Darth InSidious' WIP

[Qui-Gon Glenn]

^^^ TB12, he and I are about equally ancient And yes, he predates me here, as he did at the other forum where we came to know each other, and that makes him (or me) no less old

 

Back on topic, DI, the right bicep and the left tricep is what I think you are referring to as the most problematic areas? It is odd that that one arm is obviously wacky in the front, whereas the other arm seems mostly to be wacky in the back.

[Darth InSidious]

Very nice updates!

 

The gun looks nice so far, the custom muzzle flash makes the gun very cool imo.

Thanks!

 

I like the attempt at the Starkiller robes, with a bit of work I could see those being very popular.

I don't know. They're... OK. But I'd hesitate to say they're much more than a glorified robe recolouring.

 

Awesome effects!!!

Thanks! Now all I need are the weapon models to give the effects to.

 

Loving it a lot. Can't wait to get this

Thanks! I can't wait to release it.

 

Excellent work on the new muzzle flair and bolt! It seems even an old dog can learn new tricks

We-ell... I'm not ready to take on modelling new areas, but I'm not totally past it, either.

 

(God I hope so, or I am screwed....)

Aren't we all?

 

Hes only been here 6 years... Don't beat the old guy down

Mmm? Where'd I leave my teeth?

 

^^^ TB12, he and I are about equally ancient And yes, he predates me here, as he did at the other forum where we came to know each other, and that makes him (or me) no less old

Once an '06 n00b, always an '06 noob.

 

Back on topic, DI, the right bicep and the left tricep is what I think you are referring to as the most problematic areas? It is odd that that one arm is obviously wacky in the front, whereas the other arm seems mostly to be wacky in the back.

Yeah, the biceps look really odd. I think for some reason they're mapped the opposite ways round using the same bit of texture... But also, down near the wrist is very odd (where the robe narrows toward the gloves), and the elbow is also very funny-looking... It's also just that this isn't a very good reskin, to be honest. It barely counts as a reskin, at that - mostly it's just some recolouring.

 

Two small updatelets, and that's your lot for this weekend. First, I've done a little tweaking to the 'Starkiller'/medical robe:

First pass on making the boots black rather than desaturated grey. Not sure how successful these are, and I also can't decide whether or not to make them shiny, though my instinct is not.

 

Here's a couple of shots of pseudo-Starkiller in action (with lightsabers and Dark Jedi from T7Nowhere's lightsaber six-pack mod):

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Secondly, I appear to have forgotten to post my most recent discovery about TSL. Namely, I was fiddling a while back with the swoop upgrade screen, and replace several of the missing parts with existing bits and pieces. I should point out, I have no idea at all how to make this work with the swoop in the races, or indeed at all. This is just research. But here's the pic:

 

 

The three HK's are the three upgrade slots; I'm not quite sure what the box above them is meant to be; I think it contains the description of the items. The box on the right contains the item list, from what I remember. As you can see, the basic layout is there, but the whole thing is pretty buggy and incomplete. Whether or not it's restoreable, I have no idea.

 

[Ӄhrizby]

Well I came by cause I heard my name, but looks like you've got it all figured out so I'll just say good job!

[Darth Dan 012]

Some cool stuff you've got there. I could never even begin to construct that "Logan's Run" gun. You must have some pretty sharp computer skills.

[Darth InSidious]

Well I came by cause I heard my name' date=' but looks like you've got it all figured out so I'll just say good job! [/quote']

Thanks!

 

Nice to see you around.

 

Some cool stuff you've got there. I could never even begin to construct that "Logan's Run" gun. You must have some pretty sharp computer skills.

Thank you! I wouldn't say you could never do it though: as with everything else, it's just a case of practice, practice, practice.

 

Well, I said I was going for more beam weapons in Rhen Var... and I am . Looking around for some weapon models which would 'suit' having beams come out of them, I remembered I had been working on a KYD-21 blaster model. This is the weapon wielded by Zam Wessell in Attack of the Clones, according to Wookieepedia. So, I fixed an annoying glitch with the model, and set it up with some beams coming out of it. I think it looks p. cool with beams firing out of it, so here's a few shots of it doing just that:

 

 

I haven't skinned it yet, but that will come later. Other than that, what am I doing? Scripting and more scripting, for now. Some of which will (hopefully) be useful for a survival round in the Tatooine arena.

 

Speaking of the Tatooine arena... another pro-tip: local variables. If you only need the data for one module, and don't mind if it's wiped when you leave the area (i.e., you only need the information temporarily), use local variables. Unlike globals, you don't need to edit any .2da files to create them, so they're a lot more versatile for temporary data. stoffe's got a tutorial with info on them up here - it's definitely recommended reading.

 

[harark1]

Nice beams but they are appearing off the gun a little bit , I'm assumeing when you release this you will fix that though.

[Darth InSidious]

Nice beams but they are appearing off the gun a little bit , I'm assumeing when you release this you will fix that though.

Thanks. Actually, the beams can't really be 'fixed' as such. The reason they appear to be coming from away from the gun is because the PC's animation involves moving the blaster away from where it fires, but the blaster bolt/beam still starts from where the gun was. Also, keep in mind that the gun doesn't fire a continuous beam, but more like short "bursts", so that further complicates things.

 

I have moved the bullethook further back in the model to try and counteract the problem a little, but it's still going to be an issue to some extent with nearly all beam weapon mods.

 

Now... as I said, I've moved the bullethook in the KYD-21 model, to try and remove some of the issues with the beam's start-point, as per harark1's points:

I also began skinning the gun barrel, but so far it generally comes out looking awful. I may need to remodel it at higher-poly, and I don't think the smoothing-groups on the model are helping the skin much.

 

I've also skinned the two-handed Kashyyyk sword's blade:

The handle is not yet properly skinned. I started this model a few years back, but failed to skin it. IIRC, the weapon is in SWG;the original had some kind of pattern in the middle of the blade, but the only pictures I could find at the time were very blurry, and it seemd to fade off toward the top of the blade. So this time, I've not bothered with the pattern. Partly because this is a weapon from 4,000 years before SWG takes place, and partly because this is a practical weapon from a world covered in aggressive plants and with little metal. It needs to be a weapon for cutting and hacking, not a duelling blade. This is also why the metal texture is a bit 'rougher' than I used for, say, the jian, or the Sword of Gith.

 

I've also started work on the model for the "Starkiller" robes, tweaking the arms:

Hopefully it's clear which arm is which . As you can see, I've done a first pass on moving one of the arms into a slightly more natural shape. It's not quite finished- I'm not convinced the narrowing for the elbow doesn't need moving a bit yet, and I still haven't touched the UV Mapping for the arms, or indeed changed the modelling for the other arm. Compare and contrast with the male underwear model:

 

I'm still writing dialogue for Rhen Var and scripting for the Tatooine arena, as well. Which brings me to a question: Does anyone know how to interrupt the OnHeartbeat script so that it fires roughly once a second? There is a trick for doing this, but I don't know what it is, and can't recall it if I ever did.

 

Anyway, that's just about everything I've got to report on for now. Hope everyone liked what they saw, but if not, feedback, criticism, comments, and questions are as always very welcome.

 

[newbiemodder]

Arm is more natural looking....looks good DI

[Dak Drexl]

The Starkiller robe looks good - the re-modeling looks to be working nicely. I have a problem though: do you plan on making this a disguise item? Since we have no ways of adding new .2da rows, are you looking to do this or replace something? I hope I'm being clear here. If not I would just suggest to try and implement the wrist things into the skin as maybe cloth wristbands or something so that you can just use the jedi robe model.

 

On another note the beam weapons are just awesome!

[harark1]

Like the robes and sword both look nice. :-)

[Darth InSidious]

Arm is more natural looking....looks good DI

 

Thanks!

 

The Starkiller robe looks good - the re-modeling looks to be working nicely.

Thank you!

 

I have a problem though: do you plan on making this a disguise item? Since we have no ways of adding new .2da rows, are you looking to do this or replace something? I hope I'm being clear here. If not I would just suggest to try and implement the wrist things into the skin as maybe cloth wristbands or something so that you can just use the jedi robe model.

I hadn't actually thought about this much when you posted this, but since then, I've decided to make this a default male clothing type. This has the advantage of allowing me to release asian and black versions without the player having to pick-and-choose between them.

 

On another note the beam weapons are just awesome!

I agree.

 

Like the robes and sword both look nice. :-)

 

Thanks!

 

Well, it's been a while since my last post (again). In the meantime, I've fixed up the Starkiller robe model a bit, so that the arms look a bit less like crumpled cloth and a bit more like actual arms. It's still not perfect, but...

 

 

The difference between the arms is semi-deliberate: partly they're like that because I couldn't make them the same, and partly so that you can tell me which arm you think looks better. Feedback/comments, etc., all much appreciated.

 

Other things I've been working on have been Rhen Var dialogue (yet again). The number of options in the initial dialogue continue to shrink, but this is mainly because I can't come up with enough slight variations to make the number of options I had planned on viable. Flavour text is nice, but this was getting impossible to do properly, and since there are a much smaller number of actual outcome-states for the dialogue, it seemed a bit silly to have a lot of frankly rather bad dialogue options mixed in.

 

I've also been working at the Tatooine Arena, trying to make headway on the scripting front. Most of the scripts for the fights are now together, so that the game will run the battles in sequence, but I still have enough to write to make the prospect daunting.

 

In the meantime, here's an image from a fight in the arena in-progress:

 

That's all for now - hopefully I'll have more updates for you soon.

 

[LDR]

I am never ceased to be amazed by you. I look forward to more updates!

[harark1]

I was wondering when you'd update again. Nice progress on the tantooine arena, excited for that.

[Zhaboka]

Lovin' the robes. The color is exquisite. What happens if you pick a black PC head, though?

[Darth InSidious]

I am never ceased to be amazed by you. I look forward to more updates!

Ask and you shall receive!

 

I was wondering when you'd update again. Nice progress on the tantooine arena, excited for that.

Thanks! Not sure when the mod will be done - there's still a lot of scripting to do for it, before I can even start making progress on things like custom weapons, dialogue, or tweaking the combatants.

 

Lovin' the robes. The color is exquisite. What happens if you pick a black PC head, though?

Thanks! Good question on the black PC head. At the moment, I've got versions set up for black and asian PCs, but the problem is going to be implementing them in game. I could simply try making all the (male) robes armless, and releasing them as a set, like so:

 

 

The 'Starkiller' robe could then replace the Qel-Droma Robes in the game, or just be a texture variant. In this case, the player would have three separate folders to choose from, depending on whether they wanted to play as an asian, back or caucasian PC. The only disadvantage here is that Dark Side players will have a rotten face and fleshy, healthy-looking arms, but they can always install a mod to remove DS transitions.

 

On the other hand, I could replace the default player clothing with the robes, which might get around releasing in multiple folders, but would also make players less likely to use them.

 

Aside from that mockup, I've been skinning chiefly over the weekend. First up, I've got about halfway through the beam weapon I've been working on, with a skin for the barrel:

 

 

The 'blue' part is unskinned as of yet. In the source images, it's mainly black, though, so it shouldn't be too hard to pull off. The little view-screen bit is an innovation of mine, though I have to admit that I stole the idea from one of svösh's designs.

 

I also stuck a hilt texture on the two-handed Kashyyyk sword:

 

Update, 22/06/2011

 

A while back, Sith Holocron asked about a higher-res skybox for Rhen Var. I said it was low priority, but I've given it a bit of work, and finally managed tonight to produce something that I think looks pretty good:

 

Unfortunately, the textures are not much higher res - 960x960 rather than 512x512, but the unregistered version of Terragen won't produce anything larger, so that's what I had to go with. I think they look pretty good, although the lighting in the skybox may be a shade too strongly differentiated, and the sun-glare visible in the second screenshot really needs dialing down (does anyone know how to do this? Hex-editing, maybe? It's something in the skybox model).

 

As always, feedback, criticism, flattery, and lemon-soaked paper napkins are gratefully accepted.

 

[Zhaboka]

WAIT. Is Rhen Var a reskin of the M4-78 landing pad or am I a complete buffoon?

 

It looks absolutely beautiful, regardless, very Alzoc III (ha!), although I agree with you about the glare.

[Sith Holocron]

It's so much better now, DI. I'm sure you'll get those sun glare issues taken care of.

 

An odd thought has occured to me - can those crane-like objects on the landing pad possibly be made to be animated? I'm not sure what use that would be in your mod but it just popped in my head and it refuses to go away.

[Slstoev]

WAIT. Is Rhen Var a reskin of the M4-78 landing pad or am I a complete buffoon?

Yes, yes it is.

 

It looks absolutely beautiful, regardless, very Alzoc III (ha!), although I agree with you about the glare.

Yes, I agree.

[Exile007]

An odd thought has occured to me - can those crane-like objects on the landing pad possibly be made to be animated? I'm not sure what use that would be in your mod but it just popped in my head and it refuses to go away.

 

No. Unless you were to take the model of the landing platform and find a way to animate the cranes there, then re-export the model. But I've heard that animations get screwed up in exporting area models. :/

 

DI, a grin always finds a way to my face when I see this thread on the front page. I'll patiently wait for this awesome mod, even if that means waiting until the end of time...

[Canderis]

(does anyone know how to do this? Hex-editing, maybe? It's something in the skybox model).

 

What I would do is I would export the skybox as a new .mdl, and then replace the current one with the new one. Should remove the sun beam. Should work, too. In theory.

[newbiemodder]

What I would do is I would export the skybox as a new .mdl, and then replace the current one with the new one. Should remove the sun beam. Should work, too. In theory.

 

Or you can try playing with the lightmaps for the skybox room..load them into gimp and maybe darken them a little or something...you would have to rename them to something unique, then hex edit the room mdl to replace the old lightmap name with the new

[Darth InSidious]

WAIT. Is Rhen Var a reskin of the M4-78 landing pad or am I a complete buffoon?

 

Yes, yes it is.

 

Nope, you aren't a complete buffoon at all, that's exactly what it is.

 

It looks absolutely beautiful, regardless, very Alzoc III (ha!), although I agree with you about the glare.

Yes, I agree.

 

Thanks for the compliment! And I know exactly what you both mean about Alzoc III, now that you mention it.

 

It's so much better now, DI. I'm sure you'll get those sun glare issues taken care of.

How did you guess that would be my next task?

 

 

An odd thought has occured to me - can those crane-like objects on the landing pad possibly be made to be animated? I'm not sure what use that would be in your mod but it just popped in my head and it refuses to go away.

Unfortunately, as Exile007 said, it's wouldn't be terribly easy even if it were possible, and I'm not sure of the benefits of doing so. IIRC, editing exisitng area models tends to screw up, so it's a pretty unlikely one, I'm afraid.

 

DI, a grin always finds a way to my face when I see this thread on the front page. I'll patiently wait for this awesome mod, even if that means waiting until the end of time...

Thanks! Hopefully I won't keep you waiting that long, though I definitely know what you mean about the length of time it's taking to release.

 

What I would do is I would export the skybox as a new .mdl, and then replace the current one with the new one. Should remove the sun beam. Should work, too. In theory.

 

Or you can try playing with the lightmaps for the skybox room..load them into gimp and maybe darken them a little or something...you would have to rename them to something unique, then hex edit the room mdl to replace the old lightmap name with the new

 

Thanks for the feedback, guys. It turns out that deleting the sunflare dummy in Max and re-exporting/compiling was enough to do it.

 

The only sideffect is that the sunflare was apparently thinning out the area fog. So that's one piece of information to keep handy the next time you edit an outdoor area and introduce sunfog settings.

 

This means that the area currently looks like this:

 

 

Alternatively, here's some pictures of how it would look with the fog settings toned down to the equivalent of what they were before:

 

 

I can't decide which I prefer. What does everyone think?

 

[Canderis]

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.

[newbiemodder]

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

[Zhaboka]

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