LORD SPARTAN

I though I had to make a statement just to reassure people. I'm working on a driver issue at the moment. So until my system is stable again, I will pause this project. It is backed up on an external HDD. So no worries. As soon this update/driver bug is fixed, I'll be back on this project.

23 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

Hrm, guess that was the improved version. I probably should work on it more. Not that I suppose you'll get too close to it in-game.

I think I found what you where looking for...

The OG model, which I call the old dried ham 

And the updated OG model with a new arm and UVMaps that I didn't had a chance to test. You had made the HD model in less than a day from that download. So I switch my efforts on the HD model.

20 hours ago, Salk said:

It's glorious enough!

Thanks for this update, man.

And godspeed!

Thanks 

That's the arm that came with the file. I had no independent file for it.

Those are the textures used in the model

PLC_Datapad02

PLC_DpadScr02

PLC_DpadGlass1

N_CommM01

PLC_GenCorpse

P_CandBA01

Those are the compressed files I have right now on my drive.

K1_Placeable_Datapads_New_Datapad_Model

K1_Datapad_Placeable_Replacement_Models_v2

K1_Datapad_Placeable_plc_sevrdarm_Alternate_Texture_v2

K1_Alt_Datapad_Severed_Arm_Cracked_Glass

33 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

Hrm, that looks like the first arm. Didn't I give you a better version of that with a slightly less half-assed stump end?

That's the one with the broken glass. That's the last one I've got.

Hi everyone, I'm still alive as this project. I just encountered some personal difficulties. Now I'm moving on.

I did look out for a way to manipulate the cutscene to incorporate the models in it. I also lost myself along the way. So I've put this aside for the moment.

It will not a big glorious update. But still...

The modded OG

The new HD mostly done. But I found out I need to touch up some parts.

With the not done arm version. I'm working on adding dirt and scratches on the metal. Making an HD custom textures for the arm with an option of gore and no gore.

On 2/15/2024 at 8:15 PM, Sith Holocron said:

@LORD SPARTAN: Will you be redoing the icons for the datapads to accompany the new models?

It is in the plans. But I don't know when I will add them. Will the icons be animated? I have no idea if it's in the possibilities. 

On 12/21/2023 at 9:33 PM, DarthParametric said:

It's entirely possible, as long as you are willing to create custom stunt animations to facilitate it. But you don't necessarily have to make the whole thing from scratch. You can cheat a bit, as I did in that example, by taking an existing idle animation and then just editing the appropriate bits (like the right arm/hand in that case). In your case you could cheat a lot with existing anims. Have a shot from behind the player as they crouch down to pick up the datapad (have a look at Carth crouched down next to Saul on the Leviathan bridge for an example of how to do this). Then do a close-up shot of the player holding the pad where you basically only see the pad and the sides of the hands. That could probably be completely static, just a locked pose, which is pretty simple.

Just what you said made me thinker about this

MERRY CHRYSLER EVERYONE!!!

Hi everyone, I was caught with family matters and my friends are making LAN party. So, I will take a break starting right now, until the new year. I will be back and in top shape, January the second.

Furthermore, I understand I'm taking forever doing this mod. But, I'm working to my pace, and I'm learning from this process. Each game has its ways when it comes to modding them. And as I read in this community forums. Lots of new tools and options are now available. New awesome tricks I will have to learn. I will try to get my hands on another 3DS MAX license. My competence with this software are more for architecture. But I'm sure I can do something for KotOR, beside editing the default model and UV Mapping.

It may take me a bit longer, like the rest of the things I'm learning here. But rest assured, I will not leave this project until I'm done with it. And I will post it as soon as it feels ready enough for it.

On 12/7/2023 at 9:57 AM, Sith Holocron said:

@LORD SPARTAN Here's a free quality Aurebesh font.

Thanks, I'll will try this one next time.

On 12/7/2023 at 9:00 AM, Salk said:

Sorry about your misfortunes.

I live dreading the day something like that could happen to my hard drive. Anyway, the idea you had was not stupid at all, but perhaps, and it's my humble advice, it's time for wrapping some working version of this? Once it's out and uploaded you will no longer need to fear data loss and you can work on improvements for the next versions.

Indeed, it's a terrible feeling to see your PC BSOD when trying to access a drive. It was one of my M.2 SSD, and it was directly where 1080 Ti SC2 side vent. Getting blown hot air and dust. So it got too hot when doing stuff with many big softwares. I suspect it was not build to endure that kind of abuses. 

On 12/7/2023 at 9:00 AM, Salk said:

Personally, I don't think that the Player needs to read the description off the broken datapad in order to make it realistic that the message is delivered in full. The whole thing is completely unrealistic from the very beginning. The Player finds many datapads in the game and there is only a few lines in them. We can assume that there are means available that allow for a partial recovery of the content just the same way as we can assume that the game reports the very small part of content that is of interest for each retrived datapad.

For the first phase... No, it's absolutely not essential to be able to read on a broken or working datapad. But it would be cool if we could. And we all have the right to dream about cool mods for our favorite game. I'm also not there at all for the moment.

On 12/7/2023 at 9:14 AM, DarthParametric said:

Now do it in Aurebesh.

I did and here's the results

On 12/7/2023 at 9:14 AM, DarthParametric said:

By the way, I wouldn't say that level of detail doesn't have a place, as long as you are willing to go the extra mile to facilitate it. In other words, create a cutscene where you actually get a chance to show it off.

I'm willing. I don't know if I will be able to get there. But it's in my mind. For example, the Twisted Rancor Trio quest has an empty desk near the holograms. It could be placed on the corner of this desk. If I can learn how to do custom placeable in a map like this kind of idea.

On 12/7/2023 at 9:14 AM, DarthParametric said:

I am doing a vaguely similar sort of thing with comm messages (which hopefully I'll get around to finishing next year some time).

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

This looks awesome. I didn't know it was possible. I don't know if I will become as good as this. But I will try my best to come up with something. I'll keep an eye for this.

Sorry everyone for the hiatus. One of my SSD died and most of the files for this mod and some others where on it. I've lost lots of animation templates and my main datapad texture template. As always, I'm lucky enough in my bad luck to save most of the work. I had a USB drive with the whole game folder on it, waiting to be transferred on my old laptop. So I've recovered many testing files in HD. I almost gave up after the SSD. Took some time to reflect on the situation. PC hardware prices are insane these days. But I found a way to stay fully operational and to go forward. "C'est la vie" as they say. 

So here is some update. It started as a joke in response to DarthParametric coment:

On 11/11/2023 at 1:14 AM, DarthParametric said:

Yeah I agree that looks the most suitable for a datapad gripped by a mangled arm. Although it does raise the question of how exactly the player would be able to read any info off it.

But turns out I can become a mad man when my jokes goes too far. So I literally tried to make the text readable on the screen. A big mistake. Because not many fonts can be read at small resolution. Also, how the hell I was thinking it would be a good idea to make animated text description, when the screen is resting on the ground and you can't really read it either way. Anyway, here's my madness or stupidity in all its glory. 

In game

And what I was aiming in my mind.

Maybe when I'll learn more abot what we can do in model placing. I'll try to put it on some broken stone or obelisk so everyone could read the description. But for now I'll just try and finish the texture work.

4 minutes ago, Sith Holocron said:

Are these samples using the actual size texture you'd be uploading?

Some of them yes. I'm trying to stay under 2K resolution. Those are 1K with rows of 256 pixels squares for this preview. But some animations don't look too good when I scale them under 512 pixels. 

Before leaving for the weekend I decided to post some tryouts I did today. I can't decide if it would be better to tint the static or not. So here are my tests.

Some test for the broken datapad. The main texture is not ready yet. It needs weathering and dirt on it. So right now it's not the real texture. But I made a new sample for the animation, now that I understand more of the TPC files. There will be more next week.

I'm using a TGA and a TXI using the same name. But I don't know how I could attached or linked them ase they are. So I did my first TPC and look at that now...

I guess I should have tried this sooner. Now I can fine tune it and improve it. Thanks for the info

Small Update

The last two days I was tinkering with the animation again. I'm still learning how to animate for KotOR. But I didn't expected what I found.

I began resizing and simplifying the animation to a 4x4 grid on a 1024x1024 pixels sheet. But the bug remained. Then I played with the FPS and I couldn't see much change. After many trials, not only I understand better the speed. But it raised a new question... What is the max number for the FPS option?

5 FPS

15 FPS

Then I lost power and had to stop again. But I reflected on a way to test it. This image has mostly the answer. I've used it as the base template again. But this time to see how the animation was rolling. It was a bit too fast to notice. But then I made a clip and toned down the speed very low and this is the result.

It jumped the second row to the third, then back at the second (1;3;2). I have no clue what I'm doing wrong here. Is it the same thing if I have four rows (1;3;2;4)? So that's why it not plays smooth like this.

2 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

The thing you have to accept with a flipbook is that you are going to have a small number of frames. That's why you need to keep the animation simple, so it will still look decent with a small number of frames and a low framerate.

Yes that's what I've realized at the first try. Going from a video to frames can be tricky at higher FPS. That's why I will either use some .gifs on the internet or I will make new animations from scratch but with already calculated numbers of frames. I'm looking at it right now.

7 hours ago, Salk said:

Oh okay. Got it.

I didn't think the animation needed to be particularly fancy.

You're right, it doesn't need to be fancy. But with the new 3D model, a sloppy pixelated animation would be like putting a 4 year old drawing in a museum. I'm aiming to something short, clear, smooth and nice enough to be seen at any screen resolution.

Of course, Darth Parametric was also right by saying it's just a small object that appears in a cutscene and a couple of times on the ground in some quests. So, it's still early in this project. But I hope to learn enough to add it on some desk or kiosk or something like that. Maybe even in the Ebon Hawk. But right now it's just some wild idea in my head.

19 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

An 8x8 array flipbook at a resolution of 512x512 would only be 64x64 per frame. Not really ideal even on an object that small given the apparent complexity of the image. You'd have to drop the frame count down to something like a 4x4 array to make that work.

I'm happy that you bring that up. It was my first obstacle I've encounter with the animation. I did made animation for a project and I tried to use is as an exemple. But the template was in 8K 60fps. so scaling it down was a ugly nightmare. Not that I couldn't do it. Even with an Ai software I had at work it was horribly pixelated and looking dire at 1024 pixels. So the sample I use for the exemple is just a simple .gif found on internet with 68 frames. So the 8x8 came from there.

I did test the new .txi parameters, but with no availed. The animation is still weird. But it came up to me today. I did encounter something similar with a animate .vtf for another game. The bug was it had many frames repeated for the video I used. I thinking it might be the case here too. I will not promise anything for the next few days. But I'll try to post an update that will not make me ashamed of my results. 

13 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

So make your TXI:

proceduretype cycle
defaultwidth 2048
defaultheight 2048
numx 8
numy 8
fps 10

Btw 2K is complete overkill for an animated texture on an object that tiny. I would drop it down to 1K at most.

Loll I should have known that was the problem. As for the 2K. I'm still in the early stage, I was lazy and didn't scaled down the resolution. It was just easier to see what I was doing. And it makes better screenshots loll But it is in the plans to lower the resolution for optimization.

57 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

Flipbook animation order is always left to right, top to bottom:

Are your numx/y values actually representative of the number of tiles/frames your image has?

Yes, my image is 8 frames by 8 frames of 256x256 pixels each. On a image of 2048x2048 pixels total. Like so...

Hi everyone, I'm not dead, and I'm still working on this mod. I just got really bothered by lots of things recently, and I also did quit the painkillers. I couldn't think clear, but now I'm in a lot more pain. Anyway, as soon as I had the chance, I've jump back on this mod. I've decided to restart from ground up the main texture. Lowering the reflection revealed that my texture was too blend and I thought it was really ugly. I also did some animations. But I've found out I'm doing it the wrong way. Here is the comparison with the game vs the concept...

When I'm making the animation sheet. I'm laying the images from top to bottom and from left to right. Am I wrong?

Also, this is the .txi infos

Did I made a mistake here?

11 hours ago, Salk said:

Hi!

Thanks for the update!

envmaptexture mycube is right.

And this is what it looks like:

mycube.tga 96.02 kB · 1 download

Thanks I'll try to test this today. I will also try to post screenshots.

Hi everyone,

I had problem with my electricity and internet since Saturday night because of really bad weather. So I couldn't answer quicker. But I'm still working on the texture. It's going as fast as I can. I've tried some alternative. With and with out alpha channel. I was not satisfied with the results. I've even tried a global tint with some details. With some fine results. But I'm far from done. 

On 10/15/2023 at 2:08 AM, DarthParametric said:

You can either tone down the intensity of the alpha channel, or switch the envmap to a different one. I assume you are using CM_Baremetal? You could try mycube instead. That tends to be a little less intense.

This is my .txt file:

envmaptexture CM_baremetal

Should I write:

envmaptexture mycube or just mycube

I never used mycube before.

On 10/15/2023 at 1:54 AM, Salk said:

Good job, l say.

I agree that the reflection is way too much, but that's something you could easily remedy, right?

Welcome back!

Yes, there's some trials to do. But I'm already near a more suitable reflection. I also corrected some parts that are supposed to be dark and mate in finish. 

On 10/15/2023 at 9:25 AM, Dark Hope said:

Good afternoon. I can offer my help, if you allow.

I'm sure you could help. But I still want to try all the possibilities I can come up with before. It will be the first public KotOR mod I work on since my collaboration with Oldflash on this... So I'm trying to work things out and improve myself in the process. But if I can't succeed I'll keep your offer in mind and I thank you for it.

Hi everyone, I'm finally back. Not in pristine condition. But the flame still burns. Also, my back.

I also want to thanked everyone who showed me support in this project.

I did work on the project in the last three days. I'm not satisfied with my texture work. I overdid the reflection and lost a lot of details. Some parts are not textured the right way. It's all my fault at this point. But I will try to get there soon. Then after the datapad itself. I will do some animation test. But as for now...

On 9/22/2023 at 1:37 AM, DarthParametric said:

It's really not a big deal. It's like a 5 minute job. Duplicate the screen mesh, raise it up a couple of mm, assign it a unique texture, export the ASCII, compile to binary model.

I saw the updated model. I really appreciate all the work you did for this project. I just hope my texture work will be rendering your model as good it's looking right now. I'll post an update as soon my back let me sit for more than 15 minutes.

Sorry for the late feedback. I got injured in the lower back last week-end. And I can't sit or stand very long. I should be ready to go back at it in a couple of days. Well I hope so. I did the color mapping of the other model. Just to give me some idea of what I was texturing. It's going well. I'll make a quick test of this new model tomorrow as soon as I can. Thanks again for this update. I will not give up.

10 minutes ago, Sith Holocron said:

Would the data pad as seen in the Jedi Enclave be using a different texture that isn't glitched?

I am impressed at the work by all involved so far! I've been working around screens for years and I am glad there's one that I won't have to tackle.

Yes there will be two different animation for the datapads. In fact, the default models already use different textures. But now with the great work of DarthParametric, not only the datapads will have different textures. But they will also have a HQ model and higher resolution screens. 

23 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

Yeah to be honest unless you are planning on adding a cutscene where the player picks up the datapad so that you get a good look at it close up, it's probably just too much noise for such a small object.

Adding datapads on desks at some key points in the game was in my plans. But right now I trying to fix something in my txi file. I'm doing some tests. I'm also trying to make a good looking texture for your model. It's very high in details and I want to give the proper work to honor your model.

23 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

Edit: If you really want to add the broken screen, one option would be to add an additional floating mesh above the screen that has its own texture that you could use for the broken glass effect. Breaking it out separately from the animated screen texture might help it via more pixel density.

At that point I might give up on a broken screen. The model is beautiful as it is and I don't want to ask for more since you've already gave so much. I'll try to make the animation look like it's bugged and in a loop. Adding static and some swirls lines to add some effect. I also said I will try to give the players some animations options. So I'll work on this for the week-end