Changing character appearance for lightside

[Ereinion Gil-galad]

Hey everyone, this is pretty much my first time trying to mod KOTOR. I have the first game (not TSL).

 

First, I just had a quick question about changing head appearances. I do not really know how to model, but I would still like to change the appearances of ingame characters. Can I just edit the head's .tga file in Photoshop and then use the replacement tool, so that the appearance changes without any actual modelling? i.e., create a new skin for a player head that is just a reworked version of the original file...

 

Second, I don't know how complex this could be, but I was wondering why the evil players should have all the fun with changing appearances? Why can't the Light side have some similar changes? Would it be really hard to add that into the game, or would it be just a little bit of tweaking, since the mechanics are already there? ( I don't know what exactly could change to make a character look more "good"... but the thought intrigued me.)

 

Hope all of that made sense... and hope I didn't ask some questions that have been answered before.

 

Thanks!

[Rtas Vadum]

Hey everyone, this is pretty much my first time trying to mod KOTOR. I have the first game (not TSL).

 

First, I just had a quick question about changing head appearances. I do not really know how to model, but I would still like to change the appearances of ingame characters. Can I just edit the head's .tga file in Photoshop and then use the replacement tool, so that the appearance changes without any actual modelling? i.e., create a new skin for a player head that is just a reworked version of the original file...

 

Of course. Any edits that you make in photoshop will work fine, as long as it still conforms to the uvmap(a 'map' that defines what in a texture goes where). But with most heads, if you only make small changes(changing eye colors, hair colors, etc), then looking at a models uvmap isn't even needed. So unless you want to do something that would be major(say having two different eye colors), you won't even have to worry about that.

 

Oh, and once you edit the tga file, all you need to do is drop that into KotOR's override folder. Once that is done, you should see your changes in-game.

 

Second, I don't know how complex this could be, but I was wondering why the evil players should have all the fun with changing appearances? Why can't the Light side have some similar changes? Would it be really hard to add that into the game, or would it be just a little bit of tweaking, since the mechanics are already there? ( I don't know what exactly could change to make a character look more "good"... but the thought intrigued me.)

 

There are two columns in the "heads.2da" file that seem to be what would define two transitions for the lightside. However, as far as I've tested, it doesn't work. So the most you'd get to do is change the base texture of a head, which you'll have for the entire game(if you plan on playing lightside).

[Ereinion Gil-galad]

Wow... that was easy, thanks! For some reason everything looks flatter now.... is that because I increased the resolution of the .tga file? I mean, the hair looks very flat, and not as 3D as it seemed to before... or maybe that is my imaginatnion.... should it make any difference to change the resolution?

 

That's too bad about the lightside transitions, that would be pretty neat! Oh well, like you said, I can still make a "lightside skin" that I could apply... actually, I could just do it manually as a character became more aligned to the lightside or something.

 

Anyway, thanks a lot for all your help!