Leaderboard

Some behind-the-scenes sort of work going on right now. Somehow I've managed (with lots of help from Darth Parametric) to get Sleheyron all set up on the galaxy map again, complete with filler takeoff/landing videos, filler Star Map vision sequences, and a conversation with Bastila about the Sleheyron Star Map. With Fair Strides MIA for the moment, I am having to take on the scripting, which is something I've never been well versed with. With quite a bit of help from the friendly folks on Discord, I've been able to at least start editing some scripts with positive results. I have always been very intimidated by scripting, so this is a big step for me. Thanks to all who have contributed their knowledge so far, it's been extremely helpful and informative.

Personally I wouldn't be against a strong Czerka presence on Sleheyron because one of the planet's main avenues is slave trading and, like we could see in Kashyyyk, Czerka is completely fine with it and in sharing in the business and profit. It is also true that one of the original Czerka business was mining and Sleheyron is a vulcanic world whose economy relied strongly on the extraction of Tibanna gas. That makes me think that partnership, more than competition, with Czerka could be a sensible possibility. Said that, I would not suggest to have Czerka employees running the landing pad and/or dealing with visitors. I expect the Hutt to want to be in direct control of that so I could imagine Gamorrean guards, Quarrens, Trandoshans and many droids being put in charge of that, possibly under the direct supervision of a resident Hutt official.

I am thinking the best course is to have a Czerka presence with some NPCs, and maybe even some that interact in a quest, but maybe not an established Czerka module or area. As if they are trying to get their foot in the door.

I think it makes sense, since they have their fingers in everything. I'd be worried about repetition of course, but I think there's plenty of room to do new things with Czera, and it would already be different from the other planets because they're not in charge of this one. Maybe they've only just recently tried to get a foothold in. It might even be a chance to give them more nuance, seeing as they'll likely be less evil than the establishment for once.

If you don't decompile the vanilla binary model alongside the vanilla binary walkmesh then you won't retain the proper room links in your ASCII, hence why you can't enter the room in your compiled version. You'll need to start from scratch. Extract the WOKs from BIFs -> models.bif -> Walkmesh. Put the appropriate WOK alongside the MDL/MDX when decompiling with MDLEdit. It will store the appropriate room link information in the ASCII model for KMax to properly re-export later.

The Star Map vision is a placeholder right now, as are the takeoff and landing videos. I am recycling the Tatooine videos for now. I plan to render the videos when the project is very close to being finished. Bastila's conversation uses spliced VO, but it's really quite convincing and cohesive. Fair Strides put that part together a while back. It will be pretty similar, though he may not be a Czerka employee. I'm not sure how much sense it makes for Czerka to have a large presence on a planet controlled by the Hutts. I'm open to hear discussion about the pros and cons of that idea.

I find it easiest to import the entire area with KOTORMax's area tools. That way you can see the whole thing and not have to hunt down each room, and you can still export a room individually by selecting its base when you're done. It's not super complicated, but the engine is very particular about what it wants. Only one walkmesh per room. The walkmesh must be a trimesh (not an editable poly or any other type of object). Safest thing is to apply an Edit Mesh modifier or convert to editable mesh when you're done editing. The walkmesh can't be self-intersecting or have any gaps. Both of these lead to unpredictable issues. So it's best to work from one mesh, extruding, cutting, or creating polys where necessary, and not build it with different objects and try to merge them later. The walkmesh uses a special material to configure what areas are walkable, with a sub-material for the different surface types. In this case, there's already walkmesh where the beds are. That part of the floor is set to non-walkable: You want to chop up that pink rectangle up so it has a walkable surface covering the bed. Working with trimeshes can be a pain, so I prefer to add an Edit Poly modifier first and remove unwanted edges like so: Once the part we want to edit is actually a real rectangle, editing the geometry is a lot easier. Just make sure to make it a mesh again when you're done.

I find this is a wonderful community full of talented people that are always ready to lend a hand. God knows how many times I have been bothering many of the most knowledgeable modders for help, advice and tips. I am sure all those who contribute their talent to your project are doing it with the confidence it is going to see the light of the day and that it is going to be a massive success. Godspeed, Sithspecter.