Sithspecter

Right now I'm getting plenty of help on the DeadlyStream Discord server. Lots of knowledgeable people answering questions and helping me out with scripts. It's the best help I could ask for.

As much as I would love to have Yuthura as a companion, it's simply not in the scope of the mod at this point. A recruitment mod is quite different from a new planet and has quite a number of challenges that goes along with it, especially replacing another companion. I am solely focused on the already monumental task of adding a new planet.

On 9/16/2023 at 6:49 AM, Golbolco said:

Hi Sithspecter,

 

I'm curious how much of your Sleheyron aligns with the actual cut plans and vision for the planet from Bioware, or if this is a totally new construction that started with the two cut modules as a base but with a totally new questline.

There are only vague concepts for a few quests based on David Gaider's early recollections of the planet.

Quote

"Well, as I recall Sleheyron was one of those over-industrialized planets within Hutt space. Sort of like Taris with all the
large buildings... but much more drab and ugly, with everything in hues of orange and brown. Seleheyron was intended to be
the place where you visited the seedy underbelly of civilization: here you engaged in smuggling and other illegal activities
for various Huttese gangsters and either took part in or bet on the infamous gladiator matches.
 
Like I said above, you could work for various Hutts... you didn't meet them, but rather worked for their intermediaries
(like how Bib is Jabba's go-between). I think there was four... I only remember the names of two, though: Moosh and Suuda.
Each of the Hutts had a few things you could do for them. The really extensive one was Suuda, who was involved in a
cross-planet smuggling plot (which is too bad that it got cut, really) which ended in an assassination plot... you get
admitted to Suuda's presence and can either try to carry through with the plot to kill Suuda or uncover it and get rewarded
by him.
 
As I recall, I think you could enter the gladiator tournaments under one of two Hutts. That was kind of interesting...
there were five other teams of three gladiators and the matches got assigned ahead of time. You could check which team you
were up against and sometimes you had the option to work the other team over... romance their captain and get them to throw
the fight, poison one of them, make a deal to get them out of slavery, etc. Otherwise you were in one of four types of
matches... the plans for those I remember being pretty cool and each match type focused on one style, like one was a
labyrinth, one involved pure combat, stuff like that.
 
Hmmm. I remember that one of the Hutts had an estate you could infiltrate. Can't remember exactly what happened there, though.
I do recall that there was a cantina where you met up with a couple of servants belonging to that Hutt and you could romance
the key out of them (as one way of getting in)."

I do intend to stick to the basic premise of these quests, however I will make deviations as necessary where it makes sense.

As far as cut modules, there really aren't any. There's some fairly complete geometry from the arena, which was not really in a state to be used. I modeled the current arena after it, but I made it open-air like a colosseum. For the rest of the areas, there are only screenshots of the street. I've done my best to remain faithful to those images in modeling the street. So it's all new content and models. Fortunately, the original textures from Sleheyron still exist within the game and I've used them extensively and added a few along the way.

17 hours ago, selyb123 said:

Is this project dead?

It's more like an undead project that just won't die, despite my repeated efforts.

On 9/10/2023 at 11:41 AM, Mephiles550 said:

Those animated flags at the beginning must've been a pain to get right!

Such a subtle detail but probably one of the most painstaking ones

They weren't too bad to figure out, but I honestly did not think anyone would notice. I'm pleasantly surprised so many people have noticed!

On 9/10/2023 at 11:13 PM, Salk said:

Sithspecter,

how many lines of dialogue does Sleheyron currently hold? I am in touch with actors that may provide more than decent VO for a couple of NPCs (male or female). Please let me know if it might be something that you are interested in.

Cheers!

I hope to eventually be at the point to get voiced dialogs, but I'm not there yet. Content is still in its infancy and it changes a lot. I'll remember this for the future.

Video update on the arena.

I am still making significant progress on Sleheyron. I don't have anything to share publicly at this time. From here on out most of it will be very private and will go public once the mod is released. I would like there to still be some surprises on Sleheyron. I don't have a release date or an estimated release date.

8 hours ago, Oaks said:

Can someone confirm if the armband WhereAmI works for Kotor 1?

For KotOR 1, you can simply type "whereami" in the cheat console, and it will show the coordinates on screen.

You guys may want to do a test of a larger map in KotOR before proceeding. If I remember correctly, I tried rendering higher resolution maps for some of the Sleheyron areas, but they turned out all wonky in the game, as if the game only uses a set pixel amount for each dimension. There may be additional settings in the GUI files that could be changed to work around this, but I don't know of them.

Nope. I will report when I have further updates.

Either one of the load screens can be desaturated. I was planning on doing desaturated versions for the default mod, but I’m so in love with the colored versions that it makes it hard.

I am not sure why people think the first one matches the style better. They are both just screenshots of the area like everywhere else in the game 🤷‍♂️ But maybe it does match better.

The first screenshot is very similar to one angle from an original screenshot. The second is from a section of the street that I created from scratch with no real template to base it on.

I’ll post up desaturated versions of both and maybe that will help decide.

Here's both desaturated:

I agree that the Option 1 looks much better than Option 2 when desaturated. I'm thinking the best course is, as others have suggested, Option 1 for default loadscreen, and Option 2 for Loadscreens With Color Add-on.

Just to clarify, you can’t use two load screens for the same module. These are both options for the same module. It wouldn’t make sense to use one in another area that isn’t the street.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. If anyone else wants to chime in, I am still undecided.

2 hours ago, ebmar said:

And bit of information regarding * gladiator fights*, SS -in case you didn't know- that in streamsounds there's Sleheyron's stinger/sbat but apparently it's labelled wrong [mus_sbat_sleyhey]. It doesn't matched with what's in the ambientmusic.2da [mus_sbat_slehey]. It makes the stinger didn't played with the assigned battle music.

Thanks for this tidbit of info, I hadn't noticed it before, I am going to check it out and make sure it gets restored.

Two options for loading screen, which should I go with?

Getting back in the swing of things after being gone a week on vacation.

The street module is all walkmeshed, blocks cameras, has aurora lights, and a minimap. All that's left is the path file, which are still proving a bit finnicky. Most of those are dynamic things that are difficult to see in a screenshot, so I'll try to do a video in the next few weeks to showcase some of the improvements. Also I will try to add in NPCs and such before then.

Next I will be switching gears, working on the Arena Hall/entrance area and attempting to setup some gladiator fights.

4 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

He's never going to finish it with that sort of attitude. Clearly he needs to be chained to his computer and beaten every time he stops working on it.

Finally! Someone understands.

57 minutes ago, DeathScepter said:

 Sithspecter, please take your time with this. 

With 10 years plus on this project, I think I have taken a quite leisurely pace 😁

On 7/29/2019 at 7:17 PM, Zhaboka said:

Late to the party here as usual, but WOW WOW WOW!!! It is looking so good. Cracking the lightmapping REALLY makes it feel like an original game asset. Amazing work. Love the variegated arenas, too.

Thanks Zhaboka!

18 hours ago, musicforthepiano said:

I know some semi-professional voice actors who could voice some original characters for this mod. I would love to see the different factions vying for control of profits on Sleheyron, the Hutt Cartel being the dominant one, then the Exchange, The Trandoshan Slavers, Czerka, Even private companies in extra side quests. 

As for the death matches, I also say no for organics, but have some matches against droids who can be destroyed without light/dark side points. As a caveat to that, I would say that some beaten opponents have big ego's and try to kill you outside the arena for humiliating them and that would be a good time to deal finishing blows. Maybe three final rounds could be deathmatches, but the majority of them not.

Also, which module is the Star Map located in? I still think you should go with at the bottom of a mine shaft or next to a flow of lava escaping from a thermal vent or something like that. Any new creatures? I would recommend some fights in the arena also be against assorted beasts!

It saddens me that you would not like to do new music for Sleheyron, but perhaps there is still time to change your mind yet.

Everything you have done is fantastic and whatever the finished product is I will love it regardless Sithspecter, thank you for all this.

I am open to some voice acting when the times comes. I'm also open to paying for excellent quality voice acting.

I'll do some research on the Hutt Cartel, but I've been primarily leaning on the Exchange. There's still some nuances that need to be worked out for the comings and goings on Sleheyron.

Droids or beasts will make good "death-matches" for lower tier fighting. Maybe there will be two different routes to go with it, I dunno.

No new creatures.

I stated before that I am open to new music but I am skeptical that someone will be able to produce more music of the same quality and style. If you can do this, I'd love to hear it, but I'm going to be skeptical until I can hear some good samples.

I'm glad you like the progress so far.

I edited the street area with new lightmaps and I also added another small section that includes content that was originally in the 2nd street area. The one from the Sleheyron Demo was very, very old and the one Xuul showcased is the one I've edited.

I'm on a new PC, currently away from my old PC, and a few things got dropped with the transfer. NPCs will be populated again soon!

Full Street back in-game! Still have to work on the walkmesh but it's good to have the whole street back in the game.

Yes, it will have a Star Map.

Small section of the street in-game. Spent a lot of time getting the lighting just right. It feels really, really good in-game so far. It truly feels like it belongs now. The sense of scale seems spot on.

I will work on getting more in-game tomorrow.

I have been informed on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/kotor/comments/cacqkr/more_sleheyron) that I may not have been clear enough about what this mod is or which game it belongs to. This is the Sleheyron Planet, which is a Work-In-Progress Mod for KotOR

See below graphic to see how much This is the Sleheyron Planet, which is a Work-In-Progress Mod for KotOR on a scale of 0 to This is the Sleheyron Planet, which is a Work-In-Progress Mod for KotOR:

As you may be able to start to realize,  This is the Sleheyron Planet, which is a Work-In-Progress Mod for KotOR  is The Sleheyron Planet, which is a Work-In-Progress Mod for KotOR, to the maximum extent that a  Sleheyron Planet, which is a Work-In-Progress Mod for KotOR can be.

Shenanigans aside, I have been working on finalizing the street design with the updates previously promised in this thread. 

Here is the final layout. I am in the process of readying it for export. This includes the new standardized doors, and has been expanded to include some of the content originally in the 2nd street area. I will be working on getting it working in-game the next couple of days. Fortunately I find the export process (while lengthy and tedious), to be easier than trying to be creative and model the actual things. Or at least I seem to be better about being motivated to do it.

I am planning to use both those tracks for Sleheyron, as they were intended. I may also mix in a track or two from TSL, since that is allowed now.

I am thinking the best course is to have a Czerka presence with some NPCs, and maybe even some that interact in a quest, but maybe not an established Czerka module or area. As if they are trying to get their foot in the door.

3 minutes ago, N-DReW25 said:

Fantastic, I have a couple of questions regarding the landing pad sequence.

When you say "filler Star Map vision sequence" is that referring to a placeholder or is the sequence already made? 

Will the convo with Bastila regarding Sleheyron's Star Map use new VO, reused VO or spliced VO?

Once the player reaches the landing pad, will the NPCs be anything like the old Sleheyron Demo from 2008/2014 or will it be different? (With a Czerka Twilek guy to charge the player to enter Sleheyron and answer questions, Gamorrean Guards watching the ship and an Aqualish Merchant)

 

The Star Map vision is a placeholder right now, as are the takeoff and landing videos. I am recycling the Tatooine videos for now. I plan to render the videos when the project is very close to being finished.

Bastila's conversation uses spliced VO, but it's really quite convincing and cohesive. Fair Strides put that part together a while back.

It will be pretty similar, though he may not be a Czerka employee. I'm not sure how much sense it makes for Czerka to have a large presence on a planet controlled by the Hutts. I'm open to hear discussion about the pros and cons of that idea.

Some behind-the-scenes sort of work going on right now. Somehow I've managed (with lots of help from Darth Parametric) to get Sleheyron all set up on the galaxy map again, complete with filler takeoff/landing videos, filler Star Map vision sequences, and a conversation with Bastila about the Sleheyron Star Map.

With Fair Strides MIA for the moment, I am having to take on the scripting, which is something I've never been well versed with. With quite a bit of help from the friendly folks on Discord, I've been able to at least start editing some scripts with positive results. I have always been very intimidated by scripting, so this is a big step for me. Thanks to all who have contributed their knowledge so far, it's been extremely helpful and informative.