John Doom

Let me reassure you, this project is not dead. Unfortunately, since I'm still working alone, the project can't move forward without me and right now I'm having a hard time trying to find work as graphic designer (yes I'm finally a professional graphic designer 😀) during the pandemic. I'll get back to modding as soon as I can.

🙂 Yes it's Brianna. These cutscenes are still WIP, she probably won't even wear her former outfit in k3 since she's moving on from her past, forging her own path. Back on mdlops, I decided it was taking too long porting it to C++, so I looked for other options. I found mdledit much faster, it still won't handle super-complex maps, but it's way faster than mdlops. I had to fix a couple of issues to make my tool compatible with mdledit but now it works... except for one thing: directional light is gone! tbh I kind of like this stylized look, but that's not how it's supposed to be. I'm still not very familiar with k2 maps and mdledit, but my first guess is that mdledit ignores "sunlight" and expects me to use lightmaps instead. Which I don't want to build now, since maps are still subject to change. Of course the game is playable even in pitch black like this, but I'll have to solve this issue sooner or later. Any idea?

So you're probably wondering what's going on. I'm trying to port parts of MdlOps to C++ and see if I can make it run faster. It will take some time, though. P.S.: I met Darth Revan on CS:GO today 😃

😀 Don't worry, it took me some time, but I'm back! Today I added some of those models to yan2. As maps are geting more complex, compiling times are becoming an issue, so I'm looking to fix this matter. I started by improving my own tool and was able to halve its compiling time by roughly 2 (7.8 to 3.4 seconds). UPDATE: I tested the release build and it's even faster: 0.02 seconds! Mdlops though... it takes more than 2 MINUTES to build yan2. This is probably tied to it being written in perl, still I wonder if I can find a way to speed it up or find a faster mdl converter.

🙂 I started fleshing out YAN2, the village, and picked a few free models I'm going to put inside: P.S.: I probably won't be very active in the next few days, I have to study for an important exam.

Much better, isn't it? I also implemented better collisions for walls and added diagonal collisions.

🤣 Yeah, I did them myself and quite ashamed, I'm not good at modelling 🙂 Indeed it's possible: just import a model in kotormax, export it to mdl and copy its node code to my tool to use it as tile/prefab.

Progress with module YAN1, basic layout is complete. Those rocks, though, really have to be improved 🤯

😀 And now it also creates the walkmesh with materials! I think that's it for now, time to use this tool to make K3!

Too soon to tell. Not TSLRCM for sure. Today I implemented a way to import more complex models into my map tool. This means it could be actually possible to make a decent-looking module by only using Tiled and this tool. There's still one problem with rotating models, though: I found Bioware's quaternion implementation rather... "original", I still haven't been able to crack it. I can completely bypass this problem if I find a way to export changed pivot points from kotormax. In the meantime, I implemented a way to tell the tool how to rotate specific models for specific rotations. UPDATE: OMG I DID IT! Imagine being finally able to make new modules on the fly! Can you believe it!? And this is just a rough module with a couple of very low quality models!

I think it should be "PLC_SithFlag" :)

Thanks for your support @JediArchivist! So today I started the second pass. After a few fixes to the project, I went back to program my tool to make modules with Tiled. It still makes very blocky modules, but I found it to be very useful to prototype, since all you have to do is draw a map in Tiled and then run the tool to convert it to .mdl/.mdx. I'm using it to improve a module I only roughly touched before.

Reorganized previous modules and started prototyping the 3rd planet. UPDATE: All the prototypes are complete! Ok, don't get too excited: you can play from start to finish, but right now it's mostly a huge text dump without actual gameplay. Still, it's one huge step towards completition! Tomorrow I'll start a second pass, completing actual gameplay.

Progress with planet Keflos:

Added a couple of new cutscenes set on the Emperor's ship. As you can see I'm reusing the Ravenger, because making a new ship is beyond my current abilities. I'll reuse more modules whenever necessary, if only temporary. I'm disappointed that no one has decided to join me yet. I don't understand why you don't have faith in this project after all the work I've done so far.