Existential Selkath

Found this awesome mod that managed to get it working. Just linking it here incase anyone stumbles across this thread still looking for a kotor 2 version.

I'm sorry to say, I've not been able to work on this for a while and I'm not sure I'll have the time in the future either. If anyone else wants to give it a go, I'll help how I can. Otherwise, it will just be limited to kotor1

Well, one thing at a time, I've actually got to finish the hk50 textures and upload it first. The eyes are important, but they aren't the priority rn.

I don't even know how to get hks eyes to animate during dialogue yet. Its on the list. Im not sure that would work for the overhaul mod when I upload it. Idk

47 will keep the same appearance as the kotor 1 project. The 50 units will be using different textures. Im hoping I can get a good normal+envmap system working for a true metallic look, but it's taking longer than I expected so I might stick to a grey base colour and release it sooner in the meantime if I can't sort it out.

emulating the way kotors shading works in blender, I got this. Its a bit messy rn but its a proof of concept. Only problem is, it relies on normal maps. When I did HK-47 for kotor 1 I got normal maps working for the head, but didn't bother for the rest as it didn't make much difference. Now I need to use them again and it just fails to load, I get a popup saying 'invalid bumpmap'. I'm converting the bumpmap to tpc and everything, it just doesn't want to work. If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears

I am quite fond of my original textures too, but I wanted to see what other people think before I made my mind because the steel is more accurate to the original, and I've never been great at scrapping old ideas. I'm afraid having both textures would take more time than I have at the moment. Baking one set of textures onto the low poly model is already finicky enough. I'll see what I can do in the future because I would like to give the option, but for now I only have time for 1. Hence why I'm asking for opinions.

I was pretty certain I was going to use the same texture I had already created in blender, but having experimented with a few other options I might end up doing just that. I'd really like some feedback about this. Do you guys prefer the dark, slightly worn metal armour look that I was initially going to go for, or a brushed steel kinda look that's closer to the original, but less granular and detailed. Both of these images are in blender, so they're not going to translate perfectly into kotor 2, and I'm still working on the detail for the brushed steel, but the general look should stay the same

I mean, as I said, it's not using the proper textures yet. Once I've got proper specular maps in place and proper baked lighting in the textures, it can look a lot better. The chestpiece is Intentionally pure chrome as an example of what the envmap looks like anyway

soooooooo, I may have found a way around that... Obviously placeholder textures and everything, but this is already looking waaaay better than I expected

I'm really glad I've got a proper metal shader ready to go for the hk50 units because I don't think a simple hue swap like the originals is going to cut it. Idk about you guys but white HK is the kinda thing that keeps me up at night XD

I'm trying to read the whole thing but its hard to remember all that info at once and pick out the relevant info. Anyway, thanks for the help IT WORKS! I mean, the HK-50 droids are invisible, likely because I haven't given them a texture yet, but it works! Thanks again for all the help this thread has been. You can expect a kotor 2 version of the mod as soon as I've created the new textures, and ironed out some kinks. I've just realised though, surely if I haven't given the HK50s textures they should just use the 47 ones instead right? so why are they invisible? might not be as simple as I thought

So it would be compatible with any workshop mods that dont use the appearance file. So I at least need to install the non workshop tslrcm. Good to know, thanks I'm confused as to how I'm supposed to set up TSLPatcher. It says to put all mod files into a folder called tslpatchdata which is simple enough, but then it asks to put UNALTERED copies of any 2DA files into that same folder. Well I've already got the altered version of the appearance file in that same folder so idk what it wants me to do.

what I'm asking is whether or not I can use OTHER workshop mods as well as TSLPatcher for my own mod. Idk if the steam workshop would still override any TSLPatcher files, in which case I'd need to redo all my modding for the game to not use the workshop at all

ah ok. I've only ever used the workshop for kotor 2 and manually pasted in the override folder for kotor 1 so I'm not familiar with TSLPatcher. I'll have to look into it, but I'm right in saying that its incompatible with the workshop right? I'd have to move everything over to TSLPatcher?

so there's absolutely no way for my mod to only edit the HK part of the appearance.2da file? It will always be incompatible with any other mod that uses that same file? I think I'm already subbed to multiple mods that use that file and I've never had them conflict with each other before.

I'd like to make sure whatever I end up releasing has as few compatibility issues as possible. Its one thing for me to stop using the workshop, but when I publish it, I don't want to put everyone else through the same hassle. Side note, when you say the Aspyr version isn't worth using are you referring the the port of the game or the workshop version of TSLRCM? I haven't had many issues with either.

yes. do you think there's a conflicting appearance file that's being applied from the workshop? is there any way to deal with that without removing mods?

Finally got a chance to work on this again. I've followed your advice and set the racetex to **** and given each droid model its own race. Only one slight problem. I put the appearance.2da file in the override folder and nothing changed at all. I might be missing the obvious here but idk what else to do. Does the file not go in the override folder or something? Here's what it looks like

Its worked well for me so far. Using the alpha of the textures to control the specular strength already makes a big difference. I am looking into creating my own envmap though which might help it look even better. Most modern games just use cubemaps anyway which is effectively the same thing but more accurate to the individual environment you're in. The only real difference is a lack of roughness, but if I can edit the envmap I can approximate that too, even if it wont be variable across the entire model

I'm definitely going to keep the same base material for HK47, I'm just considering adding an extra layer of corrosion or something. on the other hand I'm going to see if I can replicate the smoother, but still worn, plain metal look I've got for HK50 in blender but it will heavily rely on the outdated reflection system of the kotor engine so idk how it will turn out. Thanks for all the help though. I never expected an entire forum post about all this

Thanks for the help, I'm not sure it makes much sense until I have all the files in front of me but I'll give it a go when I can. Its funny, I've spent so long browsing forums trying to get it working, just to realise you guys have been at it with my exact same mod the entire time XD Edit: Ohhhhhh, I think I get it. are you saying that the multiple textures per model should work, but that its being overridden by the texture per 'race'? I didn't catch that before, but that would make a lot of sense

OK, that's a whole other deal. I was just talking about HK-47 having multiple textures on a single model. Head, arms, hands, etc. Kotor 1 can have multiple textures on a single model but I'm having trouble getting more than 1 to work in kotor 2 There seems to be a way around this though if you guys got it working. I'll have to look into it when I get back to my pc