xander2077

ok i certainly will! next up is the breath masks, there are two texture versions by default. i added some geometry to the bottom to cover the chin better, and i also moved the "tusks" (?) to help get rid of the gag mustache look, so hopefully that helps, but if not then the tusks can always be removed or i can create something new to replace them (which i may do anyway) in the mean time i also had to add some geometry to the front of the mask because of UV issues, so the tube is now actually a tube instead of a wedge, and there is another surface so i could fill in the empty space on the brown version a bit better. i was also thinking of a funny dailogue mod where if someone has a mask there is a chance they will trigger a dialogue where you talk to another character, and instead of the usual dialogue, they open up with "m-mmfph-mmm-mpfph" and the main character ways "wha? i couldnt understand you" and "nope, still cant hear what you are saying" anyway i also just got finished with the motion goggles. this was a very troubled model. in spite of it being fairly simple and not worth the effort of adding detail, the texture was really grainy, so i tackled that, and after doing it once, i thought i was all done, but then realized the shadows were upside down, so i had to do parts of it over. then once i got that done the UVs were terrible. probably one of the most rushed texture jobs ever in the game. so i had to really tweak the UVs to get thing lined up right and in some cases i completely moved parts of the UV to another location on the texture. but the results are quite nice. so one more done. and another one. i also did the ocular enhancers over, and i added some details to the texture in a way that will never interfere with the vanilla model this one was a lot of fun, and i also used to texture spaces that were not being used by the original UVs for some reason. lots of wasted texture there. i cant believe they didnt utulize it better considering there was something for every part of these goggles on here. perhaps they forgot? or accidentally put an alpha of the goggles in the game? i dont know. anyway, now the details are poppin.

ok, next is the sith deprivation mask, there is also a player made mod texture that goes to this mask that i redid as well. it actually took longer to do the alternate texture than it did to edit the model. i might tweak the transparency a bit or darken it some, not sure how im going to do that yet.

three more eye candy pieces to relish today. that means three alternate texture for the vacuum mask. i also redid some of the UVs on that to better place the new textures and i like how it looks a lot better. well, scratch that, after a bit of tweaking and texture experimentation, i had to do a whole lot more tweaks and ended up with a bunch of new textures for this mask.

ok, i think this is about as good as it gets for the alternate sith mask texture. i know there is a mod out there that specifically adds this as a variant for some of the bad guys and as another item in drops. luckily i can sort of fake it with this one. it would have been cool if i could have painted the additional grunge on the model itelf to fine tune the texture, but i still have not figured out how to do that correctly in blender. and it turned out ok. it will probably look better on the original model, and the npc models, but im not complaining really. just for kicks i did another alternate texture, to kind of fuel some ideas a bit. what if there were some new bad guys that were sort of a sith droid? or a sith cyborg? or heck if you just want to have bad guys with gold helmets? anwyay.

well i tried to update that alternate texture, but it was too clean, so i guess i just have to resize it and then try and paint a few more details in that wont be too defined. it actually looked better with the old texture than the new one i tried to make. i guess it is time to take a break. i have to get out of here for the day.

here is an example of how the vanilla textures can actually be used regardless of the style. now of course i really want to update these textures on the alternate texture, but thats for later. im just glad that the texture works as well on the helmet version as it does on the regular mask version. i also did some minor UV adjustments to take the stretching out of the rivets around the mouth guard area. of course i could not seem to do that when i used that portion of the texture for the sides but oh well, cant win em all. maybe i can duplicate part of the texture to a blank area, minus the rivets and round vents, and that will improve things. for that alternate texture, i plan on doing some really cool details, maybe throw a little HR Giger.

just a quick pic of one of the sith masks in the game in helmet style. i think i may do some more work on it once i import a head model to fine tune it, but for now this is pretty much where i want it. this is what i meant by scales running back around the head. to give it a better look i may add some geometry on that corner and transfer the texture from the center seam to give it less of an accordian appearance. theres a few other ideas i have too but im going to experiment first and then decide.

ok then they must share a similar model and UV then for appearance sake so the mask that drops can look like the ones the enemy is wearing (i know that is not always the case but it does happen)

ok thats the meat and potatoes i was grasping for. so it is all in the appearance 2da. that actually does a lot. as long as it can be modified to work with most of the male heads that is kind of a relief. but that is down the road. i know some of the gals (or even guys) who role play the female characters might not like it though, but i guess you really cant make a one size fits all in this case. i guess the second concern is if it would clip with hoods or the heads of the sith/dark jedi npc enemies that also wear some of these masks, which im not sure of. i guess i could do as i did with the vacuum mask and try to approximate the size to accomodate most of the male heads, and therefore make those helmets as well, but they will defintely be a lot different than just making extra polys on the mask. i will have to get creative on the design to get them to work well with the textures, and i have an idea: making the extra polys wrap around the top and back like a row of plates or scales. should be interesting. as far as the rest of the masks go, there are a few like the breath masks that i wanted to really give an extra kick without enclosing the whole head. so i may scan the web for reference pics and see if i can come up with something.

ok, im not talking about those, im talking about the actual helmets, like the sith trooper helmet, or ones like them. it has to have a different hook, or way of rendering, because the hairs do not clip. carth has more hair, and so do some of the other character models that would even have access to that armor. what about all the clone trooper armor, or even the mandalorian armor, all of those have enclosed helmets. i can understand the goggles using one hook because of the hiarstyles, but a fully enclosed helmet (like the canderous armor mod) doesnt have hairs that clip (see my avatar). so how is that done? how would one make the vacuum mask that i modified, or something similar behave as a helmet instead of goggles?

ok so what if it was a vanilla helmet? then how would the game render it? how does the game treat an actual helmet model? i realize that may be beyond the scope of the abilities of modding tools available (as in converting the model category to an actual helmet instead of a mask), but if it is not, then how would it be achieved? is it flagged somehow as a helmet? does it have the same type of hook? i am not really doing a complete remodeling of things, even with the vacuum mask i only added polys to the original model, it really did not take that much effort. luckily if i only do something like bevel edges (on round surfaces like tetas headband) the UVs stay pretty much intact. i only had to remap a few polys here and there, like the nose ridge and the top of the front lenses. also the same with a few other models. but things like the ear pieces on the glasses style goggles, i leave alone, so i would rather retain the UVs from those parts. since i have some pretty cool plugins for blender that allow me to pick and choose what is unwrapped (including the smart unwrap project) and i can select only those vertices that need a new UV, it makes it easier to selectively fix UVs that need it, and parts that dont i leave as is. im not really going for super high poly here, just a tad bit better than they offered in vanilla, and something that better fits the rest of the vanilla models comparatively speaking. im also not sure if KOTOR recognizes things that are shaded smooth or not, but i have also added that to the faces so it may or may not effect how the game renders it. as far as trying to keep the textures intact. i spent a lot of time on them updating them and increasing their resolution, so it would be silly of me to waste that effort by discarding it for new ones. what i can do though is (as i mentioned earlier), keep the textures and modify them so they work on both vanilla models, and these new versions as well. best of both worlds. that way my texture mod can be stand alone, or it can be in addition to these models. there is actually plenty of real estate on most of these goggle style masks or even the ear pieces to embellesh the empty areas that dont get used, and actully add things in there for the higher detail models, like the ocular tubes on the two sets of goggles, or perhaps the lenses on the enhancers, without interfereing with the existing vanilla UVs. it is just a matter of finding those empty areas by viewing the vanilla UVs on the texture. the ones i dont have any real estate left for are the sith masks, and the vacuum mask. so i had to place the new UVs on the helmet part of the vacuum mask as best i could to make them sort of fit.

not sure yet. im still debating on that one. part of the issue here is the textures wont work with vanilla models any more if i change the wrong thing, but the vanilla texture doesnt quite fit with this model, so im trying to make it so one doesnt really effect the other badly. to do that i have to find a spot on the tga where the UV is not mapped, free real estate so to speak.. which i can do if i reimport the goggles and compare the UVs between the two models. then i may be able to get away with adding a detail that wont interfere with vanilla but enhance the textures on the new models. the other issue, i have not yet imported one of the heads, but i would probably rather import one of the ones with male hair, like canderous, because if it clips his hair, it will look bad on other heads too. or i could be wrong and the hair model is replaced by the helmet. but it may also be that it has to specifically be a helmet to replace the hair model. im not sure how the game behaves yet. maybe there need to be other tweaks that i cant change with model editing. i guess just for general reference it would be a good idea to import the head model in so i am sure the helmet is the right size. as far as the other ones go, again, because of the hoods, i am just a tad leery of making the sith masks into helmets because they may clip the hoods if too big, and will clip hair if too small (thats why i wish i knew whether or not helmets can be set to replace hair or could be set to replace the head, since it would solve that problem), yeah they look stupid on canderous or anyone else with a hollywood hairstyle, but until i know more its one of those things i am still weighing.

im trying to take that into account, but some of the UVs have to be redone when i open the texture file, so i have to move the vertices around in the UV window to make that happen. of course some of the textures will not be the same because they were made for the lower poly models and wont look the same any more. so im trying to find a balance there. for example even on these models i had to modify the UVs so it doesnt look stupid but still uses the same texture. it takes a bit of careful work. i dont need to change every UV, just the parts i changed, and so far it is working ok. here are some of the changes i have made so far. i hope to extend some of these features to the other masks as well. now of course i never did finish the texture updating on some of the tga's so there are still those that are outdated, but once i get those done, then the texture should be good enough to make things look much better. im torn between making some of the full face masks into helmets, and not doing that. the issue i will have most undoubtedly with the sith masks is they are usually on enemy npcs that have hoods, so clipping would occur, and so im not sure yet if i can pull that off right. if the mask were capable of replacing the whole head of the team members, then i might try it, but since that is unlikely, i might have to forget the idea. below is the vacuum mask, the ocular enhancers, and tetas royal band. i redid the ocular chambers on the enhancers, and the texture is quite different from the original. the shape is an improvement, but im still wondering if i can improve the texture itself. tetas royal band was almost completely reworked, since the center point was not where it should be, so that was carefully moved using the eye/ear protection model as a reference for locating it. then i moved some of the parts around and edited them for better appearance. the vacuum mask was simply turned into a helmet and then the texture was applied to the rest of it creatively. it looks ok to me, but i wish there was more room on the tga for the top and back.

i had this working before, i already extracted the mdls and mdx from kotor1 that i wanted to work on, then used mdlops to convert them to ascii-mdls, now i have them imported into blender, however i am missing one of the models i want to modify. since it is a mdl file from a mod i simply copied and pasted it into my work folder with the rest, from my override folder, then i went to try and run mdlops and it wont run any more. either that or the install i had working is gone and im trying it the wrong way. does anyone know how to get the mdlops exe working in wine or playonlinux? trying to track this down in the official wine db is not giving me any results. since wine doesnt give the same functionality as windows exactly, it is a bit different trying to get the program running. even with the libraries i suspect it needs to run installed, it crashes every time. i also have to install the perl differently than windows, so this is going to be a headache. it wont interact with my perl installation in linux at all, since it is an isolated virtual drive. playonlinux is my go-to wine interface, since winetricks is not really working well for me (too confusing and restrictive) and q4wine is not much better but i have used it before in some cases. does anyone know what dependencies mdlops has (assuming windows does not have the proper libraries installed) or if there is an installer for perl that will work in wine?

here are a few screens of the edited models that i will have to unwrap again in order to fix the textures that belong to them. i only chose a few models to rework since they were the most in need of editing to remove the angular features that dont quite fit. the rest of the masks will be reviewed. in some cases the textures are sufficient to mask the very low poly models enough they wont need redoing, but in these cases they were badly in need of an update. if i find that any of the other masks are in need of editing, i will do so, but it will be weighed carefully. there is no guarantee i will be able to get them in game, so i want to limit the editing to only those that need it.

ok guys and gals, i have made some progress. i was finally able to find a working blender import plugin for the ascii-mdl format. and i have all the masks that are in vanilla saved to blender format. i was editing the meshes i thought need the most work, as in goggles with the round protrusions or surfaces. all of those have been edited to a little better detail on certain parts. i dont think it is necessary to up the details too much, just on anything with cylinders or round surfaces. will post some updates of the models soon. the tricky part is going to be export. i dont think i have a viable plugin for that yet, but i might have it in the same one as the import, just have not checked yet. as a side effect of the model editing, some of the textures will have to be redone to account for new UVs. this for me is not as easy as going into morrowind nifs and simply changing the texture and adjusting the UVs there, they will have to be unwrapped all over and then created from scratch. the one i have not imported yet is empress tetas headband. one of the things i would like to do is slightly move the center of that model (it is a cylinder object) so it sits on the face better, however the scale of these is so tiny that it will have to be moved in small increments. i will have to try by trial and error, since the increments may be too large. however moving it manuually may be smarter and place it more accurately than trying to adjust it by imputting the numbers. stay tuned for updates. i have other projects going on simultaneously.

UPDATE: hey guys. have had more than my share of hiccups with my computer lately. and so im trying to iron them out. i switched over to my second drive which had linux mint for reasons that pertain to python, but gimp kept attempting to write to system files (drive was going bad) so i had to pull that drive and revert to my lubuntu drive and hopefully i can get all my modding tools installed here. so for now the texturing for KOTOR is just a tad bit on hold. as well as other projects i am working on right now. will be back into it asap.

thanks VP. for now im just focusing on the texture aspect of them. in Morrowind, i was able to use nifscope to correct texture placement witout importing them into max, which was pretty cool considering the models are simplstic, but once they import into the game they turn to splines and faces get split, which is a pain to work with and fixing them often meant losing the texture mapping or having to remap it and hope it turned out the same. so thats why i kind of dread KOTOR models imported into max. the same thing happens in the conversion from MDL to ascii. i much rather would export them for the game from scratch but that presents its own hurdles i have to figure out while running in lunix under wine. but i think now that i have a falvor of linux that is very fast, and light weight, it will make things a bit easier to figure out. most of the operating systems and computers these days are geared toward those who live on facebook, twitter, youtube and skype, or other sites like them, or gaming in flash, and drive software changes so fast they demand upgrading hardware every six months to do the same thing they could do before only worse. so its nice to find something for a change that allows me to get rid of the bloat and still look great while performing on slightly aged hardware. cant wait to get my big rig back up and running so i can really go to town with a light OS. then maybe i can justify keeping a partition of windows just for native programs since they wont have any trouble running on the baby beast.

i have been lurking around the modding community for some time now and decided to give some KOTOR 1 skins a try, so thats what i am here doing, having fun upgrading textures. I started all this years ago when i was modding for freeworlds, a freelancer star wars total conversion. i cant remember what they call it now, but it merged with another SW total conversion to get a broader dev base and community going, and about that time i had my computer stolen with over 3000 SW ship models ready for review to add to the game, only a few of which may or may not have made it in. i think most of the ships were filled in with eviljedi models but there could have been so many more from the EU and other places. anyway, a few years ago i did some texture mods for morrowind, some of which can be found on the nexus. so i frequent there too slumming around to find new mods for that game. enter modding for SWKOTOR: where i decided to retexture an existing mod on a whim and then decided to share it with everyone. originally it was just for my own game, but now it has grown into more, so im tackling the textures for all the headgear items that can be used by the player characters, and upgrading them to 512x512 textures. and hopefully that is just the start. i would like to see if i can try adding bump maps to some if not all the masks, and eventually if i can figure it out i would like to upgrade the models too with a little better ones. most parts of these models are ok, but there are a few glaring things on each one that need a fix here and there. if not me, then i am also looking for someone with modeling experience to help rework part of the models that need it, and help figure out bunmp mapping and other things like light mapping and reflection. anyway, i probably wont post much here, because i can get pretty verbose and that takes my time, so instead of writing i have to do other things.

well, this lubuntu is very cool stuff. after toying with settings to get things just perfect for a couple of days, a couple of goof ups, and one reinstall, i think i finally got it where i need it. and it is light weight, and smooth. even after installing the nvidia drivers, and configuring it all, adding my wine directories back, and going through the hassle of customizing it so i dont have to click through a bajillion folders just to start KOTOR, i tried the game itself and WOW!!! it never ran so fast and smooth as it did in lubuntu! i literally got all the settings way up and this thing loads fast, and i can wiggle the character back and forth quickly... wish i had some screen cap video program so i could post it! anyway, here is my WIP next texture achievement... the ocular enhancer texture, and i finally got my plugins to somewhat work correctly for filters etc in gimp, even though there are a couple im missing, they may or may not be borked permanently, we will see... one of the problems with open source projects like this, is gimp has developers of plugins arguing over whether python scripts or scm scripts are better, so two plugins can conflict that do the same thing, and one is broken, usually the python script, and that leaves me wondering why they dont have two forks? or why they dont have a choice when you install it? seems logical to me, but who am i ? they are probably having fun pecking away in some sort of weird keyboard coding war... i cant even get into lubuntu forums because their anti bot security question is more like a final exam for lubuntu computer science and history than a simple question to prove your human, so i know computer devs for linux are smart, but a** backward... the in game texture looks pretty good, but here is a prime example of why the models need an overhaul. the triangular goggles dont fit the texture, even though it looks better, it could use some roundness to just the goggle lenses, and it would be a lot better. i dont know who chose cubes or triangles over cylinders, but it looks like they rushed this part, and you think with all the dialogue in this they would pay special attention to things on peoples faces? also i have been noticing on these textures that it looks like at one point they intended to use the same textures for multiple styles of headgear, or that upgrades would make them change design a bit in game, which would have been pretty ambitious and certainly a selling point for the game, but it just looks like they never implemented it, or they got crunched for time and the modular headgear got the chop by the company execs... it certainly makes sense because a lot of the texture was not even used on these goggles, and this is obvious from the two screens. see how little actually went into the goggles? i wonder what other model shares this texture? or if it was one that got tossed and the few we have left that are restored textures and models that somehow escaped the purge? musings...

well, i finally settled on a distro of linux i like well enough to keep. mint was getting bloated, and with wine games taxing cpu with proprietary drivers for the video card, i decided to go lean. leanest meanest system so far is lubuntu, and it even has a very low impact mac like dock available. so i have been toying with it since i have to reinstall everything. knock on wood. next i will see if it actually runs kotor etc. im kind of hesitant to turn on the nvidia driver since the control interface for it is lackluster, and i have to do more research before i decide which nvidia driver is the most stable. then i can see my textures in game again. til then i wont be texturing much.

probably the mdx file since it contains the text. but i was referring to the actual texture, not what points to it. to make a new image that *is* the bump map you have to do it in a very specific way (which is possible in photoshop but im not sure about gimp) so that is where im scratching my head, editing a text file is easy enough, but creating a bump map with the right information in it is another issue entirely, and i know this from trying to open these user made images/bump map files in gimp, and they wont load because the plugin was created for photoshop to be able to export them for the game specifically, they have information in them that gimp or a tga viewer in linux will not read. it just gives a blank window and an error with a big red X anyway... im just now finally getting everything i had to backup saved to an external drive. what a pain that was. ran to walmart to get a drive, got it home, and then found out it wont connect to linux. turns out becasue of security risks they wont allow the autoexec bat file that comes on the drive to run so it never gets past trying to run and linux never sees the main partition. thats another issue, even with the main partition formatted it wont see it. so i had to get a bootable dvd and access the drive with a partition tool and completely unallocate the whol;e drive and start over, destroying the cute little autoexec bat partition that is soooo helpful, and finally i could connect to and mount the drive. now that i know this no wonder i cant read my other old windows external drives, because of that helpful little partition where they try to install the backup software for you!!! what a huge help! wish they offered OEM drives with no software just for storage at big box stores but oh well. anyway, once i get everything i need backed up or downloaded (so i can do more than destroy drives from a live dvd) then i can finally get some of this mess straightened out and get back to leisurely texturing for a change instead of playing computer technician. and just to be safe i have to compress the wine directories i have all my windows games and tools in by terminal (command prompt) or they wont be any good when i try to restore them. be back soon...

well, i agree there, but i still have not figured out how to make a bump map for the txi to point at that the game can read without crashing. i was reading in another thread that it has to be done a certain way, but it was very vague, or rather not in layman's terms. but that is kind of a moot point since trying all these plugins crashed Gimp, and now my favorite plugins are missing, even though they came packaged with the program, so now i tried to reinstall gimp 3 times, and the first time the repository was hacked so the package didnt even show up at all. i could not even install the darned thing. then they put it back in increments so each time i checked... the plugins were missing one time, then the scripts, now they only put the plugins back, so the only way i can get this working again is to backup everything, wipe, rinse, repeat and install everything all over again in a cleaner system (which is actually a better idea because this distro is prone to problems and there are a few better options) its funny, gimp got hacked, the kernel for linux got hacked, and now i have to figure out what to write down tomorrow so i can install wine all over the right way for once and make sure all dependencies are met so i still have my games working. fun fun fun... i swear i used to do this with windows all the time, but i was sure linux was tooting their horn about how hack proof it all was and i dont know what happened here... so a minor setback and i will be back in business... i have not textured one thing all evening, but i have been typing commands in the console since 7 pm lol.