sELFiNDUCEDcOMA

Sign variants of textures as seen on Nar Shaddaa...

Working on various textures I started and didn't complete or just didn't start because they need so much work to make look good. The ones I've completed at the moment are all to do with the signage used on Telos station along with Nar Shaddaa...

Yeah, I keep on getting those two mixed. Unfortunately all Wookies look the same to me .

Opps, posted this in the wrong part of the forum... Can't delete it but maybe a moderator can move it... ?

Hassat Hunter; Done

I usually don’t bother with mod feedback, as I figure it will be taken simply as negative feedback and therefore go unused. But I started replaying KOTOR recently for something I’m working on and decided to install this mod. Usually when I play any game or mod, I usually can’t help but think of things that I would do differently, especially if I see something that I think has a lot of potential. But that’s where it ends, in that I either think about it, maybe write it down somewhere, and that’s it.

This time instead of having it rattle around in my head to distract me, I’ve decided to offload it here instead  .

Major Bugs:

When I downloaded the mod here from DeadlyStream, there was no mention of the known bugs for the mod, like the fact that I can do the arena fights, all except for Bendak Starkiller. Realising that it would not trigger and wanting to proceed with the game, I did a search and finally came by the info that this was a known bug that a patch was in the works for.

If this is a long standing known bug, then you should add this to the mod description so that people don’t download this and then are disappointed when they find that they can’t do certain things. Going through the arena and NOT being able to fight and kill Bendak, claiming the prize money and collecting his bounty… was a major downer .

Also, this is something that you should have released a patch for ASAP! Especially as I doubt that I’m the only one that likes doing the arena fights on Taris.

Lower City “Vigilantes”:

I installed the mod having already played through to the Lower City area, so, whatever changes before that I can’t speak of. However, what I can speak of are the added civilians to the Lower City areas. It’s nice to have the added people, especially those you can see across speeder lanes, however, I find that some of them are armed and will jump into combat with you which I find kinda perplexing.

Frankly, it ruins my “suspension of disbelief” when this happens and it needs to be resolved. Either you remove the armed civilians so they no longer will jump into combat, or, you give them a reason why there are doing so. On the uppermost level of Taris (North) there is an old bigot (Gorton Colu) preaching against the aliens and mentions his Anti-Alien League. These armed civilians could very well be sympathizers and members of the AAL considering that they are all humans; this could be made clear by giving them a unique look in the way of armor – with an AAL upper armband, something fascist perhaps along the lines of a red, white and black colour schem.

I would also add unique floating dialogue to reinforce it as well, maybe even a check to see if you have aliens as part of your group:

• “Have you heard Gorton speak?”
• “Join the Anti-Alien League to preserve our purity.”
• “I joined the Anti-Alien League to make a difference.”
• Aliens present in your party: “Alien loving scum!”
• Aliens present in your party: “Alien sympathizers are the worst kind.”
• Aliens present in your party: “You and aliens are a cancer to Taris.”

Regardless, leaving them as is doesn't really add much but kind of takes away from the experience.

Black Vulkar Base Extension:

FYI Minor bug: having already gotten the swoop accelerator, the added journal quest note stating you have the pass is irrelevant. Essentially there is no way to complete this so the entry persists even after Taris is bombed.

BTW Minor Change: the malfunctioning droid that you can repair that will then “patrol” really needs to patrol not just wander a small area. It should move along the corridor of doors along the spice-lab side; moving all the way down to the end and back. That way the player can use the strategy of using a stealth’d character to wander down and open each door in turn prior to the droid showing up to clear the rooms out. The way it is currently, it doesn’t really do much.

As much as I appreciate a new area to play that offered a decent challenge, I can see why this was cut, as it makes no sense at all and is superfluous in nature – I’m kinda wondering whether it was worth not being able to finish the arena and bounty quests, to be honest. Essentially, by the time you get down to the level, you’ve probably already taken care of everyone in the upper level and probably retrieved the swoop accelerator from the garage – like I did. So getting the spice from the lab, and trading it to the mechanic, is kind of pointless and not to mention, odd.

First off, his hands are freakishly big and that puts me off as I immediate see this and it breaks the illusion / immersion created for the game. Also, the fact that you need to infiltrate into the lower levels of the base in order to talk to him to get the pass card, well, that just makes no sense as clearly you don’t need his help anyway. It’s especially odd if you’ve pretty much wiped out everyone up until that point and then you walk into the rec room where no challenges you’re presence.

Not sure what was restored and added, but I repeat, I can see why it was cut .

For this to work and be more logical, you need to change a bunch of things. One, you need to move this mechanic – along with changing his body model or something – so that he is now in the cantina looking to score spice; not in the Vulkar rec room. You will probably have to change his dialogue, as in, record new dialogue along with re-record (edited) dialogue he may already have; then again, maybe what is there will work just fine – I didn’t pay too much attention to what he said to be honest, and I can’t recall his name either.

He will mention that he is willing to provide you with the pass card so as to get into the garage area of the base in exchange for spice – and he wants a lot of it, like the uncut block / package a dealer would get, as he plans on getting out of Taris for good.

However, for this to work you will need to make more changes:

-          You will need to add a third (or is that second?) way of getting into the base, one that is more expedient in getting you to the Vulkar base garage. Though spatially perhaps a bit of a stretch, there is a door at one end of the Swoop Platform that is guarded by 2 Sith Soldiers. What I would do is alter this so that the door leads to the Black Vulkar base garage level, with the Sith guards there to keep the peace as it were. They may lament that they are being wasted on guard there, but the idea is that the Sith know how important the race is to the locals, and know making sure it goes accordingly is good for their occupation of Taris. Pretty sure there is a sealed door in the garage that may or may not have a turret guarding another door that can be used to make the link. Like the Undercity elevator, the Sith will check to see if you have a pass card in order to enter the Black Vulkar base swoop bike to track service elevator.

-          On trying to retrieve the swoop accelerator, the Black Vulkars in the garage should as usual, turn against you if you do not accept their counter offer. The rest of the Vulkars will ignore you assuming that you are a mechanic. Only in certain situations, where you trip an event – like breaking into the spice lab and either failing the dialogue checks or deciding to kill them – will the entire base turn against you. Or to keep it more simple, if you haven’t gone one of the other ways in, then the turrets on guarding the elevator down will trigger the alarm (so to speak) and everyone will turn against you.

-          Add an event to one of the empty apartment rooms, where you stumble upon a drug deal going down between the Black Vulkars and some of the Hidden Bek. Along with adding more “grey” to the situation, in clearly some elements of the warring gangs are in league with one another. It also provides you with a package of spice without having to actually infiltrate the base to acquire it from the lab – you can, but, the spice package there should be more of a bonus. As the Vulkars tend to be aliens, you can use them for the cutscene dialogue to indicate that you’ve seen more than they are happy to let you live with – their complicity with the some of the Hidden Beks in steeling some of their own spice to sell to them – prior to attacking you.

-          On getting into the base via the spice-route, if you make your way through the base you should be able to come across the mechanic in the rec-room where all the other mechanics are off their faces on spice – you’ll need to change their floating dialogue along with adding new dialogue for the bartender who will lament at the craziness going on and how no one is buying drinks on account of the spice. If you really want to add something special, you would add some dialogue via a cutscene for the group of Vulkars outside who have realised that all the mechanics are high and have put things together in regards to the missing spice that members of the gang had taken in order to sell to make money on the side. They think the Mechanic stole it and are about to go in to make an example of him. You can stop them if you like, and then use the fact that you did so to get the Mechanic to hand back the spice, wait for them to kill him and then go in and kill them, collecting the spice, and a third option, kill them before they do so and then going in and threaten or kill the Mechanic for the spice in order to get it back along with dark-side points.

-          Lastly, you will need to add / modify dialogue and checks for Mission. If you did the above, then it would be possible to essentially finish Taris without ever adding Mission and Zaalbar to your party. So in order to change this, you need to script it so that the Mechanic, will only appear because Mission will take you to him after you’ve helped her save Zaalbar. Essentially, she then allows for two ways into the base, and as you can find Zaalbar relatively quickly without having to do all of the Undercity or sewer system, you can then head on up to the cantina if you have the spice already, and cut a deal with the Mechanic. This ensures that you have Mission along with Zaalbar in the group BEFORE this option can be triggered.

Some suggested dialogue for Revan and Mission if you have the spice in your possession:

• Revan: “So Mission, you seem like a… fun girl. Have you ever tried spice?
• Mission: “Spice! I never touched the stuff but that shutta Lena seemed to live off it…”
• Revan: “Do you know anyone who’ll buy it, and buy it big?”
• Mission: “Maybe this slime-ball I know, a mechanic for the Black Vulkars. Usually spends his time in Javyar’s Cantina in the lower city. I only know because the scuzbucket came on strong one night in the cantina. Before Zaalbar came along and threatened to rip his… *limb* off if he didn’t leave me alone, he said that he had as much spice as a Taris girl could ever need.”
• Revan: “He doesn’t sound like he’s buying, more like he’ s selling,”
• Mission: “He’s a mechanic for the Black Vulkars. He’s a little man who likes to talk big when he’s had one too many Tarisian ales.”
• Revan: “Mission, I need to meet with him as I think I have something he needs that’ll get us into the Black Vulkar base.”

              -  Mission – Zaalbar NOT saved: “Yeah… Look, I’d be happy to but first you gotta help me get Zaalbar back. You promised!”

              -  Revan – Zaalbar NOT saved: “OK. A deals a deal, we’ll help you get Zaalbar but you have to keep your side of the bargain, Mission.”

              -  Mission – Zaalbar NOT saved: “Thanks, me and Z will be glad to help once we get him back from those sewer smelling Gamorreans.”

              -  Mission – Zaalbar saved: “You got it, he should be in the cantina right about now. We should head to Javyar’s to speak with the slimey worm.”

Spice Trafficking:

The spice trafficking angle addition to the game I think is something that can be expanded upon and really add a good deal to the greyness of the game world. At the very least I would make it possible to sell any surplus spice to at least one NPC if not more than this. Also, Davik’s base has a spice-lab, yet, NO spice! I would add another opportunity to collect spice here for later re-sell; perhaps 2 parcels this time instead of one. All up that would make 4 parcels to offload to potentially 4 different contacts on 4 different planets out of 5 possibilities:

-          Dantooine: Shuma the Hutt seems the obvious choice here as it seems this character isn't used for much. Also, Shuma is cut off from his business dealings and would be open to a little spice trafficking to make some credits in the meantime – turn a bad situation into a profitable good one. This is the hardest to offload at a good price, because Shuma has to build a network to distribute the spice on Dantooine whilst doing it all under the noses of the Jedi. Also, you need to be a very persuasive talker to drive a hard bargain with Shuma – however, there is perhaps the possibility of blackmailing Shuma later by suggesting that you will inform on him and that the Council will believe you over him as you’re a Jedi.

-          Tattooine: Motta the Hutt is the obvious choice here, and is unlikely to allow any other players into his market. So, this is the main contact to offload the spice to. Being a Hutt, it will be a hard bargain to strike with the Hutt, however, obviously the Hutt knows that the spice has dried up and that you can in the interim, supply him so that he can cater to his patrons – worn out miners. Though, perhaps an intelligence test for dialogue should be in place, to reach an option of getting what it’s worth – because the player is smart enough to realise they have the upper hand in the situation – along with another persuade dialogue choice test to see if you can get even more out of the Hutt.

-          Tattooine - Alternative: another option is Griff, the schemer and con-artist, who says he knows some guys who are desperate to buy – makes the claim that the only other person is Motta who will buy it and he will pay half of what he can get for it. If you give it to him he then disappears, later, you can come across his body on Tattooine – or elsewhere like Korriban, but as long as it is somewhere appropriate like a back alley or secluded area. You can go with either him having overdosed on spice or having been robbed and executed due to the spice. To avoid any required Mission dialogue, you can have a check to make sure that she is not present; once he is spotted and examined, he should never appear again for similar reason. Or to be really simple, he just never shows up again having ripped the player off and leaving Mission behind again – this will of course affect the Taris ale quest. The downside to Griff is that there is NO recorded dialogue for this; not that it’s a big deal for such a small part of the game that can have a BIG end impact on the player.

-          Kashyyyk: there is no Hutt here I recall, however, there is Czerka. They use the spice in order to subdue and placate the enslaved Wookies – apparently once they get a taste, they go made crazy for the stuff. Their main supplier drying up – a front pharma company for the Exchange – means that they desperately need spice for their Wookie slave operation. They should provide the best remuneration for your efforts, in that for them they are willing to pay any cost in that the Wookie slave trade to them is far more valuable and they need to keep it going to remain profitable. The negative here is if Zaalbar is present he will not like the idea at all, who can have a wide and diverse conversation with the player on the account that he has all the recorded dialogue he needs. The idea here also is that the Wookies are “natives” who are being taken advantage of due to the (human) outsiders and their self-indulgent diseases; kind of like how various aboriginal societies became destroyed once colonists arrived bringing with them alcohol. Something for Zaalbar to go on about at least along with the obvious angry rant about helping Czerka keep his people enslaved – you may wish to have this part of the discussion initiated after the sell, where you give various options via dialogue, one being to inform Zaalbar that it won’t come to that, implying you wanted their credits but plan on taking Czerka down in the long-term.

-          Manaan: the obvious choice is whoever runs the cantina, however, that is too obvious. I would go with the hotelier Ignus, the proprietor of the Visitor’s Hotel. He sells spice under the front-desk counter to his hotel guests, some of whom have discerning expensive tastes – spice. Downside is a lack of recorded dialogue, but the upside is that I don’t think it would matter all that much. You should be able to get a descent price from him, and persuade him to pay even more – his hotel seems a little empty, perhaps it’s because he no longer can offer his guests what they really need and want from him..? You could add a risk in the form of a Manaan security sting drug-bust. Not sure how it would work exactly, as I think due to the circumstances, you couldn’t fight your way out. However, maybe you could persuade or force persuade your way out of it – by persuading, you lose your ill-gotten gains, by force persuading, you get to keep the credits as well. Not sure what the negative is if you fail both, other than being thrown in jail and I’m not sure how you would get out of that without having to script a lot of stuff like a trial. Perhaps instead you also need to bribe the person arresting you by paying a “fine” of say 500 credits; or whatever you have in way of credits if you don’t have that much.

-          Korriban: Mika Dorin the Rodian running The Drunk Side cantina (or his partner Ziagrom) are the obvious choices due to the cantina; Mika would want to offer spice to his diverse patrons ranging from bounty hunters, assassins, smugglers and Sith. He can also freely do so as the Sith don’t care as long as you are not selling it within the Academy. This means that you can get a fair price for it, perhaps more with haggling, but there are more suppliers for Korriban due to the high number of smugglers; so, the loss of Taris as a supplier will be less heavily felt. Maybe another option is to add some dialogue to a Sith Archaeologist, who will pay you more so as to provide spice to the Sith apprentices who once have begun their training, don’t get to go outside and visit the cantina on a regular basis any more – and get strung out because they can’t feed their habits. This will net you more credits, however, the Sith have a strict no spice policy within the academy. That means that the risk is huge, especially if you tie it into the other students being able to potentially blackmail you latter; the flip side might be that you can bribe one of the students with the spice in order to get the upper hand in passing the trials there.

I would also add a contact / opportunity on Taris to offload one of the parcels for a quick sell – maybe the Sith at the cantina want some for their party, or, one of the Tarisian nobles is willing to pay for it with some “pocket change” from their deep pockets – however, doing so means that you end up only getting half to a quarter of what the package is potentially worth.

The idea is that Taris is a major producer and supplier of spice, not the only place it is made, but a big player in the market – maybe due to Davik being part of the Exchange. Once the Sith bomb the place, this ends up cutting the supply to the galactic market – or at least to certain planets due to trade routes. This means that the current demand for it is under-supplied, and that means, that the price of spice goes up! In time the demand will be filled by other producers within the region seeing an opportunity to aggressively expand on their market share. In the meantime, the player having accumulated these packets of spice, is in a position to make some quick credits with a little risk attached and dark side points as well.

Making the changes I suggest for Taris, or similar ones with similar effect, would improve what is currently available greatly. As though it adds new areas to “play” to earn experience points, what it adds via story undermines what else takes place in Taris. If you were to add a spice trafficking element to the game where you need to find buyers of this spice, I think it would add a lot to the game in creating a more grey KOTOR world for the player to explore. It also makes better use of what takes place in Taris, along with, giving another reason for the player to visit other planets in order to complete the Spice Trafficker side-quest. This kind of quest for KOTOR are the ones I am more fond of, in that they start on one planet and end on another; making the game feel far more nonlinear and open-world in style, yet, tightly integrated together without really being so.

There’s my feedback. Take it or leave it, up to you .

Darth Sion final -- for now...

With Sion, I made his "good" eye have a cataract. As Kreia says:

I always found it a bit odd that Sion could not see Kreia, as it clearly seems like he has one good eye left. I have a theory that all of the triumvirate "Darths" -- perhaps even Nihilus; who at that point was just a spirit residing within his former armor and mask -- are physically blind. They all see via the force -- Sion, Kreia not to mention, Visas (Nihilus' Shadow Hand) -- which enables them to find force sensitives; something I take it Nihilus is big on.

The Sith Assassins you encounter on the Harbinger, have been trained by them, in particular, Sion. What they are taught are techniques based upon what Sion has learned in order to make up for being blinded by his power; his power can hold his body together as a vessel for his force-strong spirit to reside in and tether him to the world of the living, however, it is not strong enough to regenerate his flesh back into being living.

He is essentially a reanimated corpse, which is reinforced when you undermine his beliefs in the end so that his "faith" wavers and so does the will / force holding him together. His physical vessel, his body, crumples to the ground as his spirit finally departs the world of the living.

Harbinger last of; these are of the fuel line leading from the Harbinger to the facility...

Harbinger continued...

Beyond some future tweaks, I've come to a point where I'm happy with the Harbinger textures:

Hey SIC, are you familiar with the Darker Peragus mod? If you could do something like that, at least for the Harbringer, that would be lovely. I feel like sh*t for not asking earlier, seeing as Peragus is way finish, but I always loved the atmosphere of that mod (plus it makes sense to me that the Harbringer would lack power to have proper lightning, after Sion's attack). Problem is I do not think the mod would be compatible with yours... Tell me what you think

The textures that that mod contains appear to be all lightmap texture. Currently, I haven't touched any of these, so, you should just be able to use them with mine. Not sure how it will all look though.

I might do my own as well, as I want it to be darker in their without having to make the textures themselves dark. But, I'm not sure, as I'm trying to get various things done so that I can then do an update for people to use. I'm kind of running out of time and want (need) to move on to other things. The rub is is that I know that if I move onto something else, I may not come back to working on the mod for a long while .

The Sion series continued with a focus on his head... Again, this is a WIP as I am just focused on the skin in that I'm trying to make it more finely textured and less glossy via specular.

Darth Sion (along with showing Harbinger textures). This is a WIP in that I am just focusing on the skin at the moment; but as I was also working on the Harbinger textures, I thought I'd take some screens and put them up anyway.

The damage Ebon Hawk textures continued..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FYI: I might rework the damaged hull texture in order to add finer detail for when T3 is moving about outside; but at the moment I'm going to leave it as is.

 

 

 

I'd be quite interested to see what you can do to improve the Twin Suns (2 female twi'lek assassins). Never quite like how they were portrayed, I always thought they looked fake. I'm pretty sure you could make them appear less artificial and more vibrant.

 

Something that changes about as much as what you did for Luxa.

Yeah, I'll do them eventually, but probably after the other Twi'lek female heads. Though, I won't do them exactly like Luxa . Luxa is willing to do whatever it takes to succeed in her life / career -- she is a sociopath. The Twin Suns aren't really motivated by money, all they are interested in is killing -- they are psychopaths.

Decided to get around to doing the remaining textures (flickering screens) for the damaged version of the Ebon Hawk:

Have you considered adding "make-up" to accentuate certain features of face textures? Obviously not traditional make-up, I mean sort of in the same sense they use make up in movies so an actors face looks more vibrant.

 

A good example is Atton's face. It looks like he's wearing eyeliner and lipstick is you look hard but it doesn't look that weird in game.

Jana is wearing makeup, not just what I added to around the eyes but I also tried darkening areas of the skin so that at least some definition appears in-game. The way the game renders it and probably the use of specular, made it the way it is -- it's not quite that sickly color outside of the game.

Anyway, I decided to move on to the aliens for a reason, as what I learn with them I can then inform my technique with the human faces.

I lucked out with good source material that I could use; hate to think of how hard they would have been if I had to do them from scratch -- like I probably would have to do with Nar Shaddaa . Still, learned a lot about how to make better skyboxes...

You should check Quannon's maps, selfInducedComa, they are great and with the kind of skill you say you possess, it would be just great to add new content in them (better than adding content in re-used areas, at any rate...), plus you would not have to start from scratch. There's also a great Jedi Temple map that would be great to get content on...

http://lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=208042&highlight=Jedi+Temple

Hmm... I wonder how it would look with the new Coruscant skybox textures I've been working on...

Jana Lorso is a Mirialan and they have a funny skin color; or at least that is my excuse as that was my first attempt at a human face for TSL .

Human faces are very hard to improve due to the game's renderer. Actually, anything that is pale in colour, like flesh, is very hard to improve as it usually ends up looking washed out in-game. If you look at the human face textures via an image viewer / editor, you'll see that they have far more detail than what you'll able to see in-game.

Lorso was a test-case, and I may not get around to redoing her as there are a lot more other textures for me to do. Plus, as I said, she is a Mirialan, and they have a yellowish sickly colour to their skin -- plus, she does work for Cerka, after all.

For KotOR's scripting NWN Lexicon is one of the best documentations on the language there is. It says it's for Never Winter Nights but KotOR and NWN share pretty much all the same scripting functions and KotOR's engine was just an adapted NWN engine.

 

Plus, there should be a rather basic description of what each function does when you look it up in NWScript (or via KotOR Tool's text editor).

Scripting is not the only thing that put me off; it was more than a year ago when I gave module editing a shot and found it a pain, so it's a bit hard to recall but scripting wasn't the only thing. Anyway, I'm sure the NWN lexicon is good, but I know from Fallout scripting that with each DLC, and with the follow up New Vegas, that new functions are added. NWN probably doesn't have the new KOTOR functions and other sources for these would be a pain to find -- take TXI files, I know you guys made a wiki page about it, but, you're missing a lot based on the sources I've found. A lot of the tutorials I've found are dated and/or basic; dated in that they are using tools that won't work under windows 7 or don't exist anymore.

I might give it another shot, as last time I tried my hand at it it was to add elements to the cut-content area of Nar Shaddaa docks. Having had a look at what the latest TSLRCM adds, I ain't happy with 2 droids and some containers with stuff. But, creating and placing, editing custom containers just never seemed to work for some reason -- probably because I was using KOTOR tools' module editor to do it. I also had some droids of my own that I could make appear but not get various settings to work -- problem with a lot of tuts is that they cover the basics and gloss over quite a lot; they make a lot of assumptions as well, but I guess writing good tutorials is not everyone forte.

There's another element as well that I found absolutely bizarre, and that was that in order to test for changes, I had to use a save game where I hadn't visited the area yet; I couldn't just go back to Nar Shaddaa and head to that location as the changes wouldn't be uploaded at all. That to me seems like a major, pain-in-the-arse, time-consuming, hurdle to mod development; especially for large complex mods.

I don't recall finding anything about any work around for this. But, I suppose you have an answer for this too..? (I hope, probably something to do with a console cheat / debug codes or save game editing...)

The parts about it that scare me are custom modules and weird scripting errors that make me want to hide the modding tools somewhere. I understand the scripting very well, just the game tends to have other interpretations at times.

Creating custom modules is where the "fun" is.

Weird scripting bugs is what puts me off, in that the scripting language is not very well documented. I don't recollect there is any reference where I can look up various functions where it tells me what it does and how to use them.

But, I find that it is not so much knowing how to code or script in a language, that most programming, is understanding the idiosyncrasies of a language and how to oversome them. That is like 90% of where the effort of coding comes from, getting what should work, to actually work based on how the game interprets it -- simplest example, try coding a web page and then seeing if they look the same in Internet Explorer and FireFox .

I don't think that has a simple answer, but at its heart, is that it needs to show the level / map, all its architecture and obejcts, as 3D objects.

The current limitation with the KOTOR tool is that the module editor needs to first have some kind of map layout file generated for it so as to represent it in 2D. This is a useless bottleneck that within the freely available tools of today, should not exist. When KOTOR tool was created, there was not for example, WPF for C#.net. All windows GUI programming was via GDI or some such rubbish, and that was all 2D only. WPF replaced it and it allows for 3D graphics, not the bleeding edge graphics of games, but still, it allows you to represent 3D data easily without having to know your way around Direct X 3D -- which is far more low level. And as far as a module editor is concerned, the rendering requirements aren't high -- you could get away with wire-meshes with polygons rendered a solid color. You can also get libraries that build upon the WPF functionality, and essentially, you can build a tool that anyone can use as long as they have the latest .Net installed -- which is highly likely.

And most of all, being C#.net means that it is more future proof in that it can be maintained a bit more easily (code and libraries for it like reading Targa files, are readily available) along with allowing others to take up where your work left off more easily -- especially as I doubt that Microsoft will abandon C#.net any time soon, rather, they will build upon it.

According to StarWars.wiki: "Zeltrons were a near-human species, made physically distinctive by their skin and hair, which came in different shades of red ranging from pink to deep red to black." I'm assuming they specifically mean hair color here.

The thing with universe lore and canon, is that it changes. Fans may not realise it, but, it does. Changes every time a new movie comes out or book. Things get changed to suit current needs and potentially future needs as well. Sometimes these changes are good, other times, they are a tad moronic. Take the Star Wars films, in the original first film, Obi Wan meets Luke and R2 and C-3PO, yet, he has never seen these droids before apparently. Yet in the prequel movies he sees and interacts with these same two droids ALL THE TIME! He knows what they look like, their quirks, and definitely, their names. Even Luke's uncle (Owen) has seen these droids before, especially as C3 was originally owned by them and helped out on the farm. Yet when C3 and R2 appear one day being peddled by the Jawas, he seems not to recollect them at all. Maybe droids are so common as to be unforgettable and seen as all being the same. However, C3 is such a quirky character -- even with a memory-wipe -- that I find it hard that you would forget ever meeting the droid. Yet Luke's uncle seems to have Alzheimers much like the strange dirty old man living in the hills does too, who likes to lure young boys away from their families with far-fetched tales of the force and enthrall them with amateur magic tricks .

Zeltron lore to me seem like something that is rather fluid, not concrete, and can be adapted to suit the purpose at hand. In my opinion, the Luxa color is a pink, but kind of like a strawberry-blonde kind of pink; a rosy-shade that along with pheromones, exudes a sexual "readiness" if you like. The color is perhaps because her mother was a Zeltron but her father was not. Which would explain the conflicting aspects of her personality, as the way she acts (her profession) is not entirely fitting to how Zeltrons are made out to be. She is cold, calculating and cunning. Her Zeltron gifts are tools she uses to get her way as are the henchmen to her side and the weapons she uses in combat. A Zeltron who may like to "have a good time" but is entirely motivated by other reasons in her life and career.

My current feeling is that if people don't like the texture, they don't have to use it and can go with someone else's or with the game's standard texture. Personally, I find the nipples rather funny, as I like playing with the conventions of the PG Star Wars universe to make it more mature for a mature audience. Plus, have seen far worse in commercial games along with in other mods -- some of which were authored by female modders .

It's not so much the age, it's more the lack of good tools that is the problem. The people that had skill would have gotten feed up and bored with the lack of progress and simply moved off to modding other games where modding is less like hacking. Those that remain, tend be those that got into and only have interest in modding KOTOR and TSL and seemingly, nothing else.

I'm sure I appear to be just good at "skinning," but the truth of it is that I find it at times rather boring, as I am more interested in modding playable content for games, like altering existing and adding new quests and game mechanics, not just making games look better -- I'm actually a qualified programmer, not an artist, and I started out as a level designer .

I'm also finding my current play through of the game boring, as there is nothing I haven't seen or done before. The main reason I started the play through again was for the M4-78 mod release -- which I haven't gotten to yet on account of the texturing. Once I've finished it I'll probably carry on through to the end of the game, and finish off my texturing as I go as I'm finding it is pushing my texturing skills further.

However, I'm not sure I'll continue on after that as the tools are piss-poor.

I know there is KOTOR tool, and it makes a lot of things possible and easier, but level and quest design (module editing) it ain't that great at. Anyway you cut it and well minus all the bugs and lack of functionality in other departments, making a top-down 2D map editor for a 3D game, just ain't going to work very.

The only way I'll stay on is if I decide to make my own major quest mod, which I have ideas for -- and had then for quite some time -- but, I think the lack of tools is going mean that I'm gonna get fed up with it, and decide that the time invested in it is time better spent elsewhere where at least there are good tools already for me to make use of. Even if I decide to go with the scaled back mod based on the original idea I had.

Plus, I already have one large mod to complete for Fallout 3 which I'm in the middle of a major update of that is finally adding new playable quests. And once that is done, I probably will be putting my skills to use making a game for a commercial end instead of increasing the longevity for someone else's game, and putting more money in their pockets instead of mine  .

The following set are of the Zeltron Luxa at Telos Citadel station...

Some alien tex screens along with showing Nar Shaddaa textures so far...

@ Fallen Guardian:

I think the statues can be improved some, especially the base, but considering how the original looks... it is a big improvement, even to me still even though I've seen it enough to be familiar with its presence.

The sign is still early work, in that I want to make it a new animated sign. Still, I think as is it looks way better to the low-quality smudge of the original. What really lets it down is that the walls they usually appear on are slightly slanted forward, which means that part of the tops of the signs are usually cut off in some way. If I get around to figuring out the best process, I'll try and make a version of the sign model that slants inwards slightly in order to compensate for it; as much as I can considering that those on a wall at 90 degrees to the floor may then have issues with parts of the bottoms being cut off -- the better option would be to have two versions and then edit the module file so that both are used in different places; but that route has various problems.

@ MrPhil:

I'd like to, not so much because it doesn't fit the newer textures, but more so because I never really liked it along with the shield effects -- they were too strongly applied and generally I found them to be ugly. However, that depends upon how they were implemented. To explain, it seems that the lightning shader applied to the NPCs that are struck uses the Sith Lightning texture to a degree, but, it also seems like it is using some other code-based elements to make the whole NPC tinged blue -- I as yet have found no other texture that it could be using that explains it, so it must be procedurally generated to a degree. I could test to see how much the Sith Lightning texture affects how blue it is, but, I doubt it will have much impact. My guess is that you would need to find the settings for this effect, which may be in a 2DA file, or, it may be something hardcoded into the game's EXE. Lastly, it could also be in a shader file -- probably a compiled DLL -- that the EXE calls upon to determine how to render the effect.

EDIT: actually on further investigation I discovered it doesn't use the Sith Lightning texture at all but another FX texture. This is very much changeable. 

@ Disturbed205:

If you meant invisible, then I could create one, however, this is so easy for anyone to create if they really wanted to -- all you have to do is open up the EBO_scaf.tga texture in your paint program of choice -- as long as it supports image transparency -- and then use the selection tool to select it all and then hit delete. You should then be left with a blank transparent texture which you then save and place in your override directory. That should do it unless it the background to the original texture is black and not transparent. In which case what you should do is add another layer to the texture and fill that one in with black; making sure the layer is above the original, you then flatten the image down into one single layer and save it and place it into you override folder.

But, this will only make the texture "invisible," not the mesh that it is painted on. That will remain and will block your ability to move in certain areas, not to mention, various characters will still use markers in place and do stuff like spot wielding -- except now they will be appearing to be spot wielding nothing at all. For this reason in particular along with the first of it being very simple for anyone to do, as long as they know how to use Google to search on tuts on how to do this stuff with their image editor of choice. That I probably won't be doing one .

Before I start showing before and after of alien textures, I thought I'd show my early test-case in way of (human) characters...

In case anyone is interested how my Sith Lightning effect ended up... FYI: the screens also show the new Quarren and Gamorrean textures.

So, I've been busy with my texture work, currently focused on doing NPCs -- aliens. But, to have a break I switched over to doing some of the effect textures; one of which was the Sith Lightning...

I think so far it's turned out pretty good considering this was a quick mockup test I did to see how it initially looks in-game.

And yes, that is Nar Shaddaa in the background .