JCarter426

Oh, I'll be sure to. I'm not sure I can really say any more yet... I haven't made any decisions. I'm used to making it up as I go. But I watched it last night and I can say that HK crosses the line several times (looks left in one shot, then right in the next) and there's an awkward pause before T3 actually zaps him. Those both have to go. There's also one angle that's used for most of the scene, and it's kind of awkward. But on the subject of how to do the scenes, it seems that k_003ebo_enter and a_next_scene won't decompile. If anybody could get me .nss of those, that would really help with testing. Fortunately there are a few that I can do in the meantime that are easy to trigger, HK/T3 included. But it would be nice not to have to rely on that.

I don't use AniCam anymore, so it's not hard. But the cameras won't all be animated. I'll still make use of static ones, most likely, but my aim is to reduce the reuse of the same static angles, the default three angles that have a tendency to screw up, crossing the line issues, and in general frame them better and get rid of some awkward timing. I'll explain how it works a bit more as I do the scenes. I'm thinking of doing the HK & T3 scene first, as that has examples of everything I just mentioned.

Hassat Hunter mentioned that he wanted but was unable to get a camera similar to one TSLRP did for TSLRCM. So, I decided to do one. Here's the original, for reference: That's just the camera, not the scene from the mod. And here's my recreation, as it were: I've been thinking for a while of doing some more of this, making the game cutscenes more cinematic so they aren't using the same few static angles repeatedly and to do some other improvements. It's going to take a while and I may be posting scenes as I do them for suggestions. I won't be doing all the cutscenes, but I'll do some of the more prominent ones, and for both games. For now, though, my focus is just the Ebon Hawk cutscenes in K2. They're all in one location, and I have a general idea of what all of them are, so that makes them relatively easier to access and I can release them in one batch when they're done. Also, this may come as a surprise, but I have not played TSLRCM because I have not played through the whole game since TSLRP was still going. So I don't know a lot of the changes in it and I haven't seen many of the new cutscenes. I don't know where this camera would even fit in, for example. I'm planning to get through it soon, but I'd welcome any suggestions or other information in the meantime.

Is this the one?

I believe he wrote a fancy GUI file editor to do that. But if you don't want to spend that much time on it, or stray too far from the original, at the very least it should be possible to fill in the buttons with a solid color so they stand out against the new menu background.

Well, we talked about doing it by planet before, and I did write the code for it, but the problem is getting it into the game. I wouldn't say this is the easiest, but it's certainly the most all-inclusive way to get it into the game, to replace every OnEnter script so they're all firing the same thing before firing their different things. But that means editing the modules' ARE files. And that means it can't be done with the TSL Patcher in one go. It can't check if there's a MOD file already present in the modules folder. I still haven't figured out the best way to do that for compatibility.

I've never noticed any drawing distance limitation with cutscene cameras - static module ones, or animated ones, or even the standard angles - but I can confirm that not all cameras are created equally. The camera modes left over from Neverwinter Nights have a much shorter distance, so it's conceivable that the menu does as well.

Oh, I see. If there's a hook then it most likely can be animated, since the other cameras are the same way. I'll check it out when I get a chance.

They should all be in the same place, 2da.bif.

The stealth speed is a hard-coded element of the combat system. The only remotely viable way would be to edit the heartbeat script to give a movement speed effect when stealth is activated, but that would cause other problems.

People don't like G0-T0, I guess. I've never tried, or really had reason to try, a G0-T0 filter, but it sounds like there's reverb and possibly a bit of compressor going on - that makes the peak levels all closer together, which can create a muffled sound and bring out all those S sounds when it's overdone.

Interesting idea. At first I wasn't sure about Sion on the Harbinger - I know, that's the first place you see him, but if you're not changing the scripting then you could be seeing that for a very long time after Peragus... but I also can't think of a better place. I'd advise against Korriban because it's supposed to be a sort of surprise that he's there. So I like it. Do you know if there's a way to change the main menu camera? If so, it may be possible to recreate the zoom in on him from the cutscene before it begins looping, sort of like a DVD menu. Depends on whether there's a separate camera model there, or if the camera is an object in the area, though.

#1 is pretty easy. In forceadjust.2da, set everything to 1. #2 is not easy because the games use lots of different scripts for alignment shifts, and there are other benefits to them.

TSLRCM's credits are basically already done, and I could release those whenever Zbyl is ready, but... at the last minute I decided to redo them from scratch because I'm fussy about having a proper template for when I need to do this again. And since I have a few extra weeks anyway, I want to do that. But I don't want want to hold it up so they'll be ready in whatever form necessary by the time Zbyl's vacation is over.

Ah, I've never used that. I'll take a look.

I made a spreadsheet as well but I don't use a spreadsheet or AniCam to make my cameras anymore because that way is terrible and I know how to make them with 3ds Max. When I get a chance I am going to go refresh my memory as to what TSLRP's camera looked like and then recreate it.

Yes, the actual shininess or whatever is a separate texture (cm_baremetal, for example) but essentially the game can either have a shader or transparency, but not both. The alpha channel is used for either, depending on the situation. And actually you can't just use the alpha channel for transparency, because then it won't render any objects behind the texture for some reason, so you still need a shader for that. Ah, that does look like it works. I should have figured since it was still saved as a separate channel, there would be a way to unbake the cake here. However, I'd still be interested in a more automated process, for two reasons. First, I wrote a batch script to mass convert every TPC file in the game... but having to go fix the alpha channel after that doesn't really save time in the end. So that would certainly help. The other thing is that 3ds Max reads the games' alpha channels as white, which is... not what it should be doing. I'm not sure if it can't figure out how to use the alpha channel properly, or if it just prefers having separate textures, but I've never cared to find out and I end up separating it into two textures anyway when I'm rendering in it. So TPC to 2 PNGs would definitely speed things along there. I look forward to any updates. Thanks for continuing to make tools for a game that's now older than this generation of players.

Yeah, the problem is that for those textures that do not use it for transparency - and they are many - when they are rendered transparent by the tool, all the non-alpha data, the visible part, is lost. The Sith armor, for example, becomes almost entirely invisible because of all the shiny parts that are rendered transparent.

Interesting. However, when I tried to use the TPC converter, it seemed to discard the alpha channel and saved it as transparency data instead. Is there any way to avoid that? Unfortunately, the way it is now makes editing textures with alpha channels impossible.

Well, you see, when you search for "Head Fixer" instead of "HeadFixer" that doesn't come up and that's why you always listen to DarthParametric instead of me.

Head Fixer was made by VarsityPuppet. I don't know where it's hosted anymore, so you'll have to ask him if he's around. Here's the original thread on LucasForums via Archive.org, but the download no longer works.

In that case, I'd say it's fine. I would still be worried about similarity in builds but it sounds workable to me. I've even cheated in the different Jedi feats before and I was even considering making it a proper mod, so I'd definitely like more choices in that regard. Mm, I understand, and I would like more variety as well. If I were doing it, though, I'd avoid changing stats, since there have been alien species mods and there could be more in the future.

The Sith assassins can't use the Force. They've had the same training Atton did to shield their minds from Jedi, and the technique also blinds them to the Force. They throw up walls of emotion that mess with a Jedi's senses because Jedi have to block that out to use the Force. Consequentially this makes it difficult for the assassins to use the Force themselves. They do use the Force in the sense that they use it to become invisible, sense their prey, weaken them, etc but they are not typical Force users. Essentially they specialize in negating the Force, and it would also negate their own Force.

Yeah, I get that, but - if you want any sort of distinction at all (a name, a feat for just that class, etc) then they will have to be different classes, in terms of proramming. Even if you make them fundamentally the same. Then you've used up all the classes again. And by playing the same I mean you have up to four Jedi in the party, and currently they all have different hit dice, saving throws, feats, amount of Force points and powers, etc. And the player has the option to vary all this. With a single class you'd be losing all of that. Finally, the tabletop version has a nifty list of things in the talent trees that tells you what each type should go for, but we can't have that here. So I'd suggest some sort of administrative work on that just to make it clearer, because I don't think it would be very clear to someone who wasn't intimately familiar with them already. I'm not sure if you can change the order of things - might be alphabetical or by row number and that would be too much of a pain to change - but different colored icons, in addition to the text of course, would help I think. I'm definitely in favor of every class getting persuade. It's a huge waste as it currently is, given that only the player can use it and that's probably why they gave it to all Jedi, but it's also very useful early on in the game and to not have it is a shame. Having 7 class skills seems like a bit much to me, but when I play the second game I end up with everything as a class skill, so I also wouldn't complain about that. One thing you should keep in mind is that - I believe - you retain all your class skills from non-Jedi levels when you multiclass to Jedi. Eh, I wouldn't recommend more restrictions. An alternative would be to increase the amount of feats each class gets automatically, so for example a scoundrel might get improved sniper shot and then later master sniper shot, but any class can still choose these. Skill focuses would be a good option here too. Assuming you only want to edit their starting attributes, yeah. If you wanted it to level up you'd have to do it via script, and then you'd run into that problem. On that subject, I would definitely suggest editing their stats anyway because they are not consistent with the game's rules. It's been a while since I've looked into this stuff, but unfortunately I don't believe we can make new combat feats. I hope I'm wrong and somebody corrects me, though. But as I recall we can only make spells that do anything, not feats (except to check if you have the feat, but that's not a doing). Sounds like it would work, although it feels a bit weird to me to have classes affect attributes, given that's usually a racial thing.

Well, rule systems get revised for reasons (not just to sell more rulebooks) so I'd still be interested in more Saga-like changes. There are some parts of Saga I prefer, and some I don't, but either way I do think the game in general could use an overall. If someone else is going to do it, then I look forward to it. I was just talking to someone else about this today. Personally, I don't really like the idea that feat gain is the major difference in classes. It's a little unbalanced the way soldiers get lots and lots of feats to choose from, while the other classes don't get to chose as many, but get some automatically, and in general those are superior than any the soldier can choose. I don't think evening it out would necessarily work, as you say, but at the same time it irks me that such a vague thing is the major difference. It only works if there are a lot of good feats, and by the end of the game most of the ones you have left to choose from are garbage. I recall the last time I played, when I was leveling up Carth and Canderous the last few times, there wasn't anything left that would really benefit them, and I just gave them tiers of implants or something. I don't know if there's a solution to this... the more customization you offer, the less distinct the class choice becomes, that's a universal rule. But it's certainly a weak point here. I don't recall ever seeing any way to change it, so I assume it's limited as the attributes are. You can change the base amount of points each class gets per level, however. On the subject of skills, though, I did some thinking and a bit of digging and I don't believe there is anything forcing you to keep computer use and repair. As far as I can recall, every game mechanic involving them is a scripted skill check that could be changed to something else. Using repair kits, repairing droids, slicing computers, all that is through scripts we can edit. The only possible issue I can imagine is that it would display the wrong values on computer terminals, and maybe there's even a way to get around that. The same goes for treat injury and persuade, but I doubt you want to get rid of those. Demolitions and security have some function that is hard coded, I believe, and would present more problems. I'm not sure about stealth or awareness - these might be handled through AI scripts I've simply never researched thoroughly. Depending on how the code is, and this makes me curious because I see the constants in skills.2da, it may be possible to rearrange even these functions. I'd be fine with reducing the classes that way, only thing I would worry about is that it would make them play too similarly but I would say they already do that for the most part anyway. There are a couple problems with your idea, though. First, there's no way to force the player to choose one of three feats that way, unless you do make them different classes. You could make each class statistically the same for the most part, but they'd still be taking up space and you couldn't add more Jedi classes. Second, with the game's level up system, the more agency you want the player to have, in general the dumber you have to make the system. You can't say, for example, a Jedi Guardian will get this feat at this level, unless the player already picked this, in which case they get the next tier of it, or a different feat, or whatever, the way the tabeltop rules can let you. You can either say a Jedi Guardian gets this feat at this level, or they don't, and they can choose it at this level, or they can't. So there's no way to work in recommendations apart from the descriptions like you described. I don't think a footnote at the end would be enough, especially if every class can pick anything anyway. I would suggest grouping them all together, changing the icons as well to make it clearer, something along those lines. All this is why, I think, they dumbed it down to the level they did. Although they did have a far more complicated system in Neverwinter Nights, unfortunately none of it works here.