Quanon

GLOverride worked for me, you should try it too.

Thanks for that! I'll try it out

Bastila is now in full redux status. I redid most of the skin. It needs some fixes around the mouth. Things get more stretched then I thought. It looks a bit funny now

I haven't changed the hue/ color of the skin it self. It's how the photo model looked like, rendered in Kotor engine. So it's a bit more tanned then I think Bastila would be.

I only applied a soft layer of the old Bastila skin on top. I'll play around a bit more. Then get back to do the hair. It's moving along a lot quicker, since I've already did this once before.

Less searching on how or what I should do.

 

upload pic

 

Tried your GLOverride, SuperSzym, but it didn't help. I keep having the same issue, bit of a shame. But; it doesn't bother me to much.

Kept tweaking Bastila. Getting closer to what I want. If I can, I'll release a multi color hair pack.

Should be fun, if anyone wanted to play with a blond or redhead Bastila

 

 

image uploader

 

 

Once you have it all worked out, I suppose I'll need a new render for the Portrait mod. In the mean time: in your pictures above, it seems the skin has a few issues. There's something strange going on in the outer corners of Bastila's eyes in the left half of your picture. On the right half of the picture, some of Bastila's hear is invisible so you can see Tatooine through it.

Yes, that's because of the alpha channel. My PC doesn't handle the graphics correctly. I have the same issue with the grass on Dantooine. It clips through the models.

It should just be transparent and work OK on other PCs.

Plus I can easly provide a skin without the alpha channel.

After seeing Dark Hope's excellent update on my Canderous skin; I felt that I just did a very sub-par job on the hair.

Dark Hope also has a nice looking contrast on the skin of the characters; while my versions have a softer look to that part.

I must admit that the higher contrast does 'pop' better in the game. I always get fooled by the looks of things in Photoshop.

And I haven't really nailed down how to get a same effect in Photoshop.

Ahum, but the skin thing is besides the point... I'm now experimenting on getting better looking hair on the characters.

First test was done on Bastila and I like it so far. Coloring might be worked on; contrast thingies; but it looks better.

File Name: Quanons Mission Color Pack

File Submitter: Quanon

File Submitted: 26 Jun 2017

File Category: Skins

Quanons Mission Color Pack

Hello, everyone,

Here follows a small mod, well more a variation on a mod I did earlier. A reskin for Mission Vao.
Though this time I altered her skin color. You can pick any of 5 I made.

Red, Green, Yellow, Purple and White/ Cream.
Have a look at the screenshots and the row of portrait shots.

Those will show you just how colorful I made it.
As before, nothing changed much to her vanilla look, besides the color.

To install, copy all the TGA files, each color has it's own folder, to your Override.
That's it! The mod is installed.

Enjoy!

Click here to download this file

You should release those in a pack. They look fantastic.

No worries, I will release them. I just want to do a few extra colors

Meanwhile, I've been testing KotorMax and MDLedit. An updated version of NWmax and MDLops, which was the tool I used for about everything 3D related.

I now have used the tool for a first serious attempt at getting a new area in the game. The experience has been great.

Things work pretty good from the go. I only had to correct a few bothersome meshes; still have a few left. Looks like the rescaling I did on some of my machines got lost on the exporting or compiling.

Walk-mesh creating has been a blast as well. I don't think I ever got a good result from the very first test.

Camera gets blocked of as well; which used to be an annoying affair to get corrected. Often meaning things got broken beyond repair sometimes.

I do still have some issues, with my Light maps. It looks like UVs got destroyed. I might have done to many 3D meshes in one go for the tools to handle.

So I cheated a bit. I just turned all of my light maps in a neutral grey. Which at least made my area visible for inspection.

This is an updated model for my Scrapyard mod. It's the landing bay. So far only the Ebon Hawk and Barracuda, use their proper Light maps; all the other stuff has the "cheating" lightmap applied

MIND, this is sort of an alpha or beta build. I'm very aware of the faults!

So if folks are wondering on how I do this portrait rendering, here follows a quick and dirty run down:
 
The place to start is a tutorial I made some time back, as part of a lightmap tutorial. This part deals about setting up the render engine and lighting:
 
http://www.mediafire.com/file/kw7btvf80epzcyp/Lights%26Render.pdf
 
I'll now list a few extra tweaks I found that improved the look of the portraits, since the above mentioned tutorial deals more with lighting an area instead of a character.
 
 
A first note/change:
When reading the tutorial, pause at the step where you switch 'on" Global Illumination (Step 2 on the screenshot) ;-)
 
There is a small box called Multiplier, it has a value of 1,0. You can enter 5,0 in there.
Below that is Maximum Photons per sample; this is set to 500. Jack it up to 40.000.
 
Keep following the instructions about how to setup the lights and other bits. Nothing changes there.
                                  
 
Next use MDLops to compile your model to ASCII. Use NWmax to import.
 
To setup a good shot of the character:
1. First, make a big box that surrounds the model.
2. Turn the box into an Editable Poly (for example, the right-click menu has "Convert To..."->"Editable Poly").
3. Chamfer the ceiling and floor edges in the back.
4. Delete the front and sides of the box.
5. Change the selection to "Select by Element" and click on the box.
6. Then use the Flip button. Now all of the faces face inwards.
7. With all the faces still selected, scroll down to smoothing options. Click on autosmooth. Deselect the faces.
 
Now you can open the Material editor (M-key). Change any slot from the Standard material to Arch&Design.
 
In the options of this material, there is a drop down list. Pick 'Pearl Finish'. Apply this material to the chamfer 'box' background.

Add in some lights (3 to 4 lights works best).

3 to 4 spotlights work best; only one of them casts shadows. Depending on the model, Shadowmap ( soft-edged shadows) or RayTraced Shadows ( hard crisp edges) work best for your render.
 

Example screenshots for the spotlights:

                                  
 
This is how my scene looks like:

 
View of the material thingy I talked about:

 
Getting the shot:
1. Select any viewport, just click on it.
2. Hit the P-key to change it to an Perspective 3D view. Move around the view until you get the view/shot/look of the character you want.
3. Hit Ctrl+C to create a camera, followed by Shift+F.
 
This will set the Safe Frame. The view port now has the same size and dimensions as what your rendered image will be.
 
If that is set at 800x600, the view will now look like that. If it is set at 1024x1024, the viewport will now be square. You can further tweak the camera, even move it around in the other viewports. You'll see the changes in the 3D viewport instantly.
 
To get the same camera setup I used (to get a look that closely resembles the game portraits), set the camera like this:
Lens: 43 - 44 ( a value in between)
FOV: 45.00
 
These are the only options you will need to tweak a little sometimes. It depends on the pose and look of the character. Notice that in the example screenshots of my scenes, the camera is really close to the character.

Example screenshots:

Remember, just like the meshes, you can move the camera object and it's target with the move and rotate tool. Like this you can really capture the perfect shot.

                                  
 
For the skins of the character I just use the Standard material (all of the character textures will be in at least one slot in the Material Editor, though a different one than the one we used earlier). I drop the skin into the Diffuse slot, as well as the Spec Color, Spec level, Glossiness, and Bump slots.
 
Then I can play around with the specular values and the glossiness. For human skin I mostly go for Spec 55 and Gloss 35. For the Bump slot, I scale back to 15 or 5.
 
After all of this, you can render a shot using the Render menu.
 
Notes:
You can play around with the values, it just depends on what you want. Just experiment, do lots of little test renders. Best at 512x512 for example. Quick to do and you get a good idea on how the end result looks like.

So, I finally have something to show for this mod. Besides my areas I made years ago.

I planned on creating some extra placeables to decorate and pimp older modules and the new ones.

Though, it took me some time to get it all going. Thanks to Bead-V for checking my work, as I wouldn't be able to show this tiny victory!

A new display, it smaller then I thought, but it's animated. I'm messing about with Genetica 4.0. It helps me to create animated things. Though it's node based, so I need further dig myself in. I'm very visual, so I really like doing things in Photoshop.

But I guess combining these two might give me really nice results. The shot below is just a place holder texture. It was a very experiment in Genetica.

Had some more texturing fun. I have now a wobbly dancing Juma Juice

Well, for my own reskins I made for the K1 party: I only used the old game texture for the color. (Just gave it a minor blurr; mostly use a black/ white copy to boost shadows and highlights, with a layer set on Overlay or Soft Light. Tweak Opacity or adjust it via Adjustment layers. Working none-destructive ;-) )
And as a guide for the layout or where certain folds; belt buckles.. etc, details are.

I then used various other photos of "textures" from fabrics, like burlap, cotton, leather...etc and a few Photoshop filters combinations, plus playing around with layer options, to get some effects.

Then endlessly tweaking contrasts/ brightness... vibrance... or Levels to get a result YOU like.

For the human skin, well, the internet is full of bare human skin, I don't think I need to point out where to look

The thing you need to look for when you are searching for your materials is the size of the pictures. Preferable 2000pix and up.

Like that you can just use a part of the texture or re-scale it to your own liking. The bigger it is the more you can play around with it.

A good scource:

https://www.textures.com/

Free to use, no need to pay, but you can only download about 15 textures a day and not always the premium quality.

But they have a huge selection some really great stuff to be found. Sadly Mayang textures is gone; was another good site.

Still just using google sometimes gives you what you need.

But as DP pointed out, the UVs for most models have really bad parts; so these can be really annoying as they can wreck details.

Taking a minor break from the portrait rendering today. As I didn't have much time to do some modding; I decided to do some color tests for Mission.

As I mentioned those when I started this whole reskin the party business

Just a very basic test for how strong the color should be for her skin. Eyes and eyebrows need extra work, plus each color might need some tweaks on contrast/ highlights. Clothing will remain the same for now.

So far I've got a green, red and white/ ivory version in the cooker. Mind this is just for pure fun.

I've got lots of things in the running, this is just something for whenever I feel like it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I'm testing  Mdl-edit tool by Bead-V. Also some improved 3Ds Max scripts for NWmax. Which has given me a lot of insight into the swoopbike model.

I've did another test, I started to add in a list of the animations and all the "keys" it needs.

5 anims for switching gears up

5 to switch gears down

About 10 anims for turning left and 10 for turning right

1 for boosting

1 for taking damage

1 for Gear 0, idle... etc...

It's more then I thought

Tried to stay as close as possible to the orginal setup, so the aurorabase is set to effect. I can add the list of animations, but they don't get exported.

Somehow it only exports out one animation, labeled "on".

It might be the type of aurorabase, the effect one, doesn't list a box of animations in its options. So I might change it to other or something.

I've no idea if the game is just being picky or not. But I'll see how it goes.

So far the result remained the same. The swoop track loads, but, nothing happens; no movement. 

I just did a quick and dirty test on the swoop bike thing. Before I get to do some rendering for another little project with SH.

I've been trying to import v_superbike.mdl into 3ds Max. That is the model used by the game as your swoopbike.

But when  importing Nwmax "crashes", something about the animations. Not sure what is causing it. So far the oldest version of MDlops gives the best result.

As when Nwmax does the crash, I rerun the script; and then the model appears. But the animations are not okay. Only two animations remain and they are seriously wrecked.

So I can't redo new animations for my own swoop bike model. As I don't know how many the old model has and how the animation are done on its timeline.

I also don't know the "class" the Aurorabase belongs to: is it an item? character? or just Other?

But to get a start I just made a very simple boxy model and did an export, compiling with MDlops and dropped the thing in the override.

To my suprise the swoop bike track gets loaded on Manaan. But it looks wrong, the GUI is not OK, neither does my swoop bike move.

The countdown works, but then nothing happens. Hitting esc just pauses the game. So it's task manager to quit

It would seem the animations are important to get the swoop to work like it should. 

But since I can't get a good ASCII to look at in 3Ds Max, I'm sort of stuck, with experimenting blindly... 

If there are more techy folks here, who also understand the Binary format; do you think it's possible to tell me how the animations go?

Not sure what is possible in that regard though; but any pointers would be helpfull.

For the curious, this how it looked. The little grey box is my model. I've also been messing around with the camera 2DA, so perhaps that is why the GUI looks wrong?

Anyhow, back to the rendering business first!

He agreed to help me some hours ago! I'm already going to use reskinned modules as the main promenade stuff, and the cantina and casinos are going to be made by him.

Also, please vote, the poll is there for a reason!

Yes, but you'll need to write up your script for all the quests and things you want the player to do. Lay it all out.

So that I and you know what MUST be included in which model. And how many models you want.

I won't start on anything just yet before I get more details

But let's keep that for the PMs.

I'm just running a lot of things at once, my own mod ideas, plus other projects with other modders.

Make it so, Quanon

OMG; hahaha; what is that? Zardoz commands you!

Ahum, by request, Jolee with a more hairy chest, legs and arms; not Connery levels though.

Not certain which fan base I'm serving here

I think he would greatly benefit from a Sean Connery-style chest beard.

Noted! 

What are you going to do with that speeder bike? Are you going to place it in game somewhere?

Yes; I've got designs for almost every racer in the Kotor game. And I'm pondering on where to put these bikes.

You never really  walk around the starting grid of any swoop track, but I think it would be fun if you could have a peek at the other bikes the competition uses.

I'm also curious if I can't replace the swoop bike model that is used in the game. Something to do dig into.

Anyhow, if anybody has suggestions where these bikes might fit best on any planet; let me know

I've also spend some time to finish Jolee. He's been a bit on the back burner for to long. I still need to work on his underwear. And so I've put some time into that for a few days.

Just need to tweak a few things before releasing. Nipples are oddly out of place Might make the highlight on his back and belly a little stronger. Since it looks softer ingame then Photoshop.

I've finished his regular clothing, just his belt needed to be touched up.

I shall give it a spin soon :-)

Was just started with a playthrough, will be a blast to "get" the portraits as the party grows.

As I only did the characters, I'm curious to see how it looks with the background and in game.

Very nice work SH! Just shows you nicely how much awesome stuff the community has created for TSL.

I am sorry, I just was hoping there is a solution to the issue I am having. I read that having v-sync on usually fixes it, but I have already tried that 

I am able to get around it by doing quick save/load, but was wondering if there is a more perm solution.

Just hitting tab and going to another character in the party. Then running around and switching back often solves it for me.

Is he riding a lawnmower?

Hahaha! An update on this lawnmover

Going through all the parts of this model and UVmap them.

I've got some textures picked out to use as a base for the "greedy-speedy-lawnmower"

So here's another peek at how things look so far.

 

 

 

 

You might want to contact  Bead-V. He has been hard at work to make a new import script that also imports the lightmap info from the game.

As now, whenever you use MDlops, you loose everything about the lightmaps. And you would need add it back in manually.

You could do this in the ASCII file, but, since any area is made out of hundreds of meshes, it's a lot of tedious work.

Also writing it out here, would create a large wall of text

If you want more info on how to create lightmaps:

http://deadlystream.com/forum/topic/4748-lightmapping-an-area-model/

No worries, I've collected a few extra bits and pieces to complete Jolees underwear skin.

He'll get a proper release just like all the others

So, tonight I got some modelling done. I've worked on Jaxs Swoop Bike.

I've based it off, naked bikes and café racers, I felt that this was a nice match for the Gammorean.

Just got the body from the bike about done. Perhaps some odd bits to flesh it out a bit more.

The little back wings, will get some extra struts for support. Might add more minor details on the panneling.

Though I think most will be done texturewise. The idea is that this model will be added to the game. 

First as a placeable though. I might sink my teeth into replacing the swoop bike model; no promises though. 

I've got no idea how the game will respond to that. Not even sure if the swoop bike model works as a regular game character or not.

But since we can add extra bits to head model or regular bodies, I thought it would be fun if your swoop bike could look a bit more personal?

I'm planning on adding a more "chopper" like steer. I can't see the Gamorrean leaning over

Minor preview of the thing. Mind just place holder materials!

 

 

 

 

The collar around the neck looks a little weird. Other than that, we're looking good. Like the styles you're going with. Going to adopt some of these to the Taris and Tatooine racers?

Yes, that's the idea; I want every racer to have his own look

The collar needs a little tweaking to blend better with the skin; it's bit harshly cut right now. 

Another peek at Casandra, I noticed the "chroom" effect is a just a bit to visible in game. I'll need to soften that up. Otherwise I think it works rather good.

Simple, but good

Could you give the Ithorian a leather jacket? Something like a flight jacket seen in Top Gun? 

Uh, I might? I don't think the model will allow that though...

Cassandra Mateil's good stylistic direction could be found in K1 Enhancement Pack.

I already have a good idea what I want with her, look below

Please someone make this a mod

Ok, so a new head model, on top of the scoundrel clothing? That would get close, to it, no?

Ahum, here's what I got on Cassandra, it's red jumpsuit affair, with some white racing stripes.

Just the basic layout so far. I've got different setups for the "shiny" latex effect. 

It'll depend how that turns out in the game though. Plan is to add racing stripes down her sleeves.

Add more "panels", stitches to the outfit. Boots and gloves.

IIRC, the Twi'lek head does have a mask hook? Else I might make some goggles for her to wear.

 

 

I approve of the new stylistic direction. I always thought that Gamorreans should wear black bodysuits.

Well, this outfit is made for Hukta Jax, the Gamorrean swoop racer on Manaan. But I could adopt it so the other Gamorreans follow a similar styling.

Have you spent any time with any new area models models recently?

No, besides creating a few weapons, I haven't done much modelling recently. I still need to get back to a lot of things. But so far, I've really enjoyed my time spend in Photoshop.

So here is the finished Hukta Jax; I've taken the skin to run around Manaan and Tatooine. Really pleased how the alpha channel and CM_SpecMap turned out. It is a really soft alpha channel. It's less visible in the screenshots, but the texture leather effect on his suit looks very nice, even for a Gamorrean

Next on the list Casandra Mateil, the Twi'lek racer on Manaan and the Ithorian needs a redo as well. Although for him, I don't have any ideas so far what would work on him.

At this moment I'm just working on some minor characters; the swoop racers you meet on Manaan, Tatooine and Taris.

I had fun with the Gamorreans, so I did the racing pig on Manaan as first. 

I'm now just working on the basic layout of his racing suit. Other details will be added, though the UVmap for this model has really bad parts.
Which causes stretching and deforming some of the skin.

Another idea to flesh this project out a bit is to add in new placeable, the personal swoop bikes for each of these racers. Though I'm not sure where I would place these in the game.

Plus I need to sketch out some designs that fits each racer.

Quick preview on a very early WIP.