Sith Holocron

Just a few moments ago, I posted a long quote from Quanon that he left on my previous blog. It's useful but without the picture links (that are now broken), it's not nearly as useful as it could be. I have reached out to Quanon to see if he could provide either the pictures (or recreate them) or do the "more noob friendly tutorial" that once indicated he might be willing to do. Feel free to work on your concept until Quanon responds, @Thor110. And if you want to see the quote in it's current state that I referred to, see this blog and scroll down until you see Quanon's entry.

By request, here's how I make portraits and how I make them relatively quickly without having you use GIMP, NWMax, or other 3D programs. Of course, if you're making portraits for a Recruit mod, you wouldn't be doing such this until you had your model working in game, had the writing finalized, made new textures for your character if needed, and if it was essential - had your new voice lines finished with appropriate lip syncing. Because making portraits before then would be really dumb, right? Right? Anyway, on to the instructions. 1. In the game, engage the person you want a portrait of in a conversation. That'll give you a close up of the face to work with without having to adjust the position of the player character. 2. Take a bunch of screenshots when the camera is focused on the character that isn't your PC. If you have FRAPS, have it set to take snapshots every second and have it saved to BMP format. Otherwise, use the traditional screenshot function in the game. 3. Choose the best picture (or pictures) of your choice. Let's say it's Dustil Onasi, for example. 4. Crop the background out of the picture. 5. If necessary, crop the area left in the picture to what you want in your portrait. You may find that having it as a perfect square may help you gauge things. I recommend leaving enough that what you have will fit on a 1024 by 1024 background. This is larger than the standard portrait size which is why they tend to look a bit crisper than the vanilla portraits you find in game. Note that the Dustil pictures are not for a 1024 background but merely for illustrative purposes. 6. Place the cropped image on to one of three backgrounds (LS, DS1, or DS2). Make sure you don't leave any space between the bottom of the background free picture you copped and your new background or your portrait will look like it's floating. I have three templates background templates - one for LS, DS1, and DS2. I only have three backgrounds as I tend not to make PC portraits for K1. (If you want to see someone else's take on the background, I believe DarthParametric may have made some as well.) If you want mine instead of hassling DarthParametric, then just grab these examples that I’ve archived on Dropbox. 7. Optional step: Personally, I blur the edges of the cropped character you placed on the background. This is barely noticeable when you see it in game but it seems to make a world of difference to some people. YMMV, of course. 8. Save file to name needed. Repeat as needed for the other portraits. 9. Profit.

Might I suggest asking @Logan23about this? He had to do recolor GUI elements for ROR so he's a good person to ask.

You did do it with the spacing (or more to the point, lack of spacing) as shown in the LoneWanderer's example above? (My example in picture form follows.) In addition, sometimes folks have better results with changing the swkotor2.ini file by moving it to the desktop, making the changes, saving it, and only then returning it to when you grabbed it.

Seeing as the sound file choices limit what Matilda/Shadow says is so limited, have you considered possibly using SWTOR's expanded voice set for female Twi'lek to replace what that character can say? You have my permission to use my Replacement Brotherhood of Shadow Legal Screen BIK mod in your port. Credit appropriately if used.

Get the digital copy for now. The person that bought it for you is never going to know the difference, right? Later you can haunt eBay and your local shops that sell used PC games for replacement discs for your set. (Don't forget to search for PC game lots in addition to the game by itself.) Alternatively, you could acquire a kit (such as these) to deal with the imperfections of the discs you have but that's no guarantee that it will suffice in your situation.

You have nothing to apologize for, friend.

Are you sure about that? Leaving aside your Status Updates . . . Character Portraits thread - posted once (here) Mod Finishing thread - posted twice (here and here) [WIP]Recruit Sarna thread - posted twice (here and here) New person? He's been here since 2015. And by crop, I mean do indeed mean deleting the unnecessary text. And he is replying in my Blog.

Why check your Private Messages when you can ask @Sithspecterhere. In public. Hey @Sithspecter, can he use your mod? As long I have you here: Neville, isn't it high time to finally stop using this picture? We get it - you love the picture. One posting of it per thread is more than enough though. Speaking of threads, one WIP thread for Sarna related things is more than enough for the Works In Progress section. You have two at the moment. (Before I retired, it was three.) If you actually want folks to help you, don't divide your effort over multiple threads. Ask an administrator to merge them for you. Lastly, only quote something if you're going to reply to the questions. Crop out what you're not going to reply to. That's just simple common sense.

Let's start this off with a very recent quote. I've thought that very thing too! Which led to a recent Status Update of mine. Wow. That's a lot of engagement on that Status Update. In case you're coming late to this party of sorts, let's bring you up to speed. I'm talking about a recent modder which I will not mention by name. In fact I will refer to them as "the modder in question" from here on. The modder in question has proved . . . problematic. In short, the modder in question is a spammer. Besides the previously alluded to inundation of the Status Updates section, this fellow loves make threads too. And a blog. And presumably, lots of Private Messages too. (I was a recipient too until I blocked them.) I won't even name the mod in question by the modder in question. But ask yourself this question: how often have you seen this picture posted lately? If it's more than once, you may have an idea about who I'm talking about. When you have a singular mod you're working on, how many WIP threads do you need for it? And I'm not talking about threads tangential to the mod that seek advice on how to do something. Oh no. I'm just talking about a WIP thread. The answer you're likely thinking of is one. The modder in question apparently doesn't feel the same way. The modder in question seems to think that posting several threads about the project is the correct way to go. Threads (in several sections), Status Updates, and PMs. Until very recently, there were two threads by the modder in question in the Works in Progress section alone. One of my last acts as Staff was to merge those two threads in the WIP section together. (Apparently, the Retirement papers took a few days to be filed.) But then, there was a new thread posted in the General Kotor/TSL Modding section. And it's basically yet another WIP thread. You know . . . by the modder in question. My musings aren't about a need or lack of one for the mod. (I could have another blog dedicated to that whole topic but I fear that may be overkill.) My issue is how the site itself appears to be gamed - or to use Effix's word "Bombarded" - in order to force folks to volunteer to make the mod for the modder in question. How many times must a thing be spammed before it's called a violation of the rules? Just wondering out loud.

Holy moley. Someone actually built it!

Done. You'll have to rename the files to what you'll need yourself. This concludes the transaction. Sarna TGA.7z

We have several issues that need to be taken care of before you even get to the portrait stage: 1) Though I was sent a save and some 2da files, I don't have an updated UTC file for Sarna. Now to everyone else out there that isn't currently aware of this, I don't work with UTC files in my mod. I'm mostly a texture only mod type of guy. (loadscreens.2da being an exception in my TSL loading screen packs) As such, I wouldn't even be able to begin to explain how he can adjust Sarna's UTC file to have her wearing a Republic Trooper uniform. Which leads to the next problem... 2) From what I gather, Sarna's head just doesn't have a mask hook on it. So will Neville tackle that issue so that Sarna can wear that helmet? 3) That helmet is from @Sithspecter's Republic Helmet mod. Not sure if you've received permission to use that. How are you planning on dealing with that? Note that I've tagged SS in this post so he sees this. When you requested portraits for this mod you've been discussing lately, I thought you'd be - um - further along. If the mod isn't ready enough to show the character in the uniform you want her in, it's too early to have portraits done. Unless you want her looking like she did in the cantina - in civilian clothing.

Provide me with a save where the PC can engage in conversation with her. I may work on this but you'll have to be patient as this'll go by my schedule, not yours. Lack of patience will negate the request.

You're in the right place for it.

When it's ready, it's ready. You'll know when that is.

Might anyone be willing to find all of the lines that Jolee Bindo says in the Korriban Expansion mod by @newbiemodder? Reasonably, you may be wondering why I might ask for this . . . Seeing as many folks have been making samples of characters (from both KOTOR and TSL) saying various things, it might be interesting to try and put these new methods to actual use in a mod. Mind you, I wouldn't be doing anything with this but if someone else had the lines, the sound files, knowledge on how to make LIP files and the time, they could make some sort of compatibility patch. In addition, most of these examples that have cropped up lately have been almost universally female characters. If using AI models is the way of the future, let's see male characters be tested on in addition to female characters.

Are you using anything else in regards to mods?