sELFiNDUCEDcOMA

Wanted to see if there is any interest in me releasing just the Telos textures as a teaser... ?

You'd have to play from all the way from the start or have a prior save game just at the beginning of Telos to appreciate it all. That is if you want to see all of the Telos textures and not just those pertaining to the station -- as you can come back to it later once you get back the Ebon Hawk.

It's pretty much all the Telos environment textures plus some additional odds and ends that are used in Telos -- like one of the tree texture sets from Dantooine along with one dirt texture, and a generic grass texture. I'll spend some time completing a draft of a monitor texture along with maybe finishing off an animated texture that I started on but didn't finish. But apart from that and some other quick tweaks, that's all you'd get for now.

Chances are that I won't do any further work on this for a while -- perhaps a long while -- as other things will demand my attention; why I ask.

@ Deathtoheaven:

Thanks for the comment as it also helps explain why I personally like how it looks and why beyond some tweaks I'm not changing the color tone of the station textures .

My hunch about how to get the lit windows of the cutout buildings to appear brighter was right...

I think that might be my last post up on this for a while. Still stuff to do with Telos like redo some signage, recreate animated textures, etc. But realistically I think I need to also go back and do a pass of the Ebon Hawk, Peragus and Harbinger in order to release it as a teaser. As you would need to play up until Telos first before seeing the new textures -- unless you have old save games. And I don't think I'll get that done any time soon as I'm about to head off on a trip for a couple of weeks.

Should have my notebook so if I get bored, I might do some additional work on this. But I don't really see myself doing that as there will be plenty of other things that I can do instead  .

es. THIS is what I've been waiting for. Hey, do you think you MIGHT do this treatment to the textures for KOTOR 1?

Probably not, though I think a lot of the TSL textures are from KOTOR.

It would have to wait for TSL to be done, anyways, but I picked TSL as I figured it has the more interesting mods that have been developed for it or are being developed for it on account of its better -- if more buggy -- game systems.

It's interesting that there is still so much active modding going on for it, too bad the same can't be said of tools to support such modding -- or even someone whipping up a new modified (1.0b) game exe that provides better widescreen support among other things.

My one complaint is that the texture for the snow on top of the forcefield in the "Jedi" Academy hangar bay looks less realistic than before. Other than that, fantastic job.

It uses the same texture as the snow on the outside. To improve it you have to make the snow outside look worse. It's one of the cases where being able to just change what texture is being used, would be a big help. Actually, there is one texture used in the academy that is used all over the place. Makes it real hard to improve it without making something else look bad. Not to mention all of the misaligned horribly stretched textures in this area that are easy enough to spot.

Anyway, it's all a trade off in the end. Plus, it was never clear to me before that it was meant to be snow resting on top of a force field before. When you're out side there is a depressed area to the surface you can walk on; you're actually walking on top of the snow that has fallen on top of this hangar force field.

This is some fantastic work!

 

EDIT:

 

The new look for the Station looks a little too grungy for a Republic controlled area for, though. The brownish golden color doesn't really fit all that well compared to the default grey/silver. Just a thought.

Well, a lot of these textures are used all of the place on Telos. So, not just on the station but also the underground military facility and even the polar academy. Some of it needs to work for multiple purposes. Also, this is a used and lived-in commercial space station. It's going to get grungy after a while even if they keep it as clean and maintained as possible.

I quite like how it is now, as it is visually different from the old without being radically so, and think that it is an improvement over the old textures. So, I won't be changing them but I may tweak them a bit. But, you're more than welcome to create your own if you don't like .

Some more of Telos station with before and after comparative shots...

It's a bit hard to see some of the changes unless you see them in-game. Think I can improve some things a bit, like the cutout buildings in the distance; pretty sure I can make those lit windows shine brighter with some additional work. Should make them look less 2D by matching the 3D buildings in front of them.

@ Malkior: No, I haven't been editing lightmaps. What you're noticing is the use of environment maps for the textures as a way of adding more definition and "depth" in the way of dynamic highlights to the game textures. It needs a bit more tweaking, as the "shine" can be a bit too much and feel a bit plasticky or artificial; for lack of a better way of putting it as I'm kind of tired .

Some more...

Screens of the "Jedi" Academy in the Telos polar region...

I've gone for a darker, colder and somewhat harsher color scheme this time to reflect the emptiness and darkness of the place.

It will probably end up being that for some I think. Means learning another program and I'm not sure how much you can do or get with the free version.

There are some pretty good panoramic (sphere map) textures out there. High def ones. I also found this program -- CubeTheSphere -- that allows you to take those and turn them into cube (skybox) maps. You'd still need to do more work on layering in elements and the like to suit the game setting. But it beats using one of those free low-rez skyboxes you can find that look like they were make for games like Unreal Tournament 2004.

Anyway It can wait I think, as people tend not to focus too much on the skybox as its more of a backdrop to everything else.

Some more screens, this time of the external station sprawl outside a Telos window along with the polar region. Before and after.

The cut out buildings seen outside of the station took a bit of work to update. Had to recreate the buildings as it was the only way to add detail and improve them. Tweaked the skyboxes but will probably do more tests to see whether I can replace them or at least improve them some as they don't upscale that well. Basically you can increase the size but you still end up with a pixelated image, its just the "pixels" are now larger as they're made up of more pixels. Haven't found a way to smooth these edges that works well.

When I said "wasting my time" I meant that any suggestion that it works would result in me spending an obsessive couple of hours researching, often re-reading threads I've already read, and doing a lot of trial and error work to test that it works. I also find that doing this research, that no one has actually bothered to document this stuff in a central place and most of it is dated and half-wrong if not blatantly incorrect.

I don't mean to be degrading or anything -- and apologize for anything that offends; which can be easy to do with plain-text posts. If there is a way of getting DDS to work, I'm all for using it as TGA is not the format to be using. But my gut feeling is that there is a reason why all the mods I've come across have all their KOTOR and TSL images saved in TGA format. If DDS worked then there is no reason not to be using it and just about every mod out there would be using it.

I've attached screens below to show that I have tried to use DDS files, generated by Paint.NET that natively supports opening and saving in that format -- DX1, DX3 and DX5. Along with the NWN tool generated version that at least appears in-game. If someone knows how to get them to work consistently. I would like to know . 

I've read ALL those threads. The DDS converter tool was made for NWN and does not work properly for TSL. I've tried it -- the texture ends up with a lot of ugly artifacts.

I never mentioned bump maps in my post, just DDS support. I think bump maps are supported, but, I think you and others may have your facts wrong about how to do that -- I think it works with a greyscale height map not a pink/purple normal-map.

Your comments are misleading and somewhat self-aggrandizing not to mention patronizing -- you can simply add a link to the post thread, you don't need to use the "Let me Google that for you" method. You also DO NOT bother to post up how to do any of this if it is possible. You simply suggest and link to stuff. I'm sorry, that is not concrete proof that it works.

I suggest that you grow up or no one is going to help you with your mod development .

very nice,  what program are you using? also might i suggest using dds instead of tga, it renders faster and is optimized for minimizing ram use. people use tga becuase everyone else uses it, the games texures are a modified dds (tpc), just something i noticed when i make large textures.

As I said in my prior post, DDS is not a supported file format by the TSL game engine. Using DDS files with a .dds extension has no effect, nor does renaming the extension to .tga or . tpc -- actually, what happens is that the game appears to be missing this texture and that part of the world is see through. The TPC file format may be very similar to the DDS file format but that does not mean that DDS can be utilised in anyway unless you have a way of converting DDS to TPC format.

Unless you have a process where an actual DDS file, compression and mip-maps and all can be read by the TSL game engine, then all you're doing by suggesting this is wasting my time as your comment is simply misleading. Misleading in it implies that using DDS files in some way is a possibility and that you know how. As far as I can tell, no one here does, nor does the modder Xarwarz referenced in that thread, as he clearly states that the DDS files must ALL be converted to TGA before they will be utilized in game. Therefore all benefit that DDS provides beyond a smaller download file, is actually lost. 

The normal maps created by the Gimp plugin are actually very good. You can get a few plugins for Paint.NET but they range from crap, to basic to good as long as you want to do a lot of manual tweaking. Personally I am sticking with Paint.NET and Gimp. I don't see any need to switch over to any other programs and won't be .

Anyway, the problem is not the program I suspect, but the file format that KOTOR reads them in. Like how it will read TPC or TGA files but won't read DDS files. It may actually read DDS files but, you may need to do something like rename them to TPC -- as an example of what I what to know. With normals I've tried to get it to load them in-game saved as TGA files, but I suspect, that they need to be in the TPC mip-mapped format. Declaring them via a TXI file is not enough but the file itself needs to have a proper header recognized by the game engine.

Perhaps as you say, DDS files can actually be used, then maybe, this is the way of getting normal maps to work... Maybe.

A completion mod sounds great, as though I think restoration mods like TSLRCM are great and all, I do think they kind of miss the point. There is a reason why this content was cut from the game and there is little point of simply making it available if you do not intend to add what is missing from it in order to complete it. Unfortunately, adding that additional and make the right changes in way of content is harder than it looks, and not just from a technical point of view -- KOTOR / TSL modding is more hacking than modding in my opinion. Take items, most mod items are way over powered and therefore unbalanced. Not to mention that their description is clearly written by someone without a lot of experience with writing.

Having done some script and fiction writing and such before, may I suggest that you lay off the fiction writing and just plan out the plot, places, events and characters. Do something more high-level and then worry about the finer details of things like dialogue, which is harder to write than most people think. In this way you have a solid framework that can give you an overview so that you can spot weaknesses in the plot, and more importantly, identify various mission / quest types you can add.

And that last point is very important, as I've played some KOTOR mods in the past and most have a tendency to focus on writing self-indulgent monologues of dialogue in the form of interactive cut-scenes and flashbacks within flashbacks. What amounts to gameplay is usually the boss battles that never seem to end, that last for 20+ rounds and degenerate into running around in circles just out of range of attack, so as to build up your health and force points to attack back with. That is NOT a really brilliant idea . 

These mods were a nice novelty to experience once but not something I would want to experience again, to be frank.

BTW: It would be good if you had links and such to things you've referenced. Like GenoHaradan which I had to look up to recall who and what they were, as well as, find a link to the mod(s) mentioned for it -- which in turn don't bother give much explanatory detail either.

DDS is the format of choice, but, I wasn't aware that TSL could actually read DDS format. Just TGA. Will test it out anyway, as it is the better choice to TGA.

The program is Paint.NET. As long as you get one of the mega plugin and file format packs, it can do pretty much everything you need it to do. Though, GIMP is still better for normal maps.

Speaking of which, does anyone know how to create normal (bump) maps that TSL will like?

I've seen some of the lower rez TSL textures for stuff like droids and wasn't aware that they differed to the KOTOR ones. My guess is that they were simply just making do with XBOX versions of the textures to cut time. It's easier to just optimize and get it working on the XBOX first and then let PC players suffer some with the lower resolution textures as at least the game is bound to work. Though they probably planned to have better textures for PC, but had to compromise due to time. So, some of the lower resolution ones remained.

If I come across any that aren't for things like objects in the distance -- like shuttles flying in the background. I'll see what I can do to replace them with something better. But if all there is are the textures themselves, then depending upon how bad they are then there may not be much that can be done to improve them. Plus, I don't have KOTOR installed and there are probably some legal issues about porting and using KOTOR (Bioware) textures in TSL (Obsidian) as it was made by a different company.

It seems weird that that may be the case, but that's how it is with using content between Fallout 3 (Bethesda) and Fallout New Vegas (Obsidian). Not everyone would care but some people are real anal about these things .

No I haven't seen that particular mod Malkior; if I have time I'll check it out.

And yes, I'll do some before and after shots in the future.

I totally agree with you. The only textures that are better quality than the originals are HD photos transposed onto the models. (which is hit or miss for me) I much prefer to keep with the original look of the game, and just to add extra flourishes of color or visual contrast to make them better.

 

Most of Kotor2's textures are just too grey or lack enough creativity or detail to go beyond looking good from a distance. (This is especially evident if you compare them to the concept art)

Some of the TSL textures can look rather bad up close as well.

I have a suspicion that the KOTOR textures are a lot better compared to TSL in that TSL was a bit rushed development-wise. Looking at some of the texturing for the Telos station, you've got textures that have been used at the wrong scale, like x4 the size they should be. Mainly as filler for places and to cut back on texture creation. I think that maybe KOTOR has a lot less of this -- more like the Telos military base where things are more uniform in texture scaling. It isn't much of a problem if the textures are unedited, it is when they are, as the blurry stretch is more obvious when they're next to edited textures used at the correct scale.

I may have to increase the size of some of the textures because of this as there is no way to get around this otherwise -- unless you start editing modules to "fix" how textures are used; and the more I read about this the more it seems like a real pain . Currently I'm sticking to upsizing textures from 256x256 to 512x512, as though that's just "double" the dimensions, it actually means you've increase the texture size (area) by 4. It I up some to 1024x1024, it's not three times the original dimension, but actually 9 times the original texture size in way of area. Why I don't want to do that for every texture as it means more memory used by the game.

Plus, I'm sure there are people out there who are playing this game on very old notebooks and the like, so performance might be an issue. Especially as an older engine would have been optimised to work with smaller (mip-mapped) textures.

Thanks.

When looking at what others had done when researching KOTOR texture formats, I generally saw that people had gone heavy-handed with their changes to the original textures rather than trying to keep to the original as much as possible. That or they replaced all the old textures with new ones; generally larger in size than actually required to increase the detail in game when other methods would have worked just as well or even better.

I think that there is actually a lot of good elements in those original textures, its just that you have to bring them out and know how to do so.

I think that's smarter as well, as marking a lot of textures from scratch as others have done, well, that has a lot of problems not withstanding the time it takes to make textures from scratch. Why they generally feel half-finished, lacking in "detail" that makes them look anything but uniform. Plus the original textures have already been made to work in all the places they are used, new ones would need a lot of playtesting to ensure that.

So, I decided to re-play Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords the other day and realized that I could now play the game with the grass enabled -- before I would get the common problem I think has to do with ATI (AMD) graphics cards and the game being OpenGL; FYI: I think the latest ATI drivers have finally gotten around to fixing this.

I thought, cool, I can now play all those outdoor areas (like Telos) with grass enabled as without it they kind of sucked. Then I realised that they still kind of sucked because the grass textures are so crap -- well, the game is rather old to be fair. So, I re-textured them to something better. Then I had to re-texture the ground texture to match, which also meant re-texturing all the ground textures along with the cliff area walls as well.

I was happy and played on, that is until I got to the old underground military base and I thought, I think I can do better with some effort. So, I redid those as well. Then I went back and started work on Telos station as well, as some of the textures are shared between the two -- actually, a lot of the textures are used all over the place which makes it a bit tricky.

I still have much yet to do in order to complete the Telos set:

• I need to redo much of the signage along with recreate the animated textures.
• Work more on the skyboxes.
• Still need to do the Telos Polar area.
• The outside areas of the station you see through the windows I still have yet to do.
• Various textures aren't part of the Telos set but appear to be from elsewhere -- like the trees and grass on the station which I think are from Dantooine. So in order for them to be completed for Telos it means doing part of the outdoors for Dantooine.
• I think I can still improve the trees some via textures

Anyway, I thought once I was done with Telos -- as much as you can be without editing models and such -- that I would upload it as a teaser of a much larger project to retexture (remaster really) all the environment textures for the game followed by everything else. As in props, droids, creatures, character faces, weapons, armor and robes, equip objects, effects, and anything else I've forgotten. It's a lot of work but the upside is that I am not recreating all the textures from scratch. 90% are reworked textures that have been enlarged and then a special-sauce in way of a combo of filters and layers utilised in order to enhance them. It's only around 10% of the textures that end up having to be tweaked in some way -- like floor tiles -- or made from scratch -- some of the signage will definitely be. So, it shouldn't end up taking me years of my time to complete.

Anyhow, here are some teaser screens...