sEcOnDbOuToFiNsAnItY

After a whole bunch of tinkering with my own build in private, I'm finally foraying into something public. Some of you might be familiar with, or dimly remember, a great mod from the old filefront days - Robes of the Old Republic: Back Into TSL, which returns the robes in TSL to a KOTOR 1 style. I've always been a big fan of this one since the K2 robes were always so 4k years in the future for my tastes, but the downside to this mod is that the lovely cloaks disappear. Thankfully, @VarsityPuppet and @90SK had thought of this and made a newer mod that added a cloak to the K1 robe model for K2, with their own textures and recolours for the various outfits. But I always had a liking for the old ROTOR textures, for the most part, so what I used to do on my end was splice textures together to get what I want. So now I figured I may as well make a new mod using elements of both, with my own twists here and there. VP and 90SK were kind enough to give permission to use their assets, and Gavroche very helpfully gives permissiom in ROTOR's readme to use assets. I'm still playing around with various elements, but I figured feedback would be well worth getting before I go any further.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am not a very good digital artist, and the vast majority of my skills are limited to chop-and-change recolours on that end of things, so don't expect anything godlike if you don't already like the K1 robe textures. Most of these were also edited years ago now since they're the product of my tinkering over the years, and it's only recenlty I've gotten around to updating and reinstalling KOTOR 2 again. But, I have to start somewhere.

I'm not 100% sold on the master and padawan having different textures, at least for the robe under the cloak, but atm the Jedi ones are all either game textures or courtesy of one or both prior mods.

The dark robes are something of an options list, but I'm strongly leaning towards using the K1 dark robes texture instead. I've currently got those on a different robe later though, so some poking around might be needed.

This is where things got more creative on my end - I wanted the cloaks to match the rotor textures, so I did a lot of trial and improvement on the recolouring. I've also got the K1 orange robes here on the sage slot, but I might move them too. I matched the cloak to the trousers of those robes, but the more I look at it the more I think maybe I should adjust it to be closer to the main robe.

The Norris robe is currently home to the old K1 dark jedi robe texture, but I suspect I'll move it over to the dark jedi main in the future. I'm not super satisfied witht hecloak - there's a sort of turquoise tint to the wear lines of the K1 robe that I want to try and recreate in the cloak so it matches, but it's been proving tricky so far. The Ossus Keeper uses the K1 blue robes, and I do like the cloak recolour job I've done, but I am wondering if I should make the cloak blue instead - there's a lot of grey in the robe options already. The Natth Cowling loak I'm irrationally proud of, since I thought matching the pink trousers from ROTOR's tecture would be very striking, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to get it looking right.

With the named character robes, I've been experimenting with matching the palette more closely to what the characters wore back in TOTJ, so Arcas and Nima swap base robes, and I did a lot of vsual reference looking to tint the cloaks. Thon obviously doesn't wear much of anything, so I just tried adjusting the colour of his cloak to be as close to his vanilla master-style cloak's colour as possible. The lack of a master-style cloak model does start to hurt how good these can look though, IMO.

It was a bit of a surprise that Crado and Sylvar's robes from ROTOR matched their under robes from TOTJ pretty well, so I left them as-is, but I did make their cloaks a matching purple in from their comic cloaks. Aleema needed the most change, and she might yet see more change. In theory I could've given her several different colour combos thanks to her serial wardrobe changes, but I think I've found a nice compromise. And lastly, for Arren Kae's robe, I've got the VP/90SK textures instead of ROTOR for now, but I do plan to make some tweaks, though not major ones - probably try and get the cape more white, eliminate the grey trim, etc.

I have no model editing experience, so I did put out a request for a K1 robe combined with the master-style K2 cloak, but sadly nobody's picked up, so I'll have to shelve that hope for the time being. If anyone's up to help, I'd be very thankful.

I'm entertaining other ideas for the mod, like an uncloaked version or maybe clothes for each class using the NPC robes, K1 ending robes, and uncloaked K1 robes, but I'm not wholly committed to that as of yet.

So that's where things are as of now - watch this space, hopefully.

Pretty much everything I've ever modded has been for my own build and never released, so pretty much everything I make, I use, until I don't want/need to any more. That might be changing soon though... at least the never released part.

20 minutes ago, HK-47 said:

No, that is not lost on me at all. You can dislike it all you want, that doesn't make them not related or not cannon, which is what you were saying. Maybe not what you meant, but it is what you said. You can dislike the remake all you want. That doesn't make it not canon. If the remake is changed for Disney canon, then it will no longer be related and in the vein of EU canon it will not be canon. It was inevitable that some content was going to do that at some point. And like I said, the Light Side choices are always considered the cannon ones.

For the last time, that is not what I was saying and I'm baffled how you think it was. Whether or not it's canon isn't the issue. I have said that multiple times now. I said that nothing in KOTOR 1 actively links to SWTOR in the way that SWTOR actively links to K1. It can't, because it didn't exist yet when they made K1; time is linear. That's not a canon matter, that's a reality matter. There was no SWTOR in 2003 for KOTOR 1 to actively connect to, much like there was no KOTOR 2 - it's later stuff that connects back to older things if it chooses to. KOTOR 2, the KOTOR comic, SWTOR, they all pick up things from KOTOR to do their own thing with and link back to it... but they can't warp through time and have always been there, and that affects the experience, the vibe, the functional content of each work. It can only ever act retroactively. The KOTOR remake, coming after all of the above, is consequentially going to be influenced by all of those in a way that the original couldn't have ever been.

21 minutes ago, HK-47 said:

The idea that Revan chose to go dark side was not set in stone. It was an idea placed in your head by Kreia so she could try to exert influence and control over you. She merely postulated it as a possibility, which I found to be pretty awesome. It also still follows that Revan did it that way

Not really - Revan being corrupted by his war and choosing to do bad things is pretty much K1's byline. Kreia's postulated theory is that he was somehow doing a grand scheme greater good and wasn't really evil. These are not the same thing. The common theme either way was that Revan, be it because he genuinely went bad or as part of Kreia's theorised gambit, chose to do bad things. Of course, there was always an air of mystery, because it was never made concrete within K1 or 2. SWTOR ended that mystery, and as a result a remake of K1 is almost certainly going to take that into account. And much the same goes for the myriad other things SWTOR introduces that don't appeal to me - be it Vitiate, what the True Sith turn out to be, changes made to the background setting, or even simply the aesthetic.

24 minutes ago, HK-47 said:

And if you're going to sit there and say that one version of doing what your disliking about SWTOR is okay but it isn't for SWTOR to do that then you're being a hypocrite.

I didn't say it wasn't okay. I just said it doesn't appeal to me and I don't need it. Because I don't - SWTOR is material I primarily find severely offputting on multiple levels, so I personally don't find a remake appealing since that material I dislike is most likely going to be woven into the creative intent. That's how it always goes, and whether that's appealing or not always depends on if the person it does/n't appeal to likes what's being mixed in. If I felt differently about SWTOR material, the reverse might be true, but as it stands, for me personally, I have no need of this if it really is a remake as opposed to a remaster. If it was just KOTOR 2 and the KOTOR comic that were going to likely get deliberate hooks in a K1 remake, I'd be far happier, but SWTOR can't be put back in the jar, precisely because it's EU canon, and is in fact the only remaining ongoing EU work. So if you like SWTOR's direction, that's great news. But if you don't, then what does this have for you? Nothing, or at least, nothing that feels worth that change. Because that's the only reason to do a remake instead of a remaster - to change the original. They can't make everyone happy, so I think it's perfectly mature to recognise that this probably isn't going to be for me. Worst case scenario is I'm pleasantly surprised.

18 minutes ago, HK-47 said:

Your logic regarding the elements is flawed for two reasons: It wasn't exactly a planned series and they don't have to be planned to still be canon. Allow me to elaborate:

The elements don't have to be there in the original. It only has to line up, and it does. Unlike the ST which had no plan and doesn't line up with anything, not even itself.

It wasn't planned in that what we got wasn't the original plan, so you won't have elements from later in the beginning. Current KotOR 2 wasn't planned by BioWare. BioWare was busy with other games. That's why BioWare didn't make it. For a planned series see Mass Effect. KotOR1 was the only one originally planned.

Next: The light side ending of any game is always considered the cannon one. The entire Jedi Knight series had light and dark endings. But the light was always the cannon one. SWTOR stating revan and meetra's identities was not an after thought. Revan was already male due to the comics (2006) that were out before SWTOR (2011). Meetra was already decided as female before SWTOR. You not liking SWTOR doesn't make it not canon.

You seem to be just fundamentally not getting that SWTOR being EU canon is precisely why a remake doesn't appeal to me. The unplanned nature of K1 and K2 means that you can play them, and experience them without SWTOR mattering. Not so for a remake, which will inevitably be influenced by the existence of what has been decided and created since. In the cases of KOTOR 2 and the JJMiller KOTOR comic, that's a good thing in my opinion so I'm fine with deliberate hooks for those being placed in a new KOTOR 1 remake. But SWTOR? I would really rather not. SWTOR does far more than simply go with official designated canon genders - it gives set in stone appearances, voices, life directions and so on. Heck SWTOR material even completely recontextualises Revan and erases him actively choosing to go dark through being corrupted by his war, to replace it with the Vitiate material. None of that was decided when KOTOR was made, and a remake would almost certainly act as if it had always been there. Which would be fine for me if it wasn't fundamentally offputting material for me.

SWTOR's direction isn't going to be undone, and as a result it continuing to be EU canon is going to affect what goes into a KOTOR remake. It's easy to disregard things that were later established as canon in KOTOR because they never existed when KOTOR came out. That's not going to be true for a remake, because a remake will assume those thing as having always been the case and it will affect the experience unless it actually turns out to be a badly-named remaster. So yes, me not liking SWTOR doesn't make it not canon. That's my point. And that's the problem.

If it is just a remaster that changes nothing about the story then it's not an issue - but they're calling it a remake, so I'm going to assume that means we'll have much more deliberate SWTOR hooks and not various things that SWTOR came along to decide what they meant.

37 minutes ago, HK-47 said:

Incorrect. It is a direct, 100% link. It always has been. Kotor 3 became SWTOR. Not only did the developers state that all along, the story elements are directly linked since the game launched. If you actually play the story, it is clear it's linked. SWTOR also came out years before Disney. SWTOR is not part of Disney Wars. It is part of the very fleshed out and expansive KotOR era.

 

Satele and Theron Shan are the direct descendants of Revan and Bastila. Revan's capture and imprisonment was in the Revan novel, and our character was tasked with releasing him on the Republic side while Imperials were tasked with taking The Foundry resulting in an encounter with him. Later There was the incident on Yavin, and finally the destruction of Tenebrae in the Echos of Oblivion story. Several locations have parts from and mentions of KotOR 1 & 2. Just to name a few.

That's kind of my point though. SWTOR took existing elements of KOTOR 1 and 2 to create its replacement to KOTOR 3, and I found that direction profoundly unsatisfying. The SWTOR original elements aren't in KOTOR because SWTOR didn't exist yet. Revan's agency being turned into him being brainjacked by discount palpatine didn't exist yet, what the mysterious 'true sith' Kreia mentions in 2 are didn't have a set answer yet, and within KOTOR 1 and 2 themselves, Revan and the Exile had no locked identity or endings, those being up to you. A KOTOR remake is either going to exist in disneyverse, or if it's not, it's almost certainly going to have more intentional tying in of the SWTOR elements that hadn't been created yet in the original.

Everything you mention is things that are introduced by a distant sequel that didn't appeal to me in the slightest and have no interest in seeing referenced. I can easily play KOTOR 1 and 2 and not be reminded of those things because everything SWTOR picked up on was just loose undecided strands or nuggets that had no answer. I most likely will not be able to do the same with this remake if it's not disneyverse because SWTOR shows no signs of being thrown out and the devs will build the game with SWTOR in mind. I'm fully aware that SWTOR isn't Disneyverse - that's why this feels like a bit of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. It'll either connect to Disneyverse or SWTOR (in a way that the originals didn't) and I see both as reasons to be very disinterested in a remake.

That's how linear time works. It's why if the Thrawn Trilogy had been rewritten in the late 00s its writing would be inherently affected by the existence of the prequels, the Hand of Thrawn Duology, Survivor Quest, and Outbound Flight in a way the original wasn't.

10 hours ago, HK-47 said:

I doubt that it will be tied to it. It's a game from Legends. If they do it'll be a huge PR failure, as big as the ST was. It's not likely that it will be. Also, current KotOR is already tied to SWTOR. So that's already done. SWTOR is not tied to Disney Wars.

Disney isn't likely to not want new games and works to be part of their 'verse. Which is valid, it just doesn't interest me. And, to a degree that's true with SWTOR, if you play SWTOR or read SWTOR books. But within KOTOR and KOTOR 2 themselves there's no tangible link to SWTOR because it didn't exist yet. If by some miracle the remake is not tied to Disneyverse, it'll most likely have explicit connections to SWTOR within it, which also is disinteresting to me.

I guess the era exposure is cool but I... don't really need this. KOTOR 1 works fine for me and I've custom modded it to my tastes. the only appeal it would have for me is if I cared about the vague rough KOTOR era being connected to the Disney universe, or to SWTOr. And I simply don't, on either count. Maybe if it turns out to be a remaster or somesuch it'll have something for me.

On 8/17/2021 at 3:41 PM, N-DReW25 said:

I honestly don't know why, I found him to be one of the more enjoyable characters in the mod.

 

Allow me to clarify what my plan is on that:

 

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 TSLRCM utilized the "Rebuilding the Jedi Enclave" Mod in their mod as that mod did fix a lot of bugs with the vanilla Enclave scene, the problem with this mod is that it uses custom content to restore certain things... and the most prominent custom content was in fact the Visas cutscene.

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The part where Visas is onboard the Ebon Hawk when the Exile enters the Jedi Council Chamber only for her to somehow bypass Handmaiden and/or Kreia and somehow manage to ambush Kreia even though Kreia had arrived at the Enclave before Visas did was never Obsidian developer intent. You know what else wasn't developer intent? The part where Kreia Force chokes Visas, knocking her out and Kreia mocking Visas whilst kneeling over her, that was ALL added in by the "Rebuilding the Jed Enclave" as custom content.

 

So what was the original Obsidian developers intentions for the Kreia VS Visas scene? Well, it appeared as if... assuming the player is female and the Handmaiden was never recruited, then the player would get the Kreia VS Visas scene as a replacement for the Handmaiden scene.

 

Meaning the scene might've looked something more like this:

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I'm going off of memory, Visas "might've" activated her Lightsaber just like in TSLRCM/RBTJE but Kreia certainly didn't do anything, she just sat down and spoke. At the end of the scene, the screen fades to black, a thudding sfx plays and the screen fades back in to reveal Visas is knocked out and Kreia walking towards the Council Chamber.

 

This IS actually something I plan to restore, albeit I think this will be optional as I'm sure we can agree that the original cut content design rightly sucks and only a die hard restored content fan (like me) would want it. 

 

How does this relate to Kaah?!
 

Well, keep in mind that the OG Kreia VS Visas scene was to take place before the Jedi Council scene actually started. Now let's assume I did manage to restore the OG Kreia VS Visas scene, what I would do is simply rework the RBTJE Kreia VS Visas scene to instead use Kaah in Visas' place and have Kaah be killed there and then.

 

Sounds interesting - though I suppose it raises the question of what to do when the option of reworking Visas's encounter isn't installed.

Also, I left a comment on the mod page itself, but you might 've missed it. You might be aware that there's a compatibility patch for Partyswap with Extended Enclave, that includes an option for if this patch is installed. Unfortunately going by the last update and what I can see from the comments, a specific encounter with this patch is broken to the point that it simply removes the encounter - Disciple and Brianna's involvement in the mind-reading part. The modder doesn't know how to change the scripts to spawn the right characters, by the looks of it. Do you reckon you might be able to help out? No pressure or anything, just you seem to have a lot of scripting knowledge, so I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

Lol, everyone hates Kaah it seems. Probably best not to lose the Visas scene though, but I'm sure you'll figure something out.

Since you mention Vash and M4-78, it might be cool to include a way for her to survive and turn up in the Dantooine council a la the old DStoney mod in future updates. Ditto Kaah, though I suppose he could have a Kaevee pulled on him. While I get the logistic necessity of them both dying on M4-78 anyway in LS paths, it always felt a tad lacklustre narratively. Obviously it'd require an M4-78 install version, but it's an idea.

So, many of you might be familiar with, or aware of 90SK and VarsityPuppet's Cloaked KotOR Tunics for TSL, a mod that takes the original K1 robes, puts the K2 padawan-style robes cloak on them, and reskins them for the entire K2 robeset. The mod is lovely and on my personal build I've tweaked it quite extensively over the years. However, there currently isn't a version that uses the master-style cloak - and I am both a massive pedant as well as interested in releasing a mod taking the cloaked K1 robes concept further if I get the permissions sorted out from prior modders.

The issue is, I've made several attempts over the years to get to grips with model editing for KOTOR and have profoundly failed every time - so I was wondering if anyone here with the skills would be willing to help me out. I can take care of the recolouring/reskinning end if I have access to a functioning mdl/mdx, and if I do get around to releasing anything I'll happily credit the model editor. But even if it only ever exists on my personal build never to see the outside light of day again, I'd still be very thankful!

A video or gif of it would be helpful, if you're willing. I'm not really in the habit of downloading stuff I can't see beforehand.

On a minor divergence, to save the bother of starting a whole new thread, anyone know what the song in M4-78's launch trailer is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8t4SFCWcfo

Didn't say it was smart.

To be fair, he is in it, just in a vision.

Except EA has an absolute monopoly on SW-games at the moment, so there is no "volume" nor any chance for a KOTOR.

So no, there's no chance of that suddenly happening without a direct chance of action by Disney. Sorry to blow your bubble.

And again, the specifics aren't important. I was simply citing the KOTOR games as an example of something good. I could have just as easily have said Shatterpoint. I'm not saying we'll see KOTOR again (and based on Disney's attempts to import EU stuff so far, that might be for the best, especially if they draw from the mess that is TOR.) I'm saying that good stuff comes around sooner or later. Disney isn't exactly having a shortage of sheer stuff they're outputting. Sooner or later, some of that's gonna turn out something good.

The EA situation is annoying, but given how that's gone down, I will not be surprised at all if Disney finds a way to worm their way out of the exclusivity deal soon.

The timing isn't the point. Good and Bad come and go; the point is that one rarely exists without the other coming along sooner or later.

Honestly, despite my unfathomed distaste for Disney's rehash, this too shall pass. Kennedy and Peña's bad decisions will bite them in the face, but on the fan end, sheer volume will churn out something halfway decent sooner or later. You don't get your KOTORs without suffering through your Karen Travisses.

But we've already got the trilogy where everything is horrible, nothing matters and happiness is illegal.

Neat!

...

We're really not gonna rest until we've filed every last minor imperfection off of Lonna Vash's left earlobe, are we?

The mask could be retextured to fit the model so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. Just darken the texture and call it a day? LOL

Eh, I prefer the base model anyways. Darkening the mask will only make it look less awkward, not eliminate the problem.

The idea behind this is that the mask over the top of the model's helmet is that you're supposed to pretend that the mask is apart of the helmet. If people agree with your statement I will ditch the mask though without the mask they look too much like Master Chief to me.

It's mostly just the sheer texture and model clash. They don't really look like the same headpiece to me. (and tbh, I personally like the Ubese helmets )

For my two pennies, I wouldn't think that the GenoHaradan, as a covert organisation who do not reveal themselves freely, would have such unique armour. It seems simpler to me for the armoured people in the Jekk'Jekk Tarr to simply be a group of Ubese who are part of the GenoHaradan and that their armour is indeed Ubese.

I also feel that the guy in the Onderon vid looks really weird with that mask over the top of the model's helmet. Ditch the extra mask, imo.

And as a question - have you simply moved Azanti Zhug to Goto's Yacht or done something else with him? Or does he just no longer exist?

For TSL, the installation of the NPC Overhaul mod is extremely modular and customisable - I've homebrewed my own version of it to have different replacers. So it's fairly easy to make your own version of that for TSL, though the install proceedure is much longer since it has an install option for almost each and every module file in the game. That said, it's fairly simple to update or change a single module, instead of just reinstalling everything if you want to make a small change to the mod. It's really quite useful!

Sadly, the Kotor 1 doesn't have this setup in its install and I've always wanted a version with it, since I basically have to pay much more attention and think much more if I want to customise it; plus I can't just make a single change to one module either.

If you know what you're doing, it might be possible to rejig a version of the K1 NPC Overhaul mod's TSLPatcher and then customise off that to give you what you want, but my knowledge of the patcher isn't really extensive enough to start trying that myself.

It is. Meh.

A mess that has its moments and fundamentally doesn't understand Luke Skywalker. Has two climaxes; makes everything from the OT feel like even more of a waste of time than Ep 7 did.

Rian Johnsson just isn't as clever as Chris Avellone and is too focused on all plot twists all the time with little real coherence or sense to a lot of them. It's not awful, but it's just oh so tired. RotJ's title feels like a cmmplete joke now.

That said, some well-executed scenes in amongst it all and some fun lines. I've seen worse, but I don't really see anything compelling me to watch any more.

It's safe when it should be different and it's different when it should be safe. At the end of the day we're still stuck with the tired old Empire vs. Rebellion on the brink with all the Jedi dead but one and nothing has progressed since thirty years prior. I could have skipped this and missed nothing of importance. And that's weird.