Quanon

Having a day off, time to do some stuff. Did a daytime render on the streets; just to show things more clearly. Though it'll be nighttime in the game.

Hmm; I never considered using Tania's Replacer on area models. I thought it was heads only But never know without trying. @Daffy: Yeah some of those visors are really 'heavy' looking. But that's one of those things, depending on which head model you place those items. @LiliArch: Thanks for mentioning that 2DA; didn't know that. I'll what can be done for the headgear. But Nar Shaddaa is first on the list. Sometimes I get the feeling we need a hotel and get all the modders in there to get things moving, so we can go from one room to another to help each other out

The wallpaper does not have the top texture for the skybox. But I did just update the mod to include the 'missing' top As ever I can't seem to get rid of the seems. I checked the models in 3Ds Max. And the top mesh is like 2 meters below the top edges of the walls that make up the skybox. And each wall pokes about 2 meters through the others on each side. So no wonder it's hard to get rid of the seams. I've got no idea how many pixels that is. Is there a method to calculate that? SH, I was thinking of redoing the headgear stuff for the Kotor games. Most look like lego block floating around your head in the game. Plus the skins are just plain awfull most of the time. I can see why this has been overlooked by modders. They are tiny items and they don't do anything really. Only buffing some stats and the like. Though, when you think about it. They are there visible all the time, throughout most of the game. I'dd just need to do some groundwork to figure out how many different models there are for the headgear in the game. I could then, I think easely adopt the models for the alien species. But I don't think there's a perfect solution to the clipping issues with some of the models.

Hello all! Texturing job on Nar Shaddaa is going nicely. Looking forward to drop the garbage and other odds and ends into this street area; to really make it alive. No doubt it'll make the walkmesh creation a real PITA Still, a few other things are on my radar. I just did a reinstall of TSL with the restoration mods. Plus a host of other mods to complete the experience. Though I browsed around for re-skins on party members and such; it caught my eye, none really 'upped' the size of the skins. I did liked many of the ideas some of these mods had. Giving Atton a beard! I dug up an old Kreia reskin I made myself. Making her younger. I did a nice enough job on the head skin, but the body skin is not that 'smooth' looking. So the idea to improve this had come up and never left my thoughts. Next to the party re-skin urge I've been sketching Sith helmets. After my other helmet/ armour mod someone suggest to do a DS side pack. So I already did some sketches on that. To get an idea of what I want. ATM, I'm conflicted. Do a sort of Vader style helm first or go for a more medieval knight version first. Here's those sketches of what I've got in my mind. I've seen the concepts for the MMO Kotor game on the Sith Inquisitor gear. Some influence might have crept into my ideas. But I'm not really looking to copy any of that. Rather do something 'new' instead. Let the comments fly!

Desktop Malachor!

Just to show what happened this weekend. Another part has been textured. Just few details left here and there on this street. But focus is on the larger walls. And a lot more has to be done... Oh, to end. A question what sort of resolution would be good for a Malachor desktop wallpaper. I think that would be a fun sort of release Also text on it or not? And if, yes, what would fit?

That city part is finished and works in the game. Though that project was started with Canderous and SithSpecter. Let's say it's very ambitious, as I've got a second model started for the lower levels of this city. Alas with these bigger things it takes time for a team to get back together and get things moving again. I'll let it rest for bit, see what might happen, else I'll just release it as another resource for other peeps to use. This could work nicely with a reskinned Taris. Héhéhé, somehow tweaking Malachor made dig up this sleeping project. Yeah, that gives a better idea how things look. Should setup a Youtube account for that. The quality on photobucket is poor :-/

Been awhile since I posted something in this thread Things have happened though. I've passed along most of my lightsaber hilts to VP so he can continue to work on his own mod. Creating a walkmesh for the Sleheyron arena. Hopefully a working one And next to those tasks; working on my NarShaddaa idea. This mod was on the back burner because I couldn't get the lightmaps to work on the big street area I made. I had a few other goes, to see what broke my lightmaps. But all I got was game crashes and worse looking results. Then I lost sight on this project and just focusing on other stuff. Coming back I decided to just scrap what I had before and start over. I worked like a madmen on the new model; got a little burned out on 3D after that. So, texturing the model was delayed for quiet some time. And other fun projects got in the way. Though thanks to Malachor I enjoyed the texturing and dug up the Nar Shaddaa model. Not much has been done just yet. But it's a start. Doing my best to have slower pace but keep working on it. Instead of getting fed up and dog tired. Anyway, a few renders to give you guys a taste! Mind this is early WIP.

Oops! It appears I didn't save my new texture correctly for the top of the skybox. It's still the old one with a full black alpha channel. Not sure how I pulled that off. *Sigh* I'll have to redo that one .

The Korriban scenes look epic with your robes: its huge change for the good. Certainly love the red on the Yuthura and academy masters robes ( name escapes). Looking forward to more updates on this Genetica looks interesting, though never count on a program to do all the work for you. Recently I found FilterForge, a similar program to Genetica. I tried it out, but didn't use it in the end. As these computer generated textures just don't mix up well with photos I often use to base my textures on. IMHO.

Malachor Exterior Reskin By Quanon View File This mod started by a request from SithHolocron to give Malachor better looking skies. Though when the skies where ready, the other textures looked really off. The contrast between the jagged cliffs and the sky was just to big in my opinion. So the mod evolved into a full reskin of the exterior areas of Malachor. All the rocks, debris, cliffs and floor got a new texture. Only a few things haven't been changed; the broken and crashed spaceship parts and those broken eggs from the storm beasts remain the same. A nice little preview: Submitter Quanon Submitted 04/21/2014 Category Skins TSLRCM Compatible  

The UVW clearly shows where the seams are though. All artists paint outside the lines on their textures. It can be serious PITA just to know where something ends. It's not going to do major magic on working away seems, but its helpful as a guide. Doing decent skins is a real artists job, it takes many trial and error to see what works and doesn't. No quick dirty jobs on this sort of thing. Hold on I'll get it to you ASAP. EDIT: Here you go, a UVWmap for the body and one for the head model. Both are 1024x1024pixels, so you might have to scale it down. http://www.mediafire.com/download/bone1vt6ai4g54n/TwinSun_UVW.rar

If you want, I could get you the UVWmap of the twinsun model. You can use that UVWmap as a new channel in Photoshop, set it to Screen. And you'll see all the seams and edges clearly.

I know the skyboxes are bended somewhat. I'll have a peek at those UVWs; see how they curve. That could help to get rid of seems more easely. Thanks for the tips Malkior on that part !

In the hunt for obsidian rock texture, I stumbled upon FilterForge. A texture rendering program. Using the trial version to get this swirly rock! It's fun and easy to use. You can tweak the texture endlessly to get different results. So I had to go and test this in the game. It's not a winner yet. But it gives a good basis to work on. And that's all I really needed. The trial version of this program doesn't have all the options available, but it has enough for what I want. I'll play around some more.

Dear god, a sphere takes more polyies. And it can even be harder to UVWmap properly. This map handles how a flat texture/skin gets applied on to a model. To understand UVWmapping, the best thing is to make a cube out of paper. You have to draw this cross, six boxes. Cut it out and then fold it to get your 3D object. UVWmapping is that same method, but backwards. You have to fold out your 3D model. So you can easely 'draw' on it A sphere would require certain cuts that would be hard to get invisible, no seems. Most games use the box thing, though sometimes extra effects get applied. To sort of push the texture away (quake engine games), giving a better depth effect. In the Unreal engine, the skybox is a tiny model apart. A camera object gets placed within it and this then projects the sky on a bigger box. Fun stuff! Alas, the Kotor games have a less sophisticated approach. EDIT: Ofcourse a sphere or cylinder does away with those corners and feels more naturel. I believe the Onderon blockade model has half a sphere to show outer space. The scene showing Colonel Tobin giving order to fire on the Ebon Hawk.