Quanon

Hey,

Could anyone tell how to get the right angle in degrees from, what I think are Vector coords?

It's to setup a emitter, I've found the parameters in another area model, but I've got NO clue how the emitters: pitch, yawn and roll thingy is. 

Does that make sense?

But 3Ds Max works in degrees. So I need to convert these numbers. I've googled and found handy calculators, but I don't understand them all that well... Math is one of the things Quanon sucks at sadly o_O

Here's what I got:

Pos X: -26.7609

Pos Y: 45.0396

Pos Z: -70,7704

Orientation X: 0.4982017

Orientation Y: 0.4930216

Orientation Z: 0.5025856

Orientation W: 0.5060952

Or am I that stupid and already looking at degrees for an angle?

It's the W that throws me a bit off.

Stunning work Kexikus! Going to use OMG here!

Do you have linky you can send to that specific tutorial? 

I see some awesome possibilties here! Moving storm clouds on the ravaged world of Malachor, moving mist layers...

The sea, waves moving on Manaan... A very slow sunset on Korriban...

Not sure ofcourse if it's possible, but this could reall 100X times improve atmosphere on most planets

Very creative thinking! Hands down, think a new modding god just stood up

Wooot, great stuff! Looks sweeeeet! Glad to have helped!

I think SithSpecter is more qualitfied in this sort of things. He adjusted the Revan model to have a flowing cape.

What I know is you need to link your model to the "bones' and super anim file( this file includes all the animations, fighting, talking, etc... ) of the Kotor games. You'll need the NWmax tools and 3Ds Max or Gmax to pull this off. And MDLops to, I think to convert the model file to what Kotor uses. Then it's 2DA editing I believe.

But I don't know the right steps involved :-/

Nobody so far has tried this stuff before, not this extensive

Like I said SithSpecter might be a better help. But it's a serious chunk of work, I don't think you'll get it done in 15minutes

I might repeat myself, but that looks amazing xD

 

About placing them ingame: I'll just post the random idea I had when I read your post, not knowing if it's possible at all^^

The idea is to place 3d buildings all around the walkable module and behind those the 2d building texture and even further away the skybox. That would add even more depth to the cityscape than any background texture ever could. But as I said, I don't even know if that's possible, so I'll leave it up to you but I wouldn't mind a combined "Taris Backdrop Improvement" release that includes more 3d buildings as well as new background textures

If we are adding extra 3D buildings, I would get rid of those 2D buildings or add a new ring of 2d buildings further out. Else it's going to look a bit off. I'll see if I can't reconstruct the basic layout of the Taris area models. It'll be easier to get coordinates for said building placeables, less guessing and testing back and forth. It should also get us good idea of what scales we'll need to pull of a nice depth "feeling'.

I guess that means I need to make some simpler versions of said buildings to be used in the far distance. No need for tiny details on tiny buildings far away

Looks bangin' as usual, Quanon.

 

Export those mofo's and we can add them to the scenery!

 

EDIT: By which I mean, make some area models. Would certainly add some depth to the area in addition to making the skybox look beautiful

How would we best setup such a mod, for best compatibilty? I'm no expert in this; most of my mods are dead simple

@Everyone, thanks for the nice comments!

The building has been adjusted. IMO, the middle section between the towers looked a bit fat so to say. So I cut out a section and continued to texture it fully. It just needs an adjustment to the windows. Compared to the other buildings they looks a bit big

I've also already started to constructed another type of building. I might do a second one in that style. To get some consistancy overall.

Perhaps I should make these into placeables and put them in the game to, up close like the other buildings?

Anyway, here's another sneak peek

Here's a tiny preview on an extra building I'm making. Took some cues from that concept art piece of Taris.

What you guys think? To wide?

Model looks great. The only thing I can see that could be a problem is the scaling of the limbs. 

I get the impression JKA models are bit more skinny and Kotor models more clunky looking.

I think the skybox looks great; not sure I'll ever bother to make my own version.

 

The graininess may have a lot more to do with the renderer, it may be more obvious out of game as seen via a screenshot over in-game.

 

Though, you may consider simply downsizing a version of it, then up-scaling it back up to the original size, then overlaying it via the first in PS and playing with transparency and blend modes. Might be a bit quicker than trying to replace certain textures you've used... Just a thought.

 

Regardless, I think most people  -- apart from the odd whiner -- would be really happy with that.

Thanks for the tip! I haven't thought of resizing the cloud layer. Should be quicker route then redoing it all. Certainly taking in render times, which can be horrible on my old rig.

Quick render of the buildings so far. I've been trying to apply the CM_Baremetal shaders to the textures in 3Ds Max.
I think I'm close to what it looks like in the game so far. Though I've no idea if this will work in Terragen. 

Only one way to find out, check your PM-box Kexikus

Minor update;

I've checked the other Taris models. Looks like Bioware only used 1 model, copied that around and just altered the scale.

I also got some nice textures from Jorak Uln, so the skybox will match nicely with his new high quality textures

What I find odd, is that the flat buildings in the further distance clearly show Bioware had other models. I'll see what I can do to replicate those in a new set of models.
I think some variety would be great.

I'll keep you updated on how things are shaping up

And I love the Kotor modding scene, pooling resources together for better results! Love that stuff!

White Windows with a touch of yellow would probably ne best. Again just as they are seen above^^

 

Edit: I have no idea how much work it'd be but a second model with only a single house to fill gaps would be really useful, so I thought I'd ask you ir you want to make one^^

Well, I'll check out the other street areas, I think they might have different background buildings then those used in the apartment skyboxes.

Quick question; can you use different .obj files in your Terragen? Or do I have to put all the buildings into one file?

Should the coloring of the windows somewhat reflect the whatever the color of the sky?

In the game I get the impression the windows are 'glowing'. But, yeah, realistically there should be some reflection.

I know how to get that in 3Ds Max, but I don't think that will get exported in a .obj file. Which Terragen uses.

I'll have to do some homework on that matter.

Amazing Thank you very much already.

About the windows: Couldn't you just use a simple texture that's not actually transparent but looks like windows? Just like the one seen on the right of my last screenshot.

And if I might add a small request: Would it be possible to remove that platform leading to nowhere? I'm just asking since the random placement of the buildings in the final scene could lead to quite a few walkways just hanging there in the end^^

Removing the platforms isn't too difficult. I'll tweak the window texture; as now the windows are in a blue tint, not sure if that's the look you want.

Consider those tweaks done

Found a set of buildings, the ones you can seer from inside the round apartments hallways.

I'm fixing them and applying smooth groups. That sort of info gets lost when compiling with MDLops.

Not sure how to go about transpareny for the windows. I know how it works in 3Ds Max, but not for Terragen.

Will have to google that.

I could try and dig up the taris buildings from the modules models themselves. You know cut them out and then export them out to a format Terragen can use?

Like that things will match, textures, the models themselves...

 

Glad you like it

 

I could try to make such a tutorial, but I don't have that much time right now and I've never written a tutorial before so don't expect anything in the near future.

And I don't think that I understand Terragen either xD Most of the time I spend working with Terragen is spent with endless Google searches for some of those non-existing TG tuturials...

 

For now I'd recommend a tutorial like this one http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=7733.0 (I used another one but I can't find that :/ )

and checking out the official TG wiki. http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page It's sadly pretty incomplete but there are good descriptions for some shaders/nodes, explaining all the settings. And sometimes, as seen here http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Planet_Atmosphere there are visual comparisons that help quite a lot.

And downloading scenes from other people to play around with helps too, as does try and error in general^^

 

 

Sorry

Manny thanks for those tutorials, should get me started on the right track

The grain could also come from rendering in Terragen. That's at least an issue I had with my Korriban skybox. So you might want to check your original renders before searching for the error in PS and if the grain is indeed visible in the renders, go back to your terragen file, open the atmosphere node and under quality set the number of samples to something like 64. 32 might be enough but 64 should definitely work.

 

But otherwise, the sky looks amazing

Trouble is, I didn't use Terragen to render the clouds, but took sky pictures from CGtextures. It would seem the grain is within those photos themselves. I've tried to replace the clouds today in PS and noticed the grain wasn't really gone, even when using a new set of cloud pictures.

But, since you mentioned Terragen, I might go that route. It might even work out better, since you have a good perspective feel in Terragen, giving a better feel of depth.

 

Makes sense but why does the sky look so grainy? Not like, pixely-grainy but film-grainy

I must have used that sort of effect on my background clouds. I've noticed it as well; that's the trouble with these big textures.

While working on them in PS, it's zoomed out, to keep oversight... I'll see if I can fix this.

It has been awhile since I last posted anything in this thread. Had a fresh install of windows and all my modding tools and the Kotor games of course. Took me a bit to get setup again and to figure out what I was doing lately

Anyway here's my top 3 list of things to do:

- New rendered clips of the Ebon Hawk taking of/ landing for the Scrap Yard games

- Lightmaps for my BoS modules ( very buggy afair... ugh)

- Nar Shaddaa expansion, mainly cluttering the area to make it feel alive.

- Malachor Skies V2.0

Well, today I can scrap the last one from the list, it was nearly complete and it was the least heavy duty work.

I've done my best to deal with the seams. It seems it all comes down to a small shift of one tiny pixel.

It's still not perfect at some spots, but it's less obvious and harsh then in my previous attempts.

How does it look, like this:

I'll do an update on my Malachor Reskin pack. Releasing these separately seems a bit daft. No?

Stunning work Kexikus! Dantooine looks really dreamy, it's perfect.

That Taris shot looks awesome. 

Would you be willing to write a small tutorial on how you do things in Terragen. How to setup the landscape and such.
I've been messing about with the program, but it's all a bit abstract to me with those nodes and stuff.

I'm a visual guy and whenever my mind is confronted with just numbers it goes bonkers lol 

Top work on Korriban! Looks really fantastic!
Forget my comment on Dantooine, it looks good in game. It's hard to judge, how the skybox textures are going to work out in the game. 
Had to do the same with my Malachor skies. Reminds me I still need to fix that newer version.

I think the blue might be 'fog'. There is something in .are IIRC, far distance fog or something it was called... It has a certain value that matches a color, ex blue tint.
So a minor edit to the .RIM file or .module might do the trick. 

Dantooine, I know it's mostly rolling hills, but I miss some cliffs, in the foreground, to match with the walkable area. Just my 2cents

Starts to look good to me. Nice depth with those far of mountains.
It's just a matter of color matching. But I guess thats work for later

Just messing about with 3Ds Max; taking a little break from Malachor

Finished the Malachor skybox in Photoshop today, had a test run, and did a quick adjustment. The cliffs and rocks were too low, couldn't see them in the game.
But that was easily fixed.
 
I just need to fix the seam thing now so it all looks a bit more smooth in the corners of the skybox. And the dreadful top piece, which will be very annoying to get it right.
Here's how things look so far, really pleased with the fog, it works nicely with my other textures :
 

 
 
 

 
 

 
 
And for the fans, the big canvas: http://postimg.org/image/arnpopf6l/full/