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Hi everyone on this great forum! 😊 I decided to start my own little thread, even though I’m still relatively new here. I’ll be posting my work-in-progress, notes on how things are done - mainly for myself, so I can come back and refresh my memory later. If it ends up being useful to someone else as well, I’ll be happy of course. I’m sure everything I’m writing about has already been discussed countless times on this forum and is familiar to everyone. But I’m still a newcomer! My already released mods: New portraits for PartyMembers HD Animated Computer Interface Saul Karath Retexture Narve's New High Poly Canderous Head While working on the Canderous head I made a bit of progress learning Blender. I only knew it at a very basic level before, because I’m a 2D artist, not a 3D one. I still don’t really know what proper topology should look like, how to paint weights correctly, how to build textures with nodes, and so on. I’ll be learning all of that gradually. For this particular head I took a high poly mesh from this mod - big thanks to the author! Of course I heavily edited it: the geometry, the UV unwrap, and the texture. I also learned a few useful texture painting tricks. Geometry-wise the hardest parts are always the eyes and the lips, because the animation has to deform them properly, and what looks fine in Blender often ends up looking completely different in the game. Something I’d like to note here for myself - how to get rid of grey spots on the model after exporting from Blender to mdl/mdx: 1. The most important step - clear Custom Split Normals Data: Select the head mesh in Object Mode. Go to the Object Data Properties tab. Expand the Geometry Data panel. If the “Clear Custom Split Normals Data” button is active, click it. This removes the old broken data and forces Blender to recalculate the normals. Also helpful: 2. Apply smoothing — Right-click the model → Shade Smooth. 3. Apply transforms — Use with caution and only when needed! Things can shift in unexpected ways. In Object Mode select the head and press Ctrl + A → Apply All Transforms. ____________________________________________ P.S. English is not my native language, so I apologise in advance if anything is phrased awkwardly. ____________________________________________ Then I decided to retexture the high-poly Bastila body from the TCS mod. The thing is, we started playing through BOSSR on stream, and there Shadow uses Bastila’s body. And we have this Bastila mod installed. So I made her this outfit. I didn’t touch the model or the UV unwrap, only the texture. I painted the alpha channel in the places that should be more shiny. Since I don’t know how the original model author would feel about this little “side project” of mine, of course I won’t be releasing this texture anywhere — it’s purely for personal use. After that I moved on to her head. I wanted both the lekku and the face itself to have more polygons. So I simply applied a Subdivide, then worked on the mesh — editing vertices, sculpting, and so on. Then I started texturing, and at that point I really wanted to add a bump map so the lekku would look bumpy the way vanilla Twi’leks do (even if the vanilla ones are very low quality). I dove deep into the problem — I remember spending entire weekends glued to this forum reading everything people wrote about adding bump. Nothing was working for me. I tried every piece of advice, converted the poor bump map to TPC every which way, opened the model files in ASCII and searched for tangent vectors… I even started recalling university calculus about quaternions and how I used to redefine matrix multiplication in C++ practicals…🤣 It turned out the problem was completely different. The BOSSR mod authors used the "Twilek05" head model, but in heads.2da they assigned it the texture name "matilda_headd". Meanwhile the model itself is linked to the texture "Twilek05". And even though the engine can pull the main (diffuse) texture information from a texture that isn’t the one specified in the model, it cannot pull bump map information (and apparently txi info as well) from a texture with a different name! I don’t know why it works this way — maybe some internal script. Anyway, once I renamed the main texture to "Twilek05.tga", the bump map to "Twilek05b.tpc", wrote this in the "Twilek05.txi": bumpyshinytexture CM_SpecMap bumpmaptexture Twilek_F05b and also put "Twilek05" as the texture in heads.2da — miracle of miracles, the game finally saw the bump map! Yes, it didn’t turn out perfect — the bumps are too fine and therefore look a bit like shimmering. I probably won’t fix it, because we had to abandon that mod playthrough — it conflicted with other mods. But I’ll write down the key points needed to add bump (even though all of this is already on the forum — huge thanks to DarthParametric and everyone else who shared advice and tutorials): Before exporting, you must enable the “Tangent Space” checkbox in the KotOR Model Node plugin options for all the meshes that need it (in my case “hair” and “head”). To verify — open the model in MDLEdit, save it as ASCII, open it in Notepad++ and search for the word “tangentspace”. On the relevant nodes it should say tangentspace 1, not 0. If it somehow still shows 0 even though the checkbox was enabled on export from Blender, change it to 1, save, open that ASCII file again in MDLEdit (it might complain that it can’t recalculate the vectors — hopefully that’s not a problem), and then save it back to binary mdl/mdx. You can also just tick the corresponding checkbox in MDLEdit itself and re-save — but keep in mind that the bump will then be applied to every mesh in the model that uses that texture, not only the ones you might have wanted. Preparing the .txi. It must have the exact same name as the main texture, and the main texture must be the one that is actually linked to the model. Inside the .txi you need: bumpyshinytexture (your Cubemap) bumpmaptexture (your bump map name) In theory bump should work without the shiny part (only the line "bumpmaptexture " in txi), but for me it never did — because in that case the engine treated the alpha channel of the main texture as transparency. Meaning: if you darken the alpha to make the bump stronger → the object becomes transparent if you leave it white → no bump is visible. Maybe I’m doing something wrong? Preparing the main texture. It must be named exactly as specified in the model (you can check that here). It needs an alpha channel that controls both the shininess (via the Cubemap) and the strength of the bump. The darker the alpha, the stronger both effects. Yes, both at once — there’s no other way. Preparing the bump map. Save the main texture as an image and throw it into this website (again, thanks for the link — found it on the forum). You can increase Strength if the texture isn’t very contrasty, and add a bit of blur (slider to the negative side). Download the result and save the texture as TGA with a pure white alpha channel. Then use tga2tpc with these settings. You can also add extra lines or strengthen the bump with the bumpmapscaling value, as DarthParametric wrote here: https://deadlystream.com/topic/9353-bump-mapping-tutorial-request-for-novices/#findComment-87017 Final contents for the override folder: the model (mdl + mdx), the main texture (tga), the .txi with the parameters, and the bump map (tpc). Phew. The last thing I learned on this head was adding new geometry — I wanted to model headphones and a stone on her forehead. Important points here: convert everything to triangles and weight-paint it to the head. To check — switch to Weight Paint mode and make sure it’s painted red. If you need a piece not to move with the head, weight-paint it to the neck instead (a different vertex group). If you don’t weight anything at all, those pieces of the model simply won’t appear in the game. 🙃🙃 I’ll say it again: I’m by no means an expert on KOTOR modding, so I apologize if I write or do anything incorrectly! And, of course, I’d be grateful for any advice, comments, or corrections.

Another work of mine that’s currently in progress is the Juhani head model. It’s high-poly and has a 2K texture. The work is actually already finished, but I’ve realised I can’t release it like this - now I need to either rework the texture or even the body model, because the difference is too noticeable at the moment. During this process I learned a lot in Blender, but there’s no point writing about that here. The only thing really worth noting is how the game renders danglymesh with different weights. With weights greater than 0 up to roughly 0.6–0.7 the vertices get a kind of “semi-freedom”: the engine shifts them, but not as predictably as at 0 (fixed, locked to the head position) or near 1 (completely detached from the head and dangling with the set amplitude, stiffness and period). So when weight-painting the tail I used 0 near the attachment point and then jumped straight to 0.7 without a smooth transition. Toward the tips I softened it to 0.6–0.5 - the tips can dangle freely, they’re allowed to! I don’t know, maybe it can be done better, but at my current level of understanding the process I think this is the maximum. Yes, the lips also had to be re-weighted - I spent two days painting them this way and that, checking every frame, but in the end I got a result without any pinching or artifacts.

The next big project was a retexture of the Ebon Hawk’s exterior hull. Looking at the vanilla one was genuinely painful, and the existing retextures didn’t really improve the situation. I really wanted to bring its appearance closer to this: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GXwXyB Because in my game I’ve replaced the original cutscenes with several very beautiful ones that use this model. And the model itself is just awesome! But I immediately ran into the problem that the UV layout was completely unsuitable - a lot of overlapping, and many areas of the texture were shared between completely different parts. And… I went down the wrong path. I found the "v_ehawk" model in the game files and started fixing the UV unwrap. I did everything properly: separated the overlaps, made the areas that are visible up close when you walk around the ship larger. Texture in 4K. I was even about to start editing vertices and adding polygons. But then I discovered that none of my changes were visible in the game at all. I spent several days scratching my head, thinking I was exporting the model incorrectly somehow. Of course it turned out to be much more mundane - the model I was editing had nothing to do with the ones that appear on the landing pads on different planets. I have no idea where the game actually uses it - probably in some cutscenes? What we see on the landing pads and in the docks is part of the area, not a separate model. And if I want to edit it, that means editing the entire area - which automatically means incompatibility with any other mod that also edits that area. So I sulked a bit, complained a bit, and decided for now to limit myself to pure texture work. But then another “brilliant” idea struck me - we don’t look for easy ways, right? Realising that adding polygons wasn’t going to happen, I wanted to add a normal map, inspired by my previous experience with the Twi’lek head. I thought, at least it won’t be a flat picture stretched over polygons, there will be some relief. I also spent a long time on the texture itself, adjusting it so that the overlapping UV pieces still looked decent… It was challenging to strike a balance between the desire to match the reference and the limitations of the existing UV layout. I hope the result turned out well. I wanted to make 8K textures, but the engine was clearly starting to struggle when loading areas, so I settled on 6K. But with the bump I was in for a fiasco. Actually, I could have suspected something when looking at the original game files - there was no bump specified in the .txi files at all, even though bump maps were provided for every texture. Why do they exist? I still don’t know the answer to that question. Interestingly, the engine did react to the presence or absence of the bump map - the shaders changed and the image looked different. But the actual content of the bump map didn’t affect anything. For the experiment I tried both a completely flat solid “blue” bump map and an extremely contrasty one amplified 15× during conversion to TPC. There was zero difference. After quite a long series of experiments with different bump settings, .txi options, and the alpha channel of the main texture, I finally found the answer — and I’m sure it has been discussed somewhere on this forum, I just never came across it. On area objects the lighting is almost completely baked into the lightmap. Dynamic bump (the kind that reacts to real-time light direction) barely shows up at all. Especially if the lightmapped flag is enabled on the mesh. I looked into the node of the long-suffering ship, and sure enough, there it was: As an experiment I turned off the lightmapped flag. And to my astonished eyes this is what appeared (the bump map at that moment was the extreme one) — view with caution! 🤣 Of course it’s pure horror, some kind of Dark Side of the Force visions. 😁 So I don’t know whether to include these normal maps in the mod release for the textures where the ship is part of the area. Are they needed? Probably not. For the model that isn’t part of an area - apparently the one used in some cutscenes - I will of course add the bump. Might be useful. A few nice pictures: All that’s left is to add the texture for the upper hull (roof) model that is used in the mini-game where you shoot down fighters, and touch up small details here and there. And then the mod can be released.

@RonRheaBob76 Among many things, you claim to be a passionate Star Wars fan and you were clear in your initial response to a 2-year-old thread to avoid toxicity and insulting comments. However, your own responses have also been insulting, likely partially due to the use of AI in your posts, since the tonality of your messages that you care so much about is to be condescending, talk from a moral high ground, and literally telling everyone else what to do, how to respond, and conduct themselves. That is not your right, any more than it's the right of another user to do so. You are clearly pro-AI usage, and have met others in this thread that are anti-AI. A few mods have been linked and posted here for your perusal. Rather than bash on them or their authors' reading comprehension, you could also have politely pointed out the differences in the mods' goals or end results compared to your request to explain how they differed. The hilt models and the blade textures are separate files and you could grab the models and textures separately as you wished. Instead, you chose to insult J's abilities. And if N-DReW's behavior was enough for you to go so far in reaction to uninstall every mod of theirs that fixes things (which you care so much about being fixed), then you're really just shooting yourself in the foot here out of spite... Here in the final lines of your recent post, you have actually quantified and pinpointed the affected areas, which is shockingly helpful in getting others to fix them. That being said, no one is beholden to answer every request. You claim to be passionate and came to this site because of that passion. Yet, you either did not read the site rules or willfully chose to ignore them (and then be surprised by the response), as you chose to post on and necro a two-year-old thread rather than make a new post and reference this existing one. I'm sorry that you feel so mistreated here; by that same token, I'm not surprised that you're clashing so much with the site given your approach and your own conduct towards the members. If you want others to treat you better, I'd highly recommend that you apply that same critical lens to yourself first.

As a fellow passionate Star Wars myself, let me give you my take on the bug in your own language:

Ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about apple pie and club soda.

DATHOMIR EXPANSION A new world, a new story, and new companions for Knights of the Old Republic II Development journal · October 2026 Hey everyone, I've been back and forth on Dathomir for quite a while, and I owe this project a proper update. Some stretches have been all Dathomir; in others I've stepped away to work on smaller things, including my Basilisk and terentatek mods. Those projects have helped me learn, solve problems, and come back to this one with more to work with. I fully intend to finish Dathomir. I want to give the Exile a world worth exploring and a story worth carrying back into the rest of TSL. I'll be working in conjunction with @SAO1138to shape that story into something that fits the original game and delivers the kind of epic Star Wars adventure I want to play myself. There's a lot more planned than I've managed to show in scattered updates. This post brings together the current work, the larger design, and the route from one to the other. The screenshots are progress captures; the scope figures below describe the full development plan. 01 · The adventure A relic found on Korriban draws the Jedi Exile to a hidden enclave on Dathomir, where a civil war and a ritual to preserve the dead threaten to turn the bonds between people into something terrible. The story's working subtitle is The Wound and the Chain. It follows the Exile into a place where memory, grief, freedom, and control have become tangled together. The factions all have reasons to want the Exile's help, and reasons to be afraid of what that help might mean. I'm aiming for ancient mysteries, dangerous creatures, political choices, personal companion stories, and some big Star Wars moments. The quieter parts matter just as much: a conversation after a fight, a companion recognizing something you missed, or discovering that the person asking for help has left out a very important detail. This is a lost Dathomiri precursor society in TSL's era, thousands of years before the familiar later Nightsister traditions. Its settlements sit over older Kwa and Rakatan remains, with newer scars left by offworld interference. That history should be visible in the places you explore, rather than existing only in dialogue. There are also plans for a few beloved familiar faces to appear, and for an appropriate end to the story of a character many of us have loved since K1. I'm keeping those identities and circumstances under wraps. I want those moments to mean something when you reach them, with the player's established history respected. 02 · The full plan at a glance 15 planned Dathomir environments: 14 numbered planet modules plus the separately catalogued Czerka Black Site. 4 areas for a new upgrade. A capital ship to house your companions and travel the galaxy with (If you choose): a bridge, hangar, commons, and operations section. Together with Dathomir, that is 19 planned new locations, plus additions to the existing Korriban cave and Ebon Hawk. Final module boundaries may change; the first build combines some spaces. 1 branching main storyline: 11 numbered stages, expanded into 18 quest-and-route design sections, with 8 side quests and further shipboard and endgame story content. 2 recruitable companion candidates: Xaria and Kaius, with the permanent choice determined by the story and your convictions, not player gender. 43 cast catalog entries: 31 individual roles and 12 population/group entries. The individual roles include Oberon (A Rancor Mount), echoes, recordings, and remains as well as living people. 21 bestiary entries, 12 ambient fauna entries, and 37 flora entries. The bestiary includes creature families, variants, manifestations, and ancient Kwa lore forms; I have done extensive research on Dathomir flora and fauna in countless star wars comics thanks to @Lane and his coordination/knowledge of star wars comics. 4 principal conclusions with variations for companions, factions, civilians, and later events. The design targets roughly 5–7 hours for the critical path and 9–12 hours for a broad completionist run. These are planning totals and playtime targets, not finished-content counts or a release promise. The current playable work is still concentrated on the opening area, characters, encounters, and renderer. 03 · First look: Ichor Gorge Landing This is the first official module, and the place I want to set the tone for everything that follows. Red cliffs and a huge sky, green ichor deep below, broken machinery, ancient stone, and a small landing platform that makes the Ebon Hawk feel a long way from safety. The work behind these views includes route planning, blockouts, terrain and rock construction, vegetation, lighting, water, and repeated checks from the player's path. I'm trying to make a place that holds up when you walk around it, turn back, or look over an edge. I am applying all of my skills as a professional 3D environment artist to this work. The Unreal map is the visual master. Preserving that quality is what led me into the renderer work mentioned further down this post. 04 · The world beyond the landing The planet is planned around connected exploration and a hub-based investigation. You arrive as an outsider, get to know both major factions, and follow several lines of evidence before deciding who deserves your support, or whether to pursue another answer. Current illustrated development map: the surface regions and the passages beneath Dark Mountain. Ichor Gorge Landing, Wildlands, and Rootway Labyrinth: the arrival, dangerous open country, and an optional cave network beneath it, with branching routes, wildlife, and buried infrastructure. Paecian Survey Annex: a precarious neutral hub for researchers, traders, supplies, and investigations. Its dependence on outside commerce complicates its claim to neutrality. Ashen Freehold: the Brotherhood's settlement, with workshops, beast handlers, civilians, and a struggle over what freedom will look like after the war. Dark Mountain Approach, Crystal Spire Lower, and Crystal Spire Upper: villages, memorial fields, a public clan hub, archives, and the seats of ritual and political power. Verdant Scar and Czerka Black Site: a reactive crystal ecosystem and a concealed research operation, where the balance between value of living things and profit becomes an eerie choice. Great Beast Ground and Tomb of the First Keeper: large arena like territory with a creature boss encounter, ancient control systems, and a layered ruin central to Kaius and Oberon's story. Starved Shrine, Siege Pass, and Spirit Crucible: the later investigation and finale spaces, changing in meaning as the truth behind the war comes into focus. After the initial journey, survey beacons are planned to ease repeated travel between safe, discovered places. Skills and companions should open useful options: repairs, alternate routes, evidence, negotiations, and ways to handle creatures. Exploration should reward attention to detail of the world and its ecosystem. 05 · People, factions, and the choices between them The two central powers are the Dark Mountain Clan and the Ashen Brotherhood. Mother Sevrana wants to preserve her people's memory and continuity; Marro Venn leads a movement born from escape, labor, and resistance. Both have genuine supporters, internal disagreements, and actions the player will have to judge. The Paecian Survey Annex, led by Doctor Elira Vane, brings research and outside law into the conflict. Czerka, represented by Operations Manager Halden Rusk, brings transport, supplies, and an interest in owning whatever proves valuable. Korl Vesh operates between those interests as an Irodorian mercenary broker. Another familiar presence, has his own interest in the war. Beyond the principal cast, the plan includes wardens, archivists, researchers, quartermasters, displaced families, soldiers, captives, crew, witnesses, and echoes of earlier generations. Characters such as Warden Vaska, Archivist Mera, Pera Voss, and Quartermaster Seln give the settlements people to return to. The larger cast should make the consequences visible in ordinary lives. The ending structure supports backing either major faction, earning an alternative to their war, or pursuing a darker claim of your own. Trust and fear matter separately. I want different choices to change the finale, return visits, and the stories companions tell about what happened here. 06 · Xaria, Kaius, and Oberon Xaria: already speaking and fully working in TSL Xaria already has a working in-game encounter, custom powers and class, custom voice and dialogue, and post-combat recruitment. I have created a patch for the game that unlocks the party selection screen to have 20 open slots. @Vriff Has also released a 32 slot patch recently, and I will be working with him to combine our patches and make it the best experience for modders and mod enthusiats. Seeing her scene work in KOTOR II was a big moment. She is a seer with her own history and judgment of the Exile, and I want her to feel like someone you gradually get to know. 12-xaria-encounter-opening.mp4 In-game development footage — the creature encounter and Xaria’s opening line. Earlier character model, shown in the test module. Her planned combat identity combines ritual casting, stealth, repositioning, and reanimation: Miststep: Retreat, Miststep: Ambush, Veil of the Clanless, Raise Dead, Ichor Lightning, Ichor Drain, and Ichor Heal. Her longer arc includes a personal quest, influence-dependent conversations, six authored future glimpses, and connections to the wider TSL journey. I'm now rebuilding her head. The current work has separate eyes and improvements to the face, mouth, teeth, and topology. Hair, final speech and blink behavior, and testing the replacement in the game are still ahead. An earlier topology study from the same rebuild, before the latest mouth and dental refinements. Her outfit is also planned for an upgrade, drawing on the garment, armor, and material work I've been doing through my upcoming BetterArmor mod. The whole character needs to work in motion and in conversation. Kaius: a warrior with a history to recover Kaius is the other planned recruitable companion: a Zabrak veteran and beast master whose connection to Dathomir reaches into an earlier war. He and Xaria can both take part in the planet's story, but the permanent companion choice is intended to carry a real commitment. Kaius: character concept. His progression includes four staged Force-healing and training sessions, uncovering memories and restoring abilities. His planned kit combines Ichor Warform, Beast Accord, grip, hurl, and crushing techniques, culminating in Ichor Cataclysm. He also gains a retained summon progression of Boma → Zakkeg → Borhek → Terentatek, so a later beast adds an option rather than deleting the earlier ones. Oberon: our custom rancor Oberon is a named part of Kaius's story and one of the project's strongest completed creature assets. His custom model, rig, animation, and KOTOR II creature build are in place. The armor, scarred hide, bone details, and green accents give him a presence of his own. He has a major encounter, a continuing relationship with Kaius, and a planned signature summon and side quest. The way the player treats that relationship will affect its outcome. I'm keeping the scene itself for the game. The existing companions matter too. The design bible SAO and I have written includes travel reactions, environmental interactions, and shipboard scenes for TSL's standard cast. Xaria and Kaius should become part of the party's relationships, with people like Kreia, Atton, Bao-Dur, Visas, Mandalore, and the others responding in their own voices. AI disclosure: my workflow and the voices I want to be open about this: I use AI in my workflow on Dathomir, just as I do across my other projects and tools. I know some people will disagree with that choice, especially coming from a digital creator and professional artist. I understand that people feel strongly about it. The industry is changing, though, and I don’t intend to be left behind in my own industry. I have developed, written, and managed my own programs as part of working with this technology. As a technology professional, I believe I have a duty to explore new tools in a professional and ethical way. AI is amazing technology, and it has already helped us achieve a great deal on this project. I still take responsibility for what I make with it: the artistic decisions, the quality of the finished work, and how it fits into the game. That includes AI-generated voice work for new dialogue involving TSL’s existing cast. These are new AI-generated performances, not recordings made by the original actors for this mod. My intention is to do the characters justice with carefully written dialogue and high-quality scenes that respect who they are and make the world feel more alive. I plan to include an installer option to remove the AI voices; those lines would remain readable through subtitles, without voiced audio. I’m putting this disclosure here because I want to be honest about how the project is made. I hope that honesty will be met with respect and professionalism, and that discussion will focus on the actual work: the art, writing, gameplay, and experience I’m creating. The two short examples below show the current voice work in game. Kreia: AI voice demonstration 13-kreia-ai-voice-demo.mp4 Kreia’s reaction to Xaria. Development dialogue with an AI-generated voice. Atton: AI voice demonstration 14-atton-ai-voice-demo.mp4 Atton’s reaction to Xaria. Development dialogue with an AI-generated voice. 07 · Quests, creatures, and a living planet The main story moves from the Korriban discovery and Hawk decoding scene through arrival, faction audiences, the First Keeper investigation, three interlocking evidence trails, a commitment, a route-dependent siege, and the Spirit Crucible. Its 18 design sections include alternative branches; they are not 18 separate linear quests everyone completes. The eight planned side quests: A Name for the Beast: follow competing claims on Oberon and decide what his bond with Kaius should become. The Verdant Scar: explore a crystal ecosystem where extraction, aggression, and restraint have different consequences. The Dead Do Not Testify: investigate a murder where an apparently supernatural witness still needs evidence checked. The Weight of Ink: decide what to do with records that preserve family histories and enforce ownership. A Clean White Room: confront a medical crisis involving people whose employer and individual actions do not tell the same story. The General's Shadow: work through Xaria's memories and the Exile's wartime legacy. A Soldier After the War: recover Kaius's past through his staged healing and training arc. Hanharr's Hunt: a conditional companion story shaped by the player's Nar Shaddaa outcome and Mira/Hanharr availability. Alongside the quests are environmental puzzles, skill-led solutions, creature-control choices, journals, unique equipment, ritual items, and consequence-based rewards. The item document currently contains 20 item entries and 13 power entries, in addition to Xaria's seven-power list. That includes story and endgame items, not just loot. The bestiary is a mixture of familiar Star Wars creatures and original Dathomir designs. Its 21 entries cover rancors and Oberon; the Elder Terentatek known as the Great Beast; other terentateks; zakkegs; bomas; borheks; chirodactyls; Dathomir wraids; Kwi; whuffa worms; Vesper Kinrath; Rootmimes; Scar-stalkers; Glowwing Shyracks; Fen Maws; Siphon Matrons; Ash-hounds and Ward-hounds; Starved Husks; Czerka specimen splices; echo manifestations; and ancient Kwa represented through echoes and visual history. The original designs have different roles: a Rootmime hides among hanging roots, a Fen Maw imitates a harmless light over the water, and a Scar-stalker disappears among crystal growth. Some encounters can be avoided, calmed, or approached through a companion. The Elder Terentatek also gives the work on my smaller terentatek mod a direct place in the larger project. Ambient life has its own 12-entry roster: Burra Fish, Vesper Moths, Mourning Cranes, Cairn Crabs, Thornback Gliders, Echo-singers, Hide-pickers, Lantern Beetles, Hush-leeches, Kwa-glass Snails, Scar-grazers, and Canopy Tachs. The 37-entry flora plan covers canopy trees, roots and vines, ferns and ground cover, fungi, hazard plants, water plants, dryland growth, reactive crystal vegetation, and cultivated gardens. Grave Thorns, bloodgrass, lantern lilies, glowing cave fungi, memorial trees, and crops should help each place feel different. Settlements need food, medicine, work, and signs that people actually live there. 08 · Beyond Dathomir: the Foundation One of the largest planned additions is Foundation, a worn Republic cruiser (I haven't decided if it will be a hammerhead or another ship that is equipped with a hangar) that can become a mobile home for the party, with the Ebon Hawk docked inside. The opportunity to command it is tied to the Exile's history. Accepting a title, rejecting what it implies, taking an independent charter, or refusing the offer should all be meaningful choices. Its four planned areas are: Bridge: command, navigation, the galaxy map, and story decisions. Hangar: the docked Hawk, cargo handling, party departures, and arrivals. Commons: dormitories, mess, crew life, and companion conversations. Operations: armory storage, a Republic quartermaster, workbench, laboratory, medbay, and training facilities. The fuller plan adds a first-boarding ensemble, room-specific companion scenes, training tournaments, skill sharing, changing supplies, and reactions for companions recruited later. I want boarding the ship to feel like the party moving into a new place together with proper reactions from each character their first time walking onto the crew deck. Later phases extend that into a conditional Onderon arrival crisis, with attempted negotiation, bridge gunnery mini game, boarding defense, evacuation, and a damaged ship's return; Ghosts in the Fleet, a contained HK-50 investigation; and a Ravager support sequence involving Mandalorian battalion preparation scenes, a basilisk fleet launch from the hangar, a tactical protection choice, and consequences for the people doing the fighting. As you recruit mandalorians throughout the galaxy for Mandalore, they will gather and operate on your warship. You will effectively be building your own Mandalorian army throughout the course of the game and watch them interact on the ship. There are also planned responses to Dathomir in the later Sith confrontations, a Malachor perimeter rendezvous, and a final companion moment looking toward the Exile's future. I'm keeping the reveals and the K1 character's intended resolution out of this post. These additions have to respect the original game's events and TSLRCM's restored content. The Ebon Hawk remains the fallback when a ship feature is unavailable, refused, or belongs to a later development phase. 09 · Why we're building a new renderer I don't want to build the Unreal environment you've seen above and then lose the qualities that made it worth building when it reaches KOTOR. That has pushed us toward essentially replacing KOTOR II's world renderer with our own rendering engine. The current direction keeps TSL responsible for the game, characters, rules, dialogue, scripts, and interface while a separate 64-bit renderer built around Diligent and Direct3D 12 takes on the world visuals, connected to the game's camera and frame. There is already an early live milestone: the Dathomir map has been drawn through that new renderer inside KOTOR II. Early in-game renderer test, September 30. This is the KOTOR II capture; the two main showcase images above are from the Unreal environment. The gap in materials, lighting, effects, and presentation is work still to do. Materials, foliage, transparency, lighting, ichor, character integration, stability, and measured performance all need further work. We also need to prove save/load behavior and compatibility. An image appearing in the game is an important step, but the renderer has to survive normal play. If we can make this work well, its value could extend far beyond Dathomir: more detailed geometry, richer surfaces and lighting, and a modern approach to rendering performance. It could change the scale and appearance of what people can build for KOTOR. That's the possibility driving the effort; I want the finished results to justify the ambition. 10 · The process and the road ahead The project now has a narrative bible, quest and level plans, dialogue, companion and continuity coverage, journals, rewards, epilogues, and environment and creature catalogs. Those documents are much further along than the playable planet. They give the work a direction; implementation is where we'll find out what needs to change. On the art side, the process has been references and concepts, models, cleanup, materials, rigging, animation, and repeated engine checks. My tool Ghost Studio (https://github.com/CrispyW0nton/Ghost-Studio) and the surrounding tool work help connect those stages. I've also used AI-assisted concept and asset tools, followed by inspection, rebuilding, and testing and my own drawings. A first asset or attractive render still has a long way to go before it belongs in the mod. Immediate priorities: bring the gorge and renderer closer to the Unreal master; establish reliable navigation, collision, and transitions and lighting; finish Xaria's head and outfit work; and connect the working pieces into a playable opening. The opening slice is planned to run from the Korriban discovery through the Hawk scene, landing, Wildlands, Xaria encounter, a creature encounter with multiple solutions, and arrival at the Annex. That gives us a real section of the adventure to judge as a whole. The broader production plan has four phases: Dathomir core: the main story, all eight side quests, Xaria and Kaius, essential companion scenes, faction outcomes, and the commission choice. Story development with SAO runs through this work. Foundation's first playable hub: bridge, hangar, initially combined commons/operations, storage, vendor, medbay, companion residence, and the first tour. Later-story integration: the HK-50 thread, Ravager preparations and consequences, Malachor rendezvous, and closing scenes. Expanded ship systems: the Onderon action sequence, separate interior areas, fuller training and skill sharing, and the remaining command-path variations. Each stage needs playthroughs across different choices, planet orders, and available companions, alongside performance, installation, save, and compatibility checks. I'm not attaching a release date to this yet. There is substantial work ahead, and I want the updates to show what is actually getting done. I do plan on releasing this sometime close to the official kotor remake by Saber Interactive. Or sometime after it at least, because I feel there will be many players returning to the franchise at that point as well as new players who want to experience the second game after the renewed experience to the first game. I know I've stepped away and come back more than once. I still want to see the Exile land in this gorge, get to know these people, and leave with a story that feels like it belongs in Star Wars. That's what I'm working toward. I'd love to hear what you think of the two gorge shots, Oberon, Xaria's direction, and the wider plan. Thanks to everyone who's followed the smaller mods along the way. I'm looking forward to having more of Dathomir itself to put in your hands. — ShaolinGhost

Friends of KotOR and TSL modding: I have extended my renovation of Edge Of Darkness mod into next year, and I have set the exact date of an alternate new release. The date is February 1st. What to expect: AI voiceovers. An after ending chapter of the game. A surprise ending that is variable on a player choice. And if I can, I'll spread LS and DS points across all party members. There is an intro sequence for each planet explaining the mission that will be redeveloped. At least one landing zone NPC for every planet. A main quest in addition to planet quests. And a set of side quest, ideally one per planet. For now and for the entirety, EOD is a secret project. I cheated for a few years with the open source demo. My hat is off to all of you, Wizard, Thor, N-DReW, and Sith Holocron specifically have been incredibly helpful to reach this present state of affairs. See you all in 2027

Pretty ballsy for your first post!

It's been a while since I've given this thread an update, though I wanted to share a little demo of something I've been working on lately: Coming soon to a KPM near you

In the process of creating my own Mandalorians on the Rakata homeworld mod (real original, I know). In addition to adding 2 new areas with unique enemies and cool items, I will also modify Mandalorians elsewhere in the game to establish a sub-plot hinting at the rise of a new Mandalore. I have the areas and most of the custom equipment already from a prototype of this mod that I never uploaded. Currently working on creating a new lightsaber model for the Darksaber, though I'm having trouble figuring out how to make lightsaber blades stop rotating so I can give the blade its iconic shape.

Fairly significant update coming to Echoes of the Republic in the nebulous near future. Almost done implementing a new short questline, then I still need to run through the whole game again to test it.

Hello! Can anyone provide new senior (especially Male) heads to K1? K2 imports would be fine, but I would love to have some completely new ones to add some variety to the game. Cheers!

@RonRheaBob76your ai post is nonsensical and distracting. If anyone is curious about the issue, it's been fixed. The blade meshes and UVs were uneven and some were missing the node type lightsaber. I included these fixes in my lightsabers mod for K1 and TSL, if anyone wants a reference. https://deadlystream.com/files/file/2794-lightsaber-hilt-variety-tsl

Submitted for publication.

PFHC02

I'll add a high poly version.