[WIP] A Temple

[Super Nashwan]

Hey Guys, I'm kind of new to modding and I was hoping you could fill me in on a few things. Just so I understand, are you guys actually creating NEW areas for Kotor? This is really cool! How are you doing that? I read some tutorials which said it wasn't yet possible to alter the structure of a level, only it's appearance. Could you point me in the direction of any tutorials on this. Would be much appreciated.

[glovemaster]

Welcome to LF!

If your wanting a tutorial on creating custom areas then if you loot through Holowan for a thread by Quanon, that should help. The tutorial is about using KAuroraEditor.

Also you might wanna check the sub-forums at the top of Holowan, they're pretty handy

 

If your having problems finding what you need then theres a useful "Search" link at the top

 

Hope you find what your looking for

[Quanon]

Like GM adviced : look at the top Sub-forums , they're all tutorials dealing with all the aspects of modding K1 and TSL .

 

Though this area / level building is fun , its also one of the more difficult things to get in the game .

 

If you like 3D modelling you'll have a blast , but you'll have to learn to setup the .mod file and such to have a go at it .

 

It can look a lot at first , but most of peeps here have gone through that nasty noob fase where you're running with your head into walls all the tim

 

So I'll repeat myself go have look at those sub-forums , read a lot and hopefully it'll make some sense .

 

And you can also start thread to ask for help .

 

Hope this was a bit usefull

[magnusll]

I just know this : Team Gizka Replaced an animation .

 

I also know that the Kotor games have some sort of Master Skeleton file for human characters , or humie aliens .

 

You have one for Males and 1 for Females and a third I think .

 

These files don't contain a model , but all the animations !

 

I once opened one and its about 16.000 frames long .

 

Everything is included : all the differant Fighting anims , like flurry attack , but you have 3 kinds ( for each upgrade in that skill ) , you have anims for the force powers , anims for being hit , for being idle , walking woundend in various degrees ... it goes on and on .

 

Though creatures have their own sets , stored mostly in the model itself .

 

Thats why like Master Vandar lacks certain anims . If we had the power , someone might one day add extra animations for certain characters .

 

Though animation is an art on its own .

 

Its indeed not impossible , but hard to do a real new animation .

 

Actually, I believe at the moment it is impossible to create a new animation totally from scratch because the only tool able to work with animations is the latest MDLops version, and it lacks the ability to rebuild one particular structure used in handling animation bones.

I happen to know how to rebuild that last bit too, so I can improve on MDLops' animation handling capabilities.... and I will do it in Kaurora, after having written the code for handling the nodes the program is currently unable to handle (like Skinmeshes).

 

On an unrelated note: I've been experimenting with mini-maps. While my previous observations seem to be correct, they also appear grossly incomplete, as there are several missing factors in how the image gets used in the game. For one, the handling is different in the big map (the one you get by hitting the "M" key) as opposed to the small one which gets superimposed on the HUD while you're walking around. Turns out the zoom factor impacts the rendering of the small one, while from my preliminary findings the large one seemingly needs an 8% horizontal increase and right offset to be properly centered and sized. I'll let you know the details when I have something more concrete and finalized.

[Quanon]

Bummer ... Well I just know animation is one the most difficult things to get right. Even simple things like doors , who have like 2 real animes .

OPen and Close , though I've looked up some doors of the game .

 

They all seem to use their 2 animes more then once ... I think it has to do with forcing doors open and such . "Killing" the thing actually

 

Anyway the frame sets seem to be differant per door ,wich I find weird ...

I thought games used set frame sets to easly handle the anims .

 

Like from FRAM 01 to 100 is open

105 to 205 is closing

 

That kind of thing , the same for each kind of Door , whatever it is for Korriban or Manaan .

 

ON THE MINI MAP :

 

Great to hear your puzzeling , I was scratching my head on that weird behaviour ... The Big map in the menu most of the times looked almost OK , just minor deformation or scaling .

 

The real mini mini map ( top left corner while playing ) was wrong all the time .

 

Anyway , just give me a beep when you think you have a new theory about it .

@Magnusll:

Ow , just one question . It should be possible to just export a scratch build Walkmesh and compile it right ? Is there a sort of minimum size the WalkMesh can have ?

[magnusll]

@Magnusll:

Ow , just one question . It should be possible to just export a scratch build Walkmesh and compile it right ? Is there a sort of minimum size the WalkMesh can have ?

 

No minimum size, but there's a rounding which "enlarges" the walkmesh up to the nearest next 0.01 meter in all three dimensions, so if you create a walkmesh whose total size is < 0.01 you could get unwanted results. I put the rounding in because Bioware's walkmeshes had it, so I just replicated the behavior. Then again, a walkmesh smaller than 1 centimeter doesn't sound useful anyway...

 

Remember, too, that the walkmesh needs to be translated to its absolute coords before the binary export, otherwise the game will put it into the wrong place. You can either do this by manually editing the ascii model (unwise, as you'd need to translate the node position AND all its vertices), or use the "refactor" option to do it.

[Quanon]

Odd , I don't get it why this Walkmesh keeps crashing Kaurora ...

 

I first thought it was my actual statue model , but that compiles fine , whenever I add a walkmesh it crashes ...

 

I'm trying to create this placeable , they're almost like an area in setup ...

 

A model , A Walkmesh and just one Dummy called lookathook ...

 

I'll make the walkmesh sepertally , worked for my Temple Area .

 

Ow , and I think I've been an absolute idiot again !

 

There this modifier Aurora Trimesh , wich contains certain options like Render , Shadow , Beaming ...

 

I never applied that to any of my models before ( And Bioware applied it to everything ... : ) would that make things solid .

 

Like stop and push the camera back and block line of sight .

 

Cause now the enemys and your party see each other straight away ... and you can shoot throw all the walls , the whole level long ... :

 

Does Kaurora handle that Modifier well ? Or was I supposed to have used it all the time

[magnusll]

Odd , I don't get it why this Walkmesh keeps crashing Kaurora ...

 

Send me the walkmesh by email. It'll help me flush out bugs. And I'm still waiting the previous models which crashed KAurora, too.... as a general rule, just send me anything that crashes the program

 

Does Kaurora handle that Modifier well ? Or was I supposed to have used it all the time

 

KAurora should be able to handle all the controllers used in the game. Can't remember offhand about the Beaming one, but Render and Shadow are most definitely there... they have actually their own field in the trimesh node header. But I do believe they're auto-set by KAurora if you don't specify them... need to check the code to be sure, though.

 

[EDIT] Also, now that I remember... placeable walkmeshes have a different format than area walkmeshes, and KAurora doesn't handle them.... I didn't worry about those as KotorTool should be able to create those. They should be easy to include though, as their format is actually a subset of the area one... let me know if you need this feature, I'll try to add it as soon as possible.

[Quanon]

Send me the walkmesh by email. It'll help me flush out bugs. And I'm still waiting the previous models which crashed KAurora, too.... as a general rule, just send me anything that crashes the program

 

You never received my crashy files ? D*mn useless MSN thing !

I'll resend the whole package then .

 

[EDIT] Also, now that I remember... placeable walkmeshes have a different format than area walkmeshes, and KAurora doesn't handle them.... I didn't worry about those as KotorTool should be able to create those. They should be easy to include though, as their format is actually a subset of the area one... let me know if you need this feature, I'll try to add it as soon as possible.

 

I thought they were the same , though I've no idea how Kaurora nows when I'm trying to compile somthing that would get used as a placeable .

 

Is it the lookathook or the name ?

 

Anyway be ready to receive crashy files

[magnusll]

You never received my crashy files ? D*mn useless MSN thing !

I'll resend the whole package then .

 

Received them... now. Never trust MSN for anything.

 

 

I thought they were the same , though I've no idea how Kaurora nows when I'm trying to compile somthing that would get used as a placeable .

 

Is it the lookathook or the name ?

 

You'd have to tell it which type to use :-). Alternatively, I'd just create a new menu item, "export as a binary placeable walkmesh" or something like that.

[Super Nashwan]

Hey, thanks glovemaster and Quanon for the replies. I'll definitely check the resources you mentioned. I've already gone through a tutorial on how to make a Storyline Mod by someone called Gsccc, but I was a little bit stumped by a line that said:

 

"Unfortunately, due to the fact that we have not yet broken the format on just how to make our own models for modules, we have to use existing ones from Kotor/TSL."

 

I guess this is no longer the case then? Cool! You see I have to do a mod for Uni so I have to learn in double quick time. Could you tell me where I can get hold of KAurora Editor. I did an internet search but couldn't find anything.

 

Cheers.

[Taak Farst]

KAurora = starwarsknights.com

Yes the tutorial would say that as it was impossible back then but when i say back then that was 2 years back when he wrote it and times have changed

[Quanon]

Hey, thanks glovemaster and Quanon for the replies. I'll definitely check the resources you mentioned. I've already gone through a tutorial on how to make a Storyline Mod by someone called Gsccc, but I was a little bit stumped by a line that said:

 

"Unfortunately, due to the fact that we have not yet broken the format on just how to make our own models for modules, we have to use existing ones from Kotor/TSL."

 

I guess this is no longer the case then? Cool! You see I have to do a mod for Uni so I have to learn in double quick time. Could you tell me where I can get hold of KAurora Editor. I did an internet search but couldn't find anything.

 

Cheers.

 

Huh ? Thats odd, you should find it here on the LF forums :

Taris Upper City Emporium for release of Mods, I think ...

 

Else send Magnusll a PM , I'm sure he'll send you the Program throw Mail or direct you to link for download .

 

And welcome to the modding

[magnusll]

You see I have to do a mod for Uni so I have to learn in double quick time.

 

Send me a PM with your email, I'll send you the latest working version which has many bug corrections and a few added features from the one you can find on Starwarsknight.com. If you need to model something in a hurry and show your work, you'll need it as the latest version knows how to import lights and handle all types of UV mapping.

 

I'm starting to seriously consider an early 0.3 release without emitters, just to make this version available to everyone.... then again, it's not like there are too many modders working on scratch built areas.

[Super Nashwan]

that was 2 years back when he wrote it and times have changed

Ah, that would explain it. Looks like I have some catching up to do.

 

Thats odd, you should find it here on the LF forums

I did actually find it on here now, thanks, but I'll send magnusll a pm for the new one.

[Quanon]

The camera is bugging me ...

 

I have no idea how the Meshes have to block it ...

 

Its not the walkmesh , after hugging many things in several areas , it looks more like the actual meshes stop the camera and push it towards the player .

 

I've looked in the .are , but there's only CameraStyle to change to 0 <=> 8 ( its in a 2DA aswell ) , I've messed around with that , no luck .

 

The .git file contains like 5 differant cameras , but I think these are used for the cutscénes and such ... I"ve made sure I had only one in my test area and changing the numbers had no effect what-so-ever

 

I also tried the Trimesh Modifier , to no avail , though it gives greater control on Diffuse , Ambient channels and stuff ... But doesn't affect the camera .

Been going throw some parts of areas of the game in 3D-Max , didn't find any clue on how to set things differantly . *bummer*

EDIT : Also peeked into other .ares, .gits and .ifo .

I have no idea how to tell Kotor that this object/ mesh is SOLID .

 

Any idea where I'dd might have overlooked or forgot to look ?

[magnusll]

The .git file contains like 5 differant cameras , but I think these are used for the cutscénes and such ... I"ve made sure I had only one in my test area and changing the numbers had no effect what-so-ever

 

Are you sure about this? I thought they could be things like "fixed cameras" to be used in those spots within the area where the free-flying camera would cross walls. I.e. say the camera crosses a wall when you walk near coords (10, 20), then you put a camera in the .git file at (10, 20) so you can "force" it to obey the set values everytime the PC walks near that point. To be repeated for every problematic spot.

 

Of course, it's not like I actually ever checked the validity of any of this, you understand

[Quanon]

Are you sure about this? I thought they could be things like "fixed cameras" to be used in those spots within the area where the free-flying camera would cross walls. I.e. say the camera crosses a wall when you walk near coords (10, 20), then you put a camera in the .git file at (10, 20) so you can "force" it to obey the set values everytime the PC walks near that point. To be repeated for every problematic spot.

 

Of course, it's not like I actually ever checked the validity of any of this, you understand

 

If that is how its done .... then I'm going to kill myself for ever creating this temple .

 

Do you know how many corners this thing has : , *sigh*

 

Well I'll have to test this out with my box area then I guess . Should be about 4 ID cameras then , on for each wall .

 

EDIT :

 

So I set the VECTOR to the coords of one of the walls and the orientation to 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .

 

I could get this info out of the ASCII aswell ? ( Orientation at least ? )

 

But do I really need to make a CAMERA STRUCT for every piece of wall , you can get close enough to , to fly throw ?

 

Cause that would be in a sense insane if you ask me , even if I use the Walkmesh wall Coords ... well a bit less crazy me thinks .

[magnusll]

EDIT :

 

So I set the VECTOR to the coords of one of the walls and the orientation to 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .

 

I could get this info out of the ASCII aswell ? ( Orientation at least ? )

 

But do I really need to make a CAMERA STRUCT for every piece of wall , you can get close enough to , to fly throw ?

 

Cause that would be in a sense insane if you ask me , even if I use the Walkmesh wall Coords ... well a bit less crazy me thinks .

 

If the idea is true, then you should put the "fixed" camera near any spot where it behaves badly. I'd guess it would be used in a fixed radius, say as soon as you walk within X meters of the point the camera is "snapped" at the fixed spot. So effectively you'd need a camera every X meters. Yeah, it sounds a bit insane, unless X is 10 or more, and even then, a long wall would require several cameras.

 

Orientation... I think you'd need to actually compute it i.e. you should put the value which makes the camera "look away" from the border. Effectively you'd need to use the vector normal to the surface from which you want to look away. Have some math fun here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions_and_spatial_rotation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_between_quaternions_and_Euler_angles

 

Ugh... rereading all this it sounds too bad to be true

 

[EDIT] The following link will make things much clearer than the Wiki entries:

 

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1095.asp

[Quanon]

Have some math fun here:

 

Did I forgot to tell you I stink in Math , my main pain in school MATH and french

 

Anywayzzzz , I've started another thread , as I suspected the .git cameras are for Cutscénes and other scripted events .

 

A quick view in the tutorial section , about DLGs conformid more or less that it is so .

 

I think I'll just adjust the CameraStyle 2DA , add another row , fiddle with the settings there , see what that gives ... it would be a temporary solution .

 

Cause I really think the meshes themselves block the camera ... though the Walkmesh is a potentional candidate to ...

[magnusll]

Cause I really think the meshes themselves block the camera ... though the Walkmesh is a potentional candidate to ...

 

You can try to add the vertical walls to the walkmesh to check this theory... just remember to set the relevant faces to unwalkable.

[Quanon]

You can try to add the vertical walls to the walkmesh to check this theory... just remember to set the relevant faces to unwalkable.

 

I do that almost all the time on my walkmeshes ... I even changed some to OBSCURE . Your characters can't go up on the walls , there's somesort of Maximum X° to what you can walk on . Small ministairs stop you even .

 

EDIT : I'll see what the Combo of Trimesh Modifier and WalkMeshModifier does ...

 

If you look around in Kotor or TSL you'll see there are like 0 stairs to walk up and off , lots of ramps, though :|

 

EDIT 2: Aaarrgh ! Been doing some tests : adding a Trimesh modifier on top/under the WalkMesh modifier does nothing ...

 

Played around with the Build WOK data button , nothing changed either ...

 

I then went for the CameraStyle 2DA , copied a row , adjusted some values .

 

Didn't help either + I got some funny results ... ahum forgot to put the altered 2DA in the Override folder

 

The internals of Revan ...

 

 

AnywhooOOoOOOoOOOo ... After some insanely wallhugging , in differant areas throughout Kotor , its the Walkmesh who should block that dang Camera ... I know , I switch ideas around a lot .

 

I just have no idea , how the devil this can work , Kotor detects the walkmesh , since we run around and are stopped by walls with the PC; why the hell can't it figure it out for the Camera ???

 

Maybe I should try and find help somewhere on NWN modding boards .... Allthough you never really play 3th person views in NWN .

[magnusll]

EDIT : I'll see what the Combo of Trimesh Modifier and WalkMeshModifier does ...

 

I can already tell you this: it will do absolutely nothing. In the binary format used by the game, walkmesh nodes are a subtype of trimesh nodes; thus you automatically get the trimesh header and the walkmesh header added to them when you import through KAurora. They wouldn't work otherwise.

 

Given my current knowledge, I don't believe camera movement depends from anything you can set in Max. I'll need to check the few bits of data which I still don't understand and see if I can come up with something interesting.

[Quanon]

I can already tell you this: it will do absolutely nothing. In the binary format used by the game, walkmesh nodes are a subtype of trimesh nodes; thus you automatically get the trimesh header and the walkmesh header added to them when you import through KAurora. They wouldn't work otherwise.

 

Given my current knowledge, I don't believe camera movement depends from anything you can set in Max. I'll need to check the few bits of data which I still don't understand and see if I can come up with something interesting.

 

I'd just thought the Trimesh Modifier might offered something like a "SOLID" setting/option , like you have the Render , shadow, beaming stuff ....

 

Though the WalkMesh must be seen as a solid object since it already can block off the players movement .

 

Also , I've just spotted the Placeable Modifier xD , I've no idea what it exactly does - it just stacks up on the list- but it offers the Choice between Placeable and Door .

 

Thought this might be interesting to know , allthough I'm sure you already knew this thing excisted .

 

Anyway , I'm not going to let that camera spoil my fun , we"ll have to live with it , untill some other genious thought pops up .

 

 

EDIT : Sorry to be so annoying Magnusll , but do you have an idea what lmomnilights and lmsurfacelights ( Dummys ) are for ?

 

I just found these in one of the orginal Korriban Tomb area models .

 

How would one setup this kind of light ? Got no clue what the differances might be with the AuroraDlight ?

 

 

EDIT 3 : Christmas Holidays allready started for me this week , so I got to much time on my hands

 

Well I just have time now to almost spend 12 hours a day on this , other 12 are for sleeping , eating , ...

[Darth Payne]

Hey, Quanon.

 

Have you thought of putting in some transparrent Wookies?

 

They might make good mini-bosses to the terentatek.

 

Much like the apprentices to the sith boss in the sith-base training room on Manaan.

 

Too bad you can't get the eyes to glow more than the rest, that always looked cool to me.