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Something I've been working on for a long while now...

Yeah, not sure I have that kind of advantage, yet. So far it's only the miner appearance that's been an option of being handled via a .MOD file; so it's still early days on that front and I may decide that trying to do things via the override just doesn't warrant all the extra hassle as I figure just about no one else will bother making sure that their mod is compatible with mine. Making a mess of all my hard work. Plus, there are certain files that are going to cause issues regardless, like the Appearance.2DA file that by necessity has to have changes made to pretty much every single row. I should just stick with making sure it is just compatible with mods like TSLRCM, and leave it to that. Not that I ever wanted to support every mod under the sun, as that is just impractical, just less hassle using it with others. Why I'm looking to recreate certain smaller mods by doing the same or similar with this one when I get the chance. Probably the best way to reduce compatibility issues if people can be persuaded to not use a bunch of mods that actually only make one small change to a .2DA file. But in the end, there are always going to be issues as there will always be people that have more than a hundred mods installed at once... Bit pointless when people go out of their way to ensure that there are as many mod conflicts as possible -- but of course, since yours was the last one they installed, it has to be YOUR mod that is causing all the issues . Anyway, I'll re-post my last post as I think it may have ended up being overlooked: I think I'll keep the fix to myself (for now), but once the mod is released, it should be easy enough to dig out the answer. All I'll say as a teaser, is that when the issue was originally raised on this thread, well... It turns out I was even more correct than I thought I was .

I don't want to speak too soon, as I haven't fully tested it yet, but, I do believe I have completely solved the Ebon Hawk black mesh problem for good:

I'm steering clear of actually making changes to anything that I can't just plop into the Override folder -- the UTC files would overwrite every case of it throughout the game. Can't recollect all my reasons, as I really need to find coffee, but I think the gist of it was that I figured there would be far less mod conflicts that way as this mod won't necessarily care what you've done to those files as it will then endeavor to overwrite these regardless without overwriting absolutely everything a mod did -- just what was necessary. Probably a waste of effort trying to do it that way as it's all (probably) largely covered by TSL Patcher anyways, but, I can be stubborn that way; plus, it's easier for me to track what I have and haven't changed this way if I don't have to remember I made changes elsewhere. EDIT: it easy to forget that TSL is actually a turn-based game at its heart... why the 6 sec / round makes sense, even if it really doesn't

@ MrPhil: The mining safety gear is equitable, the uniform no longer is. @ Kainzorus: Yes and no, as the result would be that every miner would be wearing it, including all the "admin / sec" officers.

@ Milestails: Wow... It's always a bit of a shock how much of a difference there is between TSL and more modern games graphically. Usually it takes a while to adjust when I start up on the textures again as the difference is massive, especially as there are no normal maps present for the most part. Seeing that pic hits it home again. @ Malkior: Yeah, it's how Fair Strides says, its an item that is set to "disguise" and allows you to then change a character's appearance once it is equipped to pretty much anything in the Appearance.2DA file. Even a Gizka: It's how in KOTOR you can get the armor that changes your appearance to that of a Sith Soldier so that you can get to the lower levels of Taris. You might be able to use it to solve other problems, perhaps even use it to change the Handmaiden sisters to their correct appearance, however, it is still reliant upon the respective row within the 2DA file being correct and all -- models as well. Though, it seems that not all the appearance can be selected, at least not via KOTOR Tool in that it has a 255 (8bit) limit on things like the number of variations you can select from; for example, I found that I could not set a plot use icon beyond 255. Not sure if that is a KOTOR Tool limitation or whether it is an engine limitation, but, as the 2DA file I believe has more than 255 rows... Then I suspect it can be gotten around with something like KGFF. @ Hassat Hunter: Don't think memory is really an issue -- my notebook has 4gb which I doubled to 8gb -- if anything, it would be processing and that really depends upon what you were doing with it and how the engine handles scripts. If the game engine's scripting system was optimized to work for hardware from 8 years ago, and has various limits in place. Then it would be an issue, otherwise, it ain't as most people are now playing the game on more modern hardware. I also think that it was more than likely an unnecessary limitation to have in place back then as well, and at the very least, should of been 1 second intervals not 6. That would make it far more useful as the delay experienced is far shorter. As a further example of the usefulness of what Fair Strides and Insidious are describing, having a script that is independent of any game objects that is checked every frame would actually be simpler and cleaner. I had an issue for when I was modding Fallout 3 in regards to applying fullscreen shaders depending upon whether an item was equipped or not -- for example, making night vision goggles that "enhanced" the screen. To control the effect, it required a script attached that had code for the OnEquip and OnUnequip blocks. It appeared to work fine when equipping and then unequipping the item, however, when you force equipped another item over this one things got screwed up -- the shader FX was removed but could never be applied again, unless you knew the precise steps of how. There was no OnForceUnequip to use, this was just something that it was not designed to handle and everything I tried failed, and looking at how others did it was no help as they were doing it along my way. No one had bothered to test their mods thoroughly, otherwise, they would have found the bug as I did. The solution was straightforward, create a new quest that was always active and had a script attached that ran every frame. This script was simple, at the start it removed the shader effect if it was active, then, it checked to see if the item was equipped or not. If not it did nothing, if it was, it applied the shader. It didn't need to know whether the item had been equipped or not as the script wasn't directly triggered that way. It works every time and there is no performance impact as it's not doing something stupid like sorting through the contents of an overflowing container -- like the player's inventory. In this case, how I went about achieving altering the holo-miner appearances is messy, not simple. In particular the holo-miners are created as needed and destroyed when not. So you can't have a script check OnEnter to search for and change the miners that way, which is even more simple and less chance of it impacting performance. And though I achieved it, there is one clear bug where a miner's appearance will change mid sentence and they will not be animated or say anything until the next line is said. By having a script that is continuously checking and then changing the miner's appearance as needed, virtually the moment they are created. Then this should not happen as it would be seamless to the player instead of mildly jarring. That is if it will work without issue checking just about every game frame. @ MrPhil: Yeah, that's the plan, to have them multiple version and for them to not look the same. Not sure how well it will turn out as the body textures tend to only have the texturing for one side which then gets mirrored for the other side of the model. Makes it hard to get things more varied as bullet holes and such will get mirrored exactly on the other side. But, I have some ideas I just now have to make the time in creating all the assets for it...

@ Malkior: I'm sure you appreciate the amount of work that goes into these textures. It might be lost on others, as they've only done the odd texture of things, but not when you've attempted to update the textures of an entire area. Even what appears to be from a static poor screenshot to be a texture that hasn't changed a hell of a lot could have taken a lot of work to make look good, especially within the context of all the other textures; some demanding of more attention than others. It's a bit of a shame with the armored flightsuit, in that it is probably one of the better armors to attempt to retexture in that the male and female version of the textures are pretty much identical. So, you don't end up having to do twice the work What makes things difficult is how painfully limited the scripting is; all have their idiosyncrasies that you need to overcome in order to get what you intend to work as best you can, but TSL makes it even more of a challenge. As far as I know, it is hard to do something as basic as having a script that is run throughout the mission. The best I could do was to spawn an invisible object that had an OnHeartbeat script attached, but, that will only get checked every 6 seconds and I'm unaware of anyway of increasing that rate. Though, it didn't help that I had been sitting in front of the computer for several hours trying to get a solution that worked. Should have gotten some sleep instead as it then only took me half an hour to come up with something that did . @ Fair Strides: I dunno, I'm pretty good at getting myself sidetracked... If I can come up with an existing armor that I think it would work with, and I didn't have to do too much extra texture work... Maybe.

Thanks, glad someone appreciates it. Wasn't sure anyone would care to be frank, as it is just the miner uniform -- and it is just simple "contrast" work apparently . But, I really do find it odd that this ugly jumpsuit is somehow classed as being armor...

@ Malkior: No, it's not a competition -- as much as some might like to think it is. It's surprising how much work you can do and have so little to show for it; for example, I've been working on a lot of things of late but in particular to do with Peragus and the mining gear items you get in game, like the "uniform":

If you are intending to release this, did you get permission to use the Nar Shaddaa skybox texture, as it appears to be based on someone else's work?

OK, since your not trying to "steal" my work, just this once, I'll let a competitor know how I do things . When I went to find the model file myself, I found that it wasn't a clearly marked separate model. So, I figured it needs to be part of those used for the Peragus levels. When I finally got around to looking at these via NWmax and looking at the texture lists generated by MDLops, I found it wasn't its own separate model but part of a scene model. Two actually. One is used for when you are inside the facility looking out, the other is used when you are outside the facility looking in. One of these is 104perg (outside) and the other is 101perzc (inside). As for the Nebula, I'm assuming you mean the yellow glow as seen in the first screenshot. As far as I recall the nebula - plasma gas field, thing - has nothing to do with it as I changed the texture to test whether it was being used at all. First I made it a solid pink, the next I deleted all the pixels to make transparent. In both cases it had no effect. What makes the glow as far as I know, is how the game decides to render things and what settings have been set for the mesh the texture is applied to. For example, if it is set to be a light, then it will glow based upon the "brightness" of the pixels of the textures. So to cut a long story short, when I edited the texture file to enhance it, it changed from a strong orange red to a "brighter" orange yellow, along with making other contrasting parts of it darker. This then as far as I can tell, created the glow effect as seen in the screenshot -- though, it may also be affected by the surrounding mesh that is in place used for the nebula that isn't being rendered; as Peragus planet texture (mesh) sits within the middle of this.

I first noticed it when I saved after the Harbinger arrived and I was outside on the exterior walkway in 104per. Second time was after the Harbinger arrived and I had moved on to a point where I was back within the facility and could look outside to see the Harbinger docked from within 101per. In both cases the Harbinger had disappeared on loading the save game. The last time I noticed was different, I had played from the beginning again (as it only took 10 minutes to get to where I needed to be) and had saved within the admin area overseeing where the Harbinger would eventually be docked within 101per. On the 3 or 4 reload it hit me that the Harbinger was not supposed to be visible. I reloaded from an earlier save and the Harbinger was not there but upon saving and reloading, it was again. I dunno, is the fix you created for the Harbinger just supposed to work within 104per or will it work no matter where you are? If its global to Peragus then chances are you fixed it anyway, otherwise, I'll have to install a fresh copy on my notebook to see if I can recreate it there and find the culprit if there is any.

Hello, I have an issue that I'm trying to track down as to what is causing it: my own mod work, TSLRCM or just an outstanding game bug -- or maybe the widescreen fixed EXE I'm using. Basically the issue is that the Harbinger appears and disappears when you load up a save game. To be more clear, if you play the Peragus levels everything appears to trigger just fine, however, if you are in the admin command area prior to the Harbinger appearing, and save the game and then load it up. The Harbinger appears through the windows already docked. But, if you are at a point where the Harbinger has arrived and docked and then save and load up that save game, the Harbinger disappears. I haven't tested this further yet to see if it reappears if you save and load again or keep on playing through and come to a point where you can see the Harbinger again to see if it reappears or not. All I know for certain is that this bug was around before I started touching any of the module files in that I first noticed it when testing out the Harbinger textures I was working on. At first I thought it had to do with an issue where if the texture is too big and has alpha / spec present, you will be dumped to your desktop on the end of the initial Harbinger arrival movie playing and before the in-game Harbinger docking cutscene plays out. Sorry if this has been raised before elsewhere: there are a lot of threads for this mod and searching for this particular issue is of no help. Plus, unless you are repeatedly loading up save games specifically to test things to do with the Harbinger, then it is very likely that this may not have been reported yet. Hopefully this has been experienced before or someone else might be able to recreate the conditions to see if it appears or not -- otherwise I'll try a re-install later on to test it out. Also, if anyone knows what might be the issue or what "controls" whether the Harbinger appears or not, so that I can work on a script for this. I would appreciate hearing it as I don't know the files as well as some do and so far I haven't had any luck pinpointing it . EDIT: the best I can figure is that it is controlled via an animation controller object within 104per, but, not certain how these are used as I haven't found any info on them yet. -- SIC

Thanks for the positive feedback and comments folks. @ Sith Holocron: Not really sure what to say, or put another way, whether I should say it... People tend to put all their effort within what they think will get the biggest bang for their buck or what interests them at all other costs. So adding new weapon models for example, no matter what game it is, will always be a popular thing to do -- popular for modders to do it, and popular in that these get downloaded a lot. Things like fixing some bad texturing, that though ugly doesn't impeded gameplay -- even if it reminds you straight away that you are playing a game by undermining the atmosphere created -- isn't very "sexy" at all, and may not get much acclaim for their hard work. Why they get ignored as it isn't seen as important to warrant the effort -- though are range of reasons will be given that don't say that at all but something else. But, I know better in that you need to address those things that you may not want to do along with those that you do, if you want something that isn't just good but might also be considered great. Quality matters in the end, and these little things that aren't important, once all added up, can make for something with a big impact in way of user / player experience. @ MrPhil: Not sure if you've noticed, but I'm not really looking for advice on things; I like figuring out things on my own. Plus, I have all the help that I need in how to figure out stuff, It's called Google -- more people should try it. Seriously, there aren't many problems I can't fix on my own without a couple of Google searches, at least that way I can cross reference things to make sure that what I am being told is correct rather than an assumption that's been around for so long it is considered undisputed unshakable law . Anyway, I'll post up a mod thread on lucasforums when I update the mod with a new release. Until then I'm happy to post things up here as there is less noise and less opinionated egos -- excluding my own . EDIT: oh, and that silicone doll effect is from the normal (bump) mapping. Evidently what the game uses is pretty basic, from when the technology first got introduced. So far I haven't bothered to use any of them as they are bad and seem impossible to create in a form for the game to load them up. At least for now...

Nice to see this mod still in development; and the developer's commitment to quality rather than rushing things out quick and dirty.

Some more of the miscellaneous things I've been working on...

I've also done some additional Peragus / Harbinger fixes...

Well, I found some time to do some more work on this recently; mostly miscellaneous fixes for areas already textured... Ebon Hawk fixes...

Curious. KT may not be able to add lines but something else might. I recall there was an Excel plugin for reading and writing 2da files; not sure if it is still viable, especially with newer versions of Excel. KT I think also allows you to save 2da files as an XML files, for which there might be a program that can read them and not just as a raw file but as a table of columns and fields. Most extreme, you can then write up a C#.net program to read the XML, display it a a table, allow you to edit it even add columns, and then save the XML again. You should then be able to load it up via KT and save it as a proper 2da file. My thinking is that that might take some of the tediousness out of trying to do it with TSLPatcher; the C#.net program seems like it would be fairly simple to create over a weekend for someone who's a bit on the rusty side. Conceivably a couple of hours for someone who is on the other side of that spectrum. However, it seems like you would need to know what columns to add to your 2da files in the first place in order to enable more model options. Still, worth looking into more before I go and change all the armor model files and such, as I would prefer to add rather than limit what options are available to modders. Also, any changes will affect other mods used with this one that rely on those old models.

I haven't used TSLPatcher yet, so I'm not sure how much it can do in way of installing files along with editing files and such on install. But you can add lines to appearance.2da via KOTOR Tool, and there probably isn't anything special about what TSLPatcher would do to the 2da file that you can't do with KOTOR Tool. From my experience and what I gather, it isn't an issue with the 2da files but rather the game code itself which has hardcoded various limits, like those for models.

I'm not really sure I have a favourite texture, tend to be happy enough with them to move onto something else. Sometimes I come back to them and give them an update if I think they can be improved. Though I suppose if recently I was pleased with the following... It was only meant to be a quick mock-up of the main title image, but it ended up taking a lot longer as the alpha in particular is not rendered as you would see it within your image editor or viewer. It can be improved, but still, it was pleasing to see it in-game along with my initial Sion texture. If you're asking as to which world I was going to do next, then it would be Korriban. It appears to have a small set of textures, though, that's more than likely misleading as it probably uses a lot of textures from other places, along with, it has a number of creatures as well. But, I haven't finished Nar Shaddaa yet. I'm also building my skills in max, so I will probably be doing more model editing as well, not just for module stuff like fixing some of the texture problems with the Ebon Hawk, but also characters: Some people will probably be familiar with it, it is an unused Mandalore No Helmet armor that you can find within the game files. I fixed 3 mesh holes along with vertex weight issues and I'm currently in the early stages of creating the female version of it. These will then be the basis for the new Heavy Powered armor appearance.

It's up to you if you want to use any of it at all; I'm not the one who has to implement any of it. Not being able to complete the last bounty is the Bendak Starkiller deathmatch fight. Once you kill him in the arena, you can collect the prize money as well as collect the bounty for killing him from the Hutt in the lower city cantina -- I've forgotten his name already, but I'm pretty sure it and the other quests are all bounty quests. Actually, I think the mechanic or spice addict's help to get the pass before being able to get access to the swoop garage, seems like a smarter idea actually, fixes the flow of events along with being more simpler to implement than what I suggested .

Wow... What an apology. I know I have an ego, that's why I refrain from posting on others work for the most part. For fear of writing something like what you just did, Varsity Muppet . Patronizing, arrogant and ultimately belittling. And you're wrong, I hardly touch contrast most of the time, not to mention color. Not saying I don't, just saying that you're a muppet who doesn't know what they're talking about if all you think I do is adjust the contrast, color and use the odd overlay most of the time to get my results. And I don't need a "pep-talk" from you or for you to tell me what I am capable of; so spare me your farce of sincerity, especially when the first thing you start with is calling me an idiot, and the last thing you end with is to belittle my work by pretty much saying it is worthless.

Actually, you're mistaken, and by painting my work that way, using the wording you're using. You ARE belittling my work. It takes a lot of tweaking and testing even for what I would consider "simple" texture changes in order to get something that is effective. I don't care for your opinion. You don't think much of my work, you don't like what I write, that you think it is just "whining." Then just don't read it instead of making an arrogant belittling comment based on who you think you are. I think you should just not post to this thread anymore, Varsity Muppet. You're comments are not welcome .

I don't care if you're a "staff reviewer," I don't even care if you own this site. You don't call me an idiot on my own WIP thread, belittle my work, Varsity Muppet . There's your answer.