DarthParametric

Well I only pieced it together in the last day or so, so I wouldn't say I have been hiding it as such. I have another one for you though that is a bit older. If you recall the K1 end sequence area model issues, I can confirm that MDLEdit will now successfully load the area model itself, but it still crashes when loading the custom stunt model of the crowd. Right at the end though, after several minutes of processing. DP_StuntCrowdDS_v3_Condensed-kotormax.mdl.7z

I can get it to crash. Also crashes 1.0.5. PLC_RakatHol-kotormax.mdl.7z MDLOps compiles it and it works OK in-game. Oh and something I realised with that model - it seems like KMax doesn't like alphakeys by themselves. I'm not sure if it is stripping them on import or on export, but any nodes with only alphakeys ended up blank, whereas those also that had pos/rot keys kept their alphakeys.

Not in K1 at any rate. But I abandoned further efforts after the placeable count limit came to light.

Ah, must have only selected the one folder. K1_Crashing_Holo_Rakatan_2.7z This isn't the original hologram model, which lacked proper face bones and did not animate mouth movements, correct. This is a scaled down version of the regular Rakata so it has lip sync now.

I've discovered an odd crashing issue with a model that I can't diagnose. I had a working version, but then I split the head mesh for hierarchy-based occlusion (another hologram). This new model would consistently crash at the end of the conversation. I then further split the model, but additionally I moved the mesh split off in the previous edit to a different spot in the hierarchy. The new model does not cause a crash. I can only assume it must be the hierarchy position that was the cause, as the previously spilt mesh itself didn't change and an additional mesh split was added in the working model. Here are the two models: K1_Crashing_Holo_Rakatan.7z And if you want to test in-game, use this save and run up to the pillars to initiate the cutscene/conversation: K1_Save_Rakatan_Elders.7z

I managed to find this in a PM, which I am sure @ndix UR won't mind me sharing publicly:

It actually works in the opposite manner for mesh alpha. Anything at the top of the hierarchy will occlude everything below it. And per @ndix UR's thread here, alpha blending ignores hierarchy.

Like I said, maybe there is something about head models it doesn't like, as it was a head model with 16+ bones that I had issues with previously. Vandar is a full body model and the stunt Revan is just the body. I'll test it further when I get a chance. Not just animations, but keyframes for the same animations. I wasn't aware it went to that level.

I really don't know. The appearance.2da value was changed to my custom model, which used a custom supermodel. The DLG pointed to the original model as the stunt model. I would have thought that the stunt model would override any animations of the same name, but clearly it was reading my custom keyframes on my custom supermodel for new meshes in the Dodonna model that don't exist in the vanilla model. The Vandar model had all the same mesh names, so maybe that was why it wouldn't accept my changes. Although Dodonna did have a couple of residual meshes that retained the same names as the originals, namely the face, hair, and eyeballs. By the way, both hologram Vandar and stunt Revan both have more than 16 bones on a mesh. MDLEdit did manage to compile functional versions as far as that was concerned, so maybe my previous issues were unrelated, or maybe there is something specific about head meshes and "too many" bones.

I see we finally got a tools sub-forum. I'm surprised there wasn't at least a little fanfare about it though. Anyway can a mod finally unpin and lock that NWNMax thread in the general modding forum, and move across the pinned KOTOR Tool thread as well. @VarsityPuppet: With your newly minted admin status, I gather we are hassling you about this now. Make it so.

It's known as the "legal screen". There are a bunch of existing mods you can look at to see what they did, like this one. I think the gist is a BIK is required for K1, but a TGA is fine for TSL.

The torso and arm meshes in the supermodel use completely different names, had their trimesh alpha values set to 0.5, had their render flags set to 0, and had all their alphakey nodes removed. I don't think the cause can be pinned on them. The problem for me is, is this something I am doing/not doing, some sort of bug, or just the game being a dick. Edit: Maybe it is the game being a dick. I edited the DLG and pointed that line of the LS cutscene to the (different) animation used in the equivalent line of the DS cutscene. Despite there being no problems in the DS cutscene, that animation in the LS cutscene also suffered the same torso and arms going full opaque issue. Edit 2: And I also tried switching the (off-screen) animation used in the previous line to the DS scene equivalent. Again, still does it. I don't know what the hell is going on. Edit 3: OK, I solved the LS Dodonna problem, but uncovered some weirdness in the process. The previous animation switch I tried still had a fade in from alpha 0.0 to alpha 0.5 (even though by the time the camera actually switches to Dodonna she is already fully visible). This time I switched to an animation where she was already fully visible and the problem went away. So I tried an experiment with Vandar to see what would happen. I switched his reveal animation from the original with a fade in to one where he was visible the whole time. For some reason, everything except his eyes was completely invisible. And not just for the duration of that animation. His body remained invisible for the rest of the cutscene (which is comprised of a further 8 separate animations). The eyes in this case had animations switching between visible and invisible, because of the aforementioned blinking trick where it swaps visibility between two different sets of eyeball meshes. This is really doing my head in. Edit 4: Oh FFS. I found the problem, and I should have realised sooner. The DLG references stunt models for the animations. In this case, it's the unique hologram models for both Dodonna and Vandar. But for some reason it seems the game reads animations from both the stunt model and the scene model, and in this case even the scene model's supermodel. So I see now why I could never get Vandar to go transparent. My model was using the same mesh names, so clearly it was pulling the 1.0 alphakeys from the stunt model. The stunt model field for Dodonna is blank in the DS cutscene DLG, which is why she worked without a hitch in that one. I guess this is what happens when you try to get fancy and use custom names. Although to be fair to myself, I only really did that because of the MDLEdit crash issue. So, really, it's all @bead-v's fault.

The in-game model has no animations of its own. All of them are being pulled from the supermodel (which is a modified version of the original model). This is all being done via directly editing the ASCII in a text editor, since neither MDLEdit nor MDLOps will compile a version exported from KMax. And because I am using dummies in the supermodel rather than meshes (due to ease of editing), KMax wouldn't be able to handle it anyway (it has no provision for trimesh values like alpha for a dummy).

This Dodonna hologram is driving me mental. It works fine in the DS custcene, but for some reason, even after adding custom keyframes to all fifty freaking animations, in the LS cutscene her torso still momentarily goes to an alpha of 1 before reverting in the next shot to 0.5 as intended. I cannot work out how this is happening. I think I have identified the specific animation being called during that line of dialogue, but the way it works is weird. The DLG references animation 1251, but the animations on the model are named CUT001W etc. It looks like the LS cutscene animations start at CUT051W (the previous one being CUT025W), but it seems that CUT052W must be the one being used for that line. So it seems like 12XY = CUT0(XY+1)W. Anyway the relevant portion is: newanim CUT052W S_HoloDodonna length 4.0 transtime 0.0 node dummy TOR_Chest parent S_HoloDodonna alphakey 0.0 0.0 0.666667 0.5 4.0 0.5 endlist endnode All the alphakeys for that animation lacked the additional keyframe at 4 seconds, so I added that just in case, to no effect. Interestingly, when looking at the 60fps video the first frame of her reveal the chest mesh is completely gone (presumably alpha 0) while all the other meshes are visible: Edit: I just noticed the upper arms are also both missing in that single frame, and turning to a solid alpha 1.0 in that shot. So three meshes are affected, the rest not.

Look at the Misc TOR Ports WIP thread. K1 uses a texture-based approach for the hologram effect. I am swapping that to mesh alpha instead, but that requires animating the alpha value because they fade the models in and out, and they also had to hide eyeballs in certain shots because of the whole bug-eyed thing (plus they cheat with Vandar's eye blink, swapping between two sets of eye meshes with different textures rather than using physically animated eyelids).

As I said above, that was an animation issue due to it not setting the alpha value of the mesh to its intended value. That's fixed now, at least in the DS cutscene:

There's something weird with the animations for vanilla K1 models for hologram Dodonna and Vandar. MDLEdit will crash on loading the ASCIIs with animations, either vanilla or passed through KOTORMax. It has no problems with an ASCII that has been stripped of the animations. @ndix UR: MDLOps will successfully compile a vanilla ASCII and it will work in-game. It will also compile an ASCII passed through KMax with no errors, but in-game it will be stuck in the t-pose (i.e. no anims presumably). Interestingly, I can edit the vanilla ASCII and have MDLOps compile a working model, although so far I have only tried editing existing values and adding additional keyframes. K1_Holo_Vandar_Dodonna.7z The additional problem I am having - and I am unsure if this is a problem with these particular models, or something more general - is that the game is not respecting my mesh alpha animation values properly. For example, when Vandar first appears, part of the animation fades him in, so all the skins/trimeshes have an alphakey animation going from 0 to 1. Since I wanted to swap from texture blending to mesh alpha for the hologram effect, I changed all the alphakey values so that the upper value was 0.5 instead of 1. However Vandar still fades in to, and stays at, fully opaque (so I assume alpha 1). Any idea what is going on here? Edit: I managed to get my custom Dodonna model working properly when I use an edited copy of the original (with added dummies for my new meshes to add alphakey animations) as a supermodel. I'm doing exactly the same thing for Vandar, but he doesn't properly use the alphakey values, as stated above. K1_Custom_Holo_Vandar.7z For area models, yes. It may also apply to placeables, I can't remember. For area models, strictly speaking it is supposed to use the OdysseyBase name with an "a" appended I believe. I know @ndix UR and/or @bead-v provided a breakdown of the specifics somewhere, but possibly it was in a PM. Sure would be good if we had that wiki about now to document this sort of thing.....

I've given Dodonna the admiral's sash and swapped out the gloves for her original hands (necessitating grafting some sleeves back on). She seems to have a man-hands thing going on, but I don't want to have screw around with it further given her limited screen time. I'm also working on changing the hologram appearance. That is such a pain in the ass with the way Bioware did it vs what Obsidian did in TSL. I'm also fixing up holo Vandar at the same time to make them consistent, although trying to get his eyes to show up properly is proving difficult. Edit: Fixed the eyes, but now I am fighting the animations. Besides compiling issues, for some reason I cannot get the animations to respect the partial alpha values it is supposed to be using. You can see an example of the sort of thing in the Dodonna pictures - her face isn't transparent. The rest of the body parts haven't had custom animations added yet, so they are just using the base alpha value (which is 0.5).

You can try replacing the TSLPatcher.exe with the one from here and see if that works.

No, don't suggest that. If anyone had done it, they would have posted about it.

For some scripts, not all scripts. Most, if not all, of the module-specific scripts have no included source and must be manually decompiled.

Exactly what JCarter said. KTool will let you extract the compiled scripts (NCS) from each module. You'll want DeNCS to decompile them (NSS) which you can then edit in a text editor. You'll then need to recompile the modified scripts, which can be done in KTool, via NWNSSCOMP directly, KOTOR Scripting Tool, etc. Depending on the script names and their uniqueness, you'll probably have to inject them into MODs to avoid clashes, for which you'll want the ERF/RIM Editor. And if you plan on a public release, you'll need TSLPatcher in order to make your mod compatible.