to make it upgrade like a sword, but I can't work out how to do this, so for some reason, this weapon has beam emitters and focussing crystals. Maybe the crystals affect the wielder and the beam emitter... I don't know, regulates the electrical current?

 

Questions, comments, feedback, impatient abuse, philosophical investigations, and paper-soaked lemon cakes are all gratefully accepted.

 

[Sithspecter]

You could always split up the holocron model (inside your 3D program), and apply 2 different textures to the holocron model, and use 1 for the shiny part, and the other for the glow. Inyri did that on some things, works just fine.

[Qui-Gon Glenn]

Wow!

 

Not sure how I have missed the last couple updates... the holocron placeables are quite excellent, IMO (and the O of several others it seems ) and just might spur some modding here and there.

 

The skybox you worked out for RV is a nice improvement, and I liked the latest version with the fog turned down some the best... but all of them but the first (with the "lens flare" effect) are quite good.

 

The darksword looks fantastic! I really like the electric-y effect on the blade, seems close to perfect.... although I am sure you will continue to tinker away

 

Nice to see the ancient wizened master grizzled veteran still ploughing away!

 

Notice I did not say decrepit, dementia riddled, crusty, gruff, miserly or scruffy looking, as these do not match dear darathy

[Darth InSidious]

You could always split up the holocron model (inside your 3D program), and apply 2 different textures to the holocron model, and use 1 for the shiny part, and the other for the glow. Inyri did that on some things, works just fine.

 

Thanks for the suggestion/tip! But it's a lot of work (particularly as it would involve "punching out" separate sections for the metal overlay and the "glass", leading to ever more potential export issues and other such "fun"), and like with animated textures, I'm not sure how much it actually improves player experience. I may give it a go later on, nevertheless.

 

Wow!

Thanks!

 

Not sure how I have missed the last couple updates... the holocron placeables are quite excellent, IMO (and the O of several others it seems ) and just might spur some modding here and there.

I hope so. When I've finished up the holocron mod (fingers crossed not too far in the future), I'll release them as a separate resource, as I say, for both games, so hopefully people will put them to use.

 

The skybox you worked out for RV is a nice improvement, and I liked the latest version with the fog turned down some the best... but all of them but the first (with the "lens flare" effect) are quite good.

Thank you.

 

The darksword looks fantastic! I really like the electric-y effect on the blade, seems close to perfect.... although I am sure you will continue to tinker away

 

Thanks! You know me so well.

 

Nice to see the ancient wizened master grizzled veteran still ploughing away!

Just about still ploughing on... not sure about the "master" bit, or the "veteran". Ancient, wizened and grizzled is certainly right, though.

 

Notice I did not say decrepit, dementia riddled, crusty, gruff, miserly or scruffy looking, as these do not match dear darathy

No, absolutely not! What were we talking about again? And who are you?

 

Following QGG's prediction I have indeed been tinkering, and managed to get the electricity on both sides of the blade to work as I want it, and the hilt to UV-map correctly:

 

 

 

I'm still debating whether 2d7 base damage (+1d4 electrica bonus damage, so a total actual damage range of 3-18) is too high, and whether either 1d12 or 2d6 might be a better choice (giving a total, with the electrical bonus, of either 2- or 3-16); if anyone has any thoughts please let me know.

 

I'm also considering where to place it in game, or if I should actually have it in pieces in various points in "act 1" (i.e., from Peragus to the end of Telos), and assemble-able at the end of that, or if it should be simply found somewhere like on the Harbinger. This would give the player a kind of pre-lightsaber in the early-to-early-mid game, without taking away from the full satisfaction/frustration of having to wait to get a lightsaber.

 

If I do split it into pieces, one will likely be on the Harbinger, and maybe another somewhere on Telos, most likely on the surface or in the bunker. Or is that leaving it too late for the player to acquire it? Perhaps I should just dump it in the player's room. What do people think?

 

That's about all I've got going at the moment, so until the next update...