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I'm delighted to finally be able to open this thread. Here, I'll be posting updates on my latest project. I've been posting pictures on the KOTOR Discord and in status updates here on DS for a while. Now I'm finally stopping the teasing and will instead post new stuff here. After my Juhani mod, I was inspired by Koru's work on creatng high poly head models for K1. I felt that the aliens in the Kotor games were in dire need for a makeover, and after much much trying and failing, I have learned modern techniques used in 3D character creation. I was able to apply it for no other than Master Vandar, the first entry in this modding series. Animation.mp4 My objective with this project was to create a character from scratch that would fit the vanilla rigs to facilitate the process when it comes to porting the 3D model to Kotor. I started off from a bunch of very simple objects. From there I slowly formed the main shapes, and refined the details until I had a high poly sculpture I was happy with. I then retopoligized the model. In plain English, this means I created a low-poly version of the character on top of the sculpted one. In the process I would ensure that the geometry was suitable model for the game engine. The final model has about 12k triangles, including 3k for the hair cards. For the texturing part, I used Substance Painter. I baked the details from the high poly sculpt onto the low poly retopologised geometry into a set of textures called mesh bakes. Within Substance Painter, these are used to drive the procedural creation of layers of color information (but not only), mostly using masks. Very similar to the way Photoshop works. This looks really flat though. Remember that Odyssey doesn't use much more than the diffuse texture (i.e. the base color information). To create a sense of depth, I've used the mesh bakes like the ambient occlusion and curvature maps to add shadows and highlight to the texture. Other bakes were used as well to add even more fake lighting. Final highlights and shadows were then painted by hand. The eyes were fully painted by hand in 3DCoat. Also, I stole a neat trick from this 80LV post to add some depth to the eyes. The iris has been sunk in, while the geometry for the cornea was cut separate from the rest of the eyes and features a painted reflection. That's it! After some preparing, I then brought the model over to 3DS Max to deal with the skin weights. As I had planned ahead for the model to fit pretty much perfectly to the vanilla rig, I had no real issues in the weighting process. Pictures and gifs are nice, but discovering the model in 3D is much better. Check it out on Sketchfab here: https://skfb.ly/ow9Mn Make sure to zoom in to evaluate all the details in the texture ! I hope you find this post was insightful! I'll include details on the next pieces of the project in the next messages of this thead at a later stage!

Not really no. They probably all use the same model slot, and there are a very limited number of those. You have to choose 1, or do some very complicated modding (as in mod making not installing) to get around it

For my participation in Cathalan, it started from me complaining about the NPCs having an orange tint to them - and it's a criticism I just kept repeating and mocking him for over the years, particularly in one thread here where I publicly aired some drama (that I ultimately instigated) and posted a review video of Cathalan for the sole purpose of mocking him. It's something I deeply regret. I'm still not 100% sure of what my motives were back then, but I know that I had the wrong attitude toward him and his mod. I agree with what LDR has said, it was a great idea and had the potential to be something great and special, and I'd love to see Cathalan get an update and for Jaevyn to be in good standing with the community again some day. I don't know how that will all happen, but I think we can start by changing our disposition towards Jaevyn and Cathalan - offering up constructive feedback and taking a more positive stance on the mod - at least for anyone who hasn't already started doing that. For this, I think you are on the right track @LDR @Basil Bonehead I recall your stream testing 90SK's Edge of Darkness was pretty fair and helpful, I'd recommend reviewing Cathalan with that same positive lens.

how 'bout something simple? Like... ....where the inner glow would denote the color of the blade?

Given the usual quality of said input, he was probably at that stage about a decade ago.