vurt

A crapshoot for sure, but any expert here when it comes to .mdl export? its very complex and difficult since there really are no guides that i have found, but i do know some things from googling, making chatGPT sweep the internet and summarize and just testing. Just editing a current working .mdl and exporting it is super easy and always works, but if you try to export e.g a imported model of another format (e.g a morrowind .nif or whatever) or probably if you create a new mesh in blender, then things gets very complex and you will end up with nothing exported because some requirement wasn't met (yet this is never reported, so impossible to know where it failed). Here is a summary that me and chatgpt pretty much has come up with after many, many hours. (script fix = i am trying to make a script that will just auto fix these issues). But this is not nearly enough to make an export work. What else is needed for a proper export is unknown to me. It would be cool to create a script that fixes all these things automatically... So if someone has any insight apart from below (some stuff there can absolutely be wrong btw, dont trust it lol), please let me know. 1. Root node setup KOTOR expects one root node with the same name as the exported model (e.g., Tree01 → root object Tree01). All geometry, emitters, lights, etc. must be parented under this root. Blender’s scene often has multiple roots or collections — the script creates a single proper root and re-parents everything under it. ✅ Script fix: Creates a root node (if missing) and re-parents all meshes to it. 2. Trimesh (geometry) hierarchy Every visible mesh in KOTOR MDL must be a Trimesh node, not a generic object. Parent-child order matters: root → trimesh → (possibly more trimeshes) Meshes cannot be children of empty collections, lights, or non-trimesh objects. ✅ Script fix: Finds all visible mesh objects and ensures they’re parented correctly to the root (or another trimesh if hierarchical). 3. Transformation and coordinate resets KOTOR uses Y-up, Blender is Z-up. Negative scale or unapplied transforms cause flipped normals or inverted export. MDL exporter needs applied transforms and consistent orientation. ✅ Script fix: Applies scale/rotation transforms so geometry exports cleanly. 4. Material & texture linking KOTOR MDL doesn’t read Blender’s Principled BSDF setup. It expects a simple diffuse texture link — typically .tga or .tpc. Export fails or uses wrong texture if: Multiple nodes are connected, Material uses unsupported shaders, Texture isn’t named properly. ✅ Script fix: Rebuilds simple material slot linking so the exporter recognizes texture assignments (Diffuse → TGA/TPC filename). 5. Naming compliance No spaces or illegal characters in node names. Exporter crashes or renames objects automatically otherwise. ✅ Script fix: Sanitizes names to comply with MDL naming conventions. 6. Lightmap / secondary UV disabling KOTOR MDL doesn’t use Blender’s secondary UV maps or lightmap channels. Keeping them can confuse the exporter or result in invalid tangents. ✅ Script fix: Strips or ignores unused UV sets to prevent broken exports. 7. Empty / collection cleanup Unused empties or nested collections confuse the hierarchy parser. Each geometry must have a direct lineage to the root, not via hidden empties. ✅ Script fix: Flattens collections, removes orphan empties, and preserves a clean, linear hierarchy. 8. Consistent object origin (pivot) MDL pivot points define animation centers and attachment positions. If the Blender origin is offset (common after import), animations or rotations look wrong. ✅ Script fix: Re-centers or aligns origins as per parent hierarchy. 9. Quaternion-based rotations KotOR’s .MDL format uses quaternion-based rotations internally (not Euler). If a Blender object’s transform stack or animation data includes: non-applied rotation, Euler keyframes, or mismatched rotation modes, the KotOR exporter (specifically io_scene_kotor) often silently fails or exports a file missing key node data — i.e. the .MDL will be 0 bytes or crash the game. 10. Export sanity checks Before letting you export, the script verifies: There is exactly one root. All meshes are children of valid MDL nodes. There are no unlinked materials or images. Scene hierarchy is valid for MDL tree structure.

without reshade

Added some trees to this area, just to see how much of a difference it makes and if it would affect FPS (it didn't, 0 difference in FPS even after adding around 100 trees). I think the game looks incredibly dull with these super bare areas with nothing going on in them. I might be able to animate them too, i have added animated trees to Morrowind. Though this could make the game a bit inconsistent unless i animate all trees in all areas, and that is.. unlikely. video: KotOR TSL with new trees

Telos sky box. might do something else with the grass and ground because its very dull.

Nar Shaddaa Stronghold | SWTOR Strongholds kind of rounded, at least more so than in TSL. This skybox is not like the others, it consists of several "cut out" meshes that has to be matched, way harder to do than the other skyboxes, i was very lucky to have this one actually fit. So probably very low on the priority list for a "fix".

new dantooine sky and grass for the next patch

This is exactly what the games are sorely missing: attention to detail! Which is kind of the heart of Star Wars since the first movie. I'll be happy to provide you with textures. In fact, the easiest would be if you provide, more or less, a draft of what you want in the mod and i can enhance all of it, if you want.

yes i went in there, loads without any issues. Maybe try sorting the .tpc's by size if you dont have a ton of VRAM, remove all the largest files, test again.

Loads fine for me, i will try again after also installing TSLRCM. Edit: loads fine after installing it. Odd... what i have done when a texture has crashed the game is to remove 50%, if the game now works i reintroduce files (not one by one, but eventually you will be down to one file - the texture which is crashing the loading). It has worked relatively quickly actually, i have no start loading screens and the game boots in a second. So its my only suggestion, would be really interesting if its truly a file from my mod.

I can fix this if its an error with the mod, or some type of incompability with TSLRCM. Do you think you could compress a save file just before where it crashes and i can check? You can upload it here since it will be just a mb big or so. It would be very helptful. Thanks!

Vurt's TSL Visual Resurgence at Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 - Mods and community Please report bugs. * This is v0.5 which means this is not a finished mod, but finished enough to test and give feedback. * The mod contains 2900+ textures, recreated with my AI model, photos and a lot of photoshop. 4X the resolution (usually) of the original textures.

some TSL screens (4K, no reshade, just the fog fix)

i really could not see any issues with the screens tbh. while they are not 1:1, none of the other textures are either, the screens onboard the ebon hawk are nothing like the originals, for example. i might work on heads later if i'm not too burned out, hard to know beforehand.

Ah, thanks!

is it on my end or did they break the fog in some patch, or is because nvidia drivers cant do it like how its supposed to look? It used to look so nice on e.g Dxun, never seen it look like in the first screen (from maybe 2010 or whenever i took that screenshot). Dxun really looks like absolute garbage overall because it uses fog a lot and looks bad when it doesnt work. KOTOR 1 does not have this issue at all btw, fog looks like it should. another example, fog is for some reason applied to the tree texture but not to the dark cliff texture behind it. (override removed to make sure its not my textures doing this) Is it how it looks for everyone?

is the force cage bugged in the current version? there are two of them, i have removed one, which just appeared solid with no transparency i believe (i did remove the water effect, after somone recommended it). then there's another, this one has transparency working.

I notice for TSL 726 .txi files has xbox_downsample 256 which potentially could mean for PC we never saw these textures above 256x256. So i'll be sure to remove this setting in case the setting is still respected even on PC. My impression of TSL overall, seems really rushed and sloppy, but i guess thats not even a hot take. Its a game i never finished, found it kind of a drag tbh, similar to how i feel about FO:NV, has some truly excellent characters though, good dialogue, decent enough writing (though maybe not my cup of tea, i preferred the original game by far), but other than that, idk...

Made a small patch which is now available Fix for transparency on Bastila's face (gloss map removed, can't get it to work for this character it seems) Fix for armor PFBE07. It should now be far less glossy

Absolutely understandable. Thanks for telling us

Would be great to have something similar to OpenMW but for KotOR... Yeah, i really hope something comes out of this eventually

yeah i was thinking about that but i never thought it stood out as something odd, gives her a bit more uniqueness too. not sure it even looks strange when she talks, it likely would have to be super close-up.

Thanks, i'll look into that. yeah, i know some are 1024. Still a decent upgrade from the old, might remake them, we'll see. Working on TSL too.

i'll check the screens, thanks! yeah, i always use default .txi for all files, if the file for some reason had an alpha when it shouldnt, then there is an issue.

v0.99 released. pretty much the final version, but like always there might be tweaks needed here and there.

Portraits done. unless i missed someone... random player selectable characters