Coruscant Jedi Temple skybox

[Drewton]

I'm attempting to reskin the Coruscant Jedi Temple skybox (CorSky01-4 .tga files, found in ERFS>TexturePacks>swpc_tex_tpa>C), but the changes don't appear in-game. Does anyone know if I need to save it in anywhere other than the Override folder? This is the first time I've had this kind of problem.

[Darth InSidious]

I seem to remember having some problems with this. Could you be a bit more specific as to the problem? Does the skybox not appear at all, or does it show up the same as it was before editing?

 

I'm glad to see someone's taken this up, though - the default in-game Coruscant skybox is horrible!

[Drewton]

The skybox appears, but it's still the old one. I've checked to make sure and there are absolutely no changes in-game.

[jonathan7]

Hmmm, only real suggestion;

 

Does the texture have specific properties - i.e. Portraits have to be saved as 24 bits to show up in my game.

 

Expect a PM from me shortly

[Sharen Thrawn]

Just tried editing the files and got the same results. Very weird

[jonathan7]

Just tried editing the files and got the same results. Very weird

 

Hmmm, I was going to do that, but, given your better at Skyboxes than me, I'll trust you.

 

Could the game be defaulting to one say the texture pack of B or C for the Coruscant skybox, or are the Skybox files named something else, and the ones we are editing aren't the actual ones used in Module?

 

Btw, Sharen, you don't still have that Skybox PM you sent me ages ago? I was going to forward it to Drewton, but I have several thousand messages, and the search function for my PM box isn't working - Drewton, may find that useful! - I certainly have

[Sharen Thrawn]

Hmmm, I was going to do that, but, given your better at Skyboxes than me, I'll trust you.

 

Could the game be defaulting to one say the texture pack of B or C for the Coruscant skybox, or are the Skybox files named something else, and the ones we are editing aren't the actual ones used in Module?

 

Btw, Sharen, you don't still have that Skybox PM you sent me ages ago? I was going to forward it to Drewton, but I have several thousand messages, and the search function for my PM box isn't working - Drewton, may find that useful! - I certainly have

 

Not in my PM box anymore but thankfully I'm making a backups for the messages when I ran out of space. Is it OK if I post it here? Maybe other people will find it useful too?

 

Will try to save the coruscant skybox as 24bits to see if it will work. If not, than either the files are broken somehow, or the game "saves" the look of the whole module once entering it for the first time, or uses the files stored physically elsewhere and we're trying to edit wrong ones as we can't find the proper ones/found the wrong ones first.

 

Hi there Jonathan and thank you for your kind words!

 

Well, I don't really know what kind of tip do you want? But here are couple of things that I think might be useful while creating or editing one skybox:

 

1. Use some advanced graphic editing program. GIMP (free!) or Photoshop ($$$). I don't know about Paint Shop Pro, never used it but I heard that it's cheap and really good at the same time. A good graphic editing program is a must.

 

2. Set really high resolution for your skybox. The basic resolution for all (AFAIK) textures in KOTOR is 72 pixels per inch. With my Nar Shaddaa skybox, I set 288 pixels per inch (4 x 72 =288). It makes the in-game texture look much more detailed.

You can also do a simpler thing, simply doubling the size of the texture (from 512x512 pixels to 1024x1024 for example) but I'm not really sure how this would work in-game. I heard that with some textures you can't just adjust the size.

Also remember to NOT make your skybox' size/resolution too big. It could result in an enormous size of the file. My Nar Shaddaa skybox texture is 288 px/inch and it's already really pretty big (16MB).

 

3. Make sure all of the corners of your custom skybox blend with each other. Always check this in-game. Nar Shaddaa's skybox for example has only one "wall" texture, wich is placed on all four walls of the modules skybox, plus the celling/roof texture. But for example M4-78's skybox consists 4 "wall" textures + celling/roof texture. Look at the picture below:

W means wall textures, C means celling/roof textures and M means part of the wall and celling texture that are connected.

The biggest trick is making the left edge of first wall texture (W1) and the right edge of the last wall texture (W4) blend with each other. Of course you also have to make sure all wall textures blend with the roof/celling texture properly.

 

Hope this will help you, sorry for my english I hope you understood it.

[Darth InSidious]

It's been at least two years since I touched these textures, so you'll have to excuse my not realising the mistake earlier.

 

Nevertheless, the reason the changes aren't showing up is that you've got the wrong set of skyboxes.

 

You want the following:

 

MAL_skyBk

MAL_skyFrnt

MAL_skyLft

MAL_skyRght

MAL_skyUp

 

That's why it hasn't been working.

[jonathan7]

<snipped for brevity>

 

Legend!

 

Edit: Well, I was right, though didn't find it, only noticed DI's post

[Drewton]

Thanks a lot for your help all!

 

Sharen Thrawn, I thought l'd somehow have to edit the actual model or something similar to get larger skybox textures in the game - good to hear.

 

Darth InSidious, great, I don't think I would have ever found those textures myself. I would have assumed them to be for Malachor.

 

Thanks again.