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A formerly unreleased remnant of the unfinished chapter of the M4-78 Documentary M4-78: The Problem with Master Vash One thing that I don’t think I’ve previously discussed is the problem of voice overs of the character Master Vash – the Jedi we’re seeking in the M4-78 materials. Did you know that there are two voice actresses for the lines that appear in the game? When we first see and hear Master Vash, it’s an old video that T3-M4 plays of your Exile’s trial on Coruscant. The voice actress for Vash in this scene is Vanessa Marshall. Vanessa Marshall has played a number of parts over the years, including a few characters in the Extended Universe including: Master Bela Kiwiiks (from SWTOR), Hera Syndulla (from Star Wars: Rebels and Forces of Destiny) and assorted characters in KotOR2. [ed: insert pictures of the various characters] I’ll put an IMDB link to her CV in the video description below. Here’s where things take a turn. Vanessa Marshall isn’t who we hear on the planet of M4-78 though. That completely different voice actress is Kath Soucie. In the Star Wars EU alone, she’s played the female Smuggler and minor characters in SWTOR, Mira Bridger and Minister Maketh Tua in Star Wars: Rebels, Mon Mothma from the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon, the Nightsister in Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption, Mara Jade in Star Wars: Empire at War, and the list goes on and on with other non-Star Wars roles. [ed: insert pictures of the various characters] I’ll put an IMDB link to Kath Soucie’s CV in the video description below. There are two people doing the work of one character. Most folks don’t even notice the actress change up as each section has few lines and they are separated by a decent amount of both in-game and real-world time. Let’s be honest - most people aren’t making off like a shot from T3’s Trial video to go straight to Korriban so they can meet Vash right away. Why bring this up though? One of the limitations of any of the versions of M4-78 mods is severe limitation of lines that can be used for what Vash can say in the mod. There’s not a lot. Since they are two different voice actresses, you can’t grab sample from one Vash iteration and hand it off to the other. It won’t sound right as they aren’t trying to actively mimic each other. An enterprising modder could technically grab lines from other games to try to extend Kath Soucie’s lines from one of the games listed below. However that modder would have to limit themselves to lines where Soucie’s lines sounded like her Vash impression that were left on the KotOR2 disc. Then they would run into the same issue of limitations of what the actress can say based on those lines. The answer to this would seem to be to recast the part of Master Vash entirely. Whenever this has been brought up, there’s been pushback. The most common reasons is a connection to the few lines that appear in the Coruscant files that appear in both modded and unmodded versions of the Coruscant trial scene – which as pointed out earlier – isn’t even the same actress as the one on Korriban.

Rather than keep using the status update section, I figured it was probably time I made a thread for my projects to showcase what I'm working on. Recruit Script (3.0) Hopefully, the last revision to this resource. Bringing back the ability to use the string and script parameters in dialog that I deleted in the previous version for some reason. The only breaking change will be the two function's names, which is to help it be more self-explanatory than "RecruitA" and "RecruitB". 😶 I'm also working on a recruit tutorial to accompany it. Echo of the Force Not much to show off yet. I plan to start on the first module tomorrow. As a test of the new version of the above mod resource, I managed to get one of the party members into the game. The clothing in the screenshot is not the intended final clothing. It just was convenient to copy Mira's appearance line when setting up her 2da lines. TSL Heads Port At the same time, I'm also working on porting the TSL heads into KOTOR I. The main issue I can foresee is that the 4 hispanic heads don't have undergarments for the scoundrel and soldier appearances. But, I'll cross that bridge and figure something out when I get to that. Misc As part of redesigning my personal website, I'm updating my readme files from my older mods to make them more consistent. I'm also uploading the ones that weren't here previously to make sure they're available.

@Sith Holocron I like those ideas! Here's one I would add: *Vash is most appreciative of your actions on M4-78, but she will not join the rest of the council on Dantooine because she has more work to do and she knows the council will never have the strength and courage to do what is right. This way she gets to live without selling out like Zez and Kavar!

I like where this is going. 🤔

It really depends on what modders want to do with the character as they are only limited by their ability and their imagination. If Vash was recast, who's to say that she'd even want to go Dantooine? It might even be a modder's favor for her not to want to go to Dantooine as the other Jedi Masters do not acknowledge her being there at any point in the Rebuilt Jedi Academy discussion. Let's look at few things that could be done - and folks could add items below as they occur to them. Continue the discussion on Force Bonds that currently exists in the game disc files? Would knowing more about the Force Bonds be of interest to a player? Have lengthier discussions with Vash on the nature of their player's current alignment? Perhaps Vash might offer an apology (on her own behalf that is, not the Council's) for throwing the Exile out of the Order? Expanded training montage? Could Vash have additional feedback on the Masters that the Exile has encountered already? Additional comments branching off of whether your Exile spared them or attacked them? How about some more information on what she did on the planet? She has to have more information on the nature of planet of M4-78. Assuming we're talking about a version of a mod that includes Kaah, then she was standing right next to her hacker padawan having things explained to her. Her (relatively) calm outlook compared to Kaah's might offer different outlooks on M4-78 as a whole. And perhaps the player could suggest to Vash what she could do next? Maybe tie Vash into other mods that aren't connected to M4-78 right now (i.e. Korriban Expansion, Vash being a resource to consult about those pesky missing Jedi Holocrons, having her pick up and train Kaevee, etc.)? And that's just off the top of my head.

I realize it has been quite some time since I have posted a proper update. Unfortunately, right now I have nothing major to share that looks pretty. But, I have been dusting off the old tools and getting back to work on this. I've also been looking for ways to simplify and reduce some things, and I've sort of had a "Eureka!" moment that's going to allow me to combine two quests, eliminate multiple areas that I have yet to model, and just keep things simpler. I don't want to spoil all the details, but it's taken a burden off my mind at least. Some of you may be disappointed to hear about the reduction, but I don't want there to be bloated or unused space, which is what I am effectively eliminating here. I am really more interested in the quality of the mod, and an actual release. So in this case, less is more. On the modeling front, a number of things are getting an overhaul. The cantina is getting a face lift, and the street is going to be restructured. Most don't know this, but I actually had a second street module. I am combining both into a more condensed street area. The two-module version was too expansive and had too much wasted space. It was fun doing the outside areas, but it just ended up being a lot of empty space. I got a bit too ambitious wanting a Taris-plus sized planet. After the cantina and streets are re-configured, I am looking at only one more area to model from scratch before the area models are complete. This will be an indoor area that houses the gladiator teams as well as various vendors that would go along with such an event. After this area is complete, essentially the whole planet will be built. I still need to do some work on the gladiator arenas themselves, but luckily this will be fairly easy. Immediate goals are: Finalize Cantina Model Gladiator Row Finalize Street Area Connect all areas Work on Gladiator Arenas Longer term goals for this year: Simplify some quests Get quests implemented Alpha testing Thank you all for your continued support of this project. I know development is often spotty from my end, but I knew this was likely to be the case going into it. But if I keep on plugging, things will get finished.

Thank you, but don't sell yourself short. You do amazing work. I've been playing your version of Aurra Sing and it's incredible. All your work on character models is great, and I never have come close to doing anything as good as you in that department. And I have to also give credit to the designers for the original KotOR blasters as well. They packed a shocking amount of detail into 64 by 64 textures, and all I really did was copy it in a larger form.