Malkior

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Everything posted by Malkior

  1. Malkior
    Alright. I rebuilt the polygons by using what remained of the inside edge of the collar, and hopefully it will render properly now. Also, you aren't wrong about GMax hating backfaces. Even trying to build them from the top edge caused it to freak out and led to all kinds of visual anomalies (like weird geometry showing up and even the polygons disappearing when I looked at it close up) It's like backfaces are black holes as far as it's concerned.. I also noticed that when I manually create polygons, the new vertices I have to create start on the 0 Y axis in the Gmax world (Which so happens to be way outside of where the model is). This is normal behavior, right? Anyway, I got the smoothing groups set up and the polygons hopefully sorted. The next step is texturing, right?
  2. Malkior
    Sorry, somehow I never got a notification of your reply. In any case, Here's my second attempt with hopefully better and more cleaned up geometry. Now, do I set the smoothing groups to 1 for all of my new polygons? Also, I took the liberty of deleting the inner neck seam polygons since generally you can't see the inside of the body model. Am I looking at trouble down the line for doing so?
  3. Malkior
    After a lot of research, I finally found my way around to at least doing something in the way of modeling. This is literally my first proper attempt at modeling, so I imagine it is fraught with inconsistencies. However, I am more interested in the lower part. As you can probably see, the polygons that originally connected the neck to the torso are gone as a direct result of deleting the vertices that connected the two parts. Do I have to redraw them before I more forward? The method I used was to cut a square portion out of the back and then extrude that around to complete the collar. Is this a viable method, or should I try again with a better technique?
  4. Malkior

    Amazing how much housework and cleaning I've been able to do in all of this downtime. being without work (or laid off ) is quite frustrating, but I can't say there isn't a silver lining to it.

    Now all that's left is more modding...

  5. Malkior
    .... Right... Okay, I have the mesh separated and cloned. Do I weld the new one to the old mesh, or is there something else needed? Am I adding the geometry before I weld it, or am I welding it at all?
  6. Malkior
    Okay. So far, I can't find an "Invert" modifier. You said to delete the vertices from the original then to invert the duplicate before deleting everything except the vertices deleted in the original, right? Am I flipping the normals, or is there some way to invert all of the vertices?
  7. Malkior
    Dumb question, but I Clone an Instance rather than a Copy, right?
  8. Malkior
    After first booting it up and attempting export, I get this Error Message: I also keep getting a message that the mesh "Depends on the Typology" of the skin modifier which is higher on the stack. Do I just ignore this and proceed? How do I duplicate the mesh? Is there a modifier, menu item, or shortcut key to do this? In duplicating the mesh, am I just duplicating the entire thing or is this for just the torso section?
  9. Malkior
    Gonna take a few attempts to figure that out, but I have a few days this weekend to do it. -Will post updated questions as they arise-...
  10. Malkior
    Alrighty. Then I guess for the trees, it seems more viable to just edit the geometry already present in the scene. The hard part is going to be rewrapping the textures so that I can have a unique texture for the bushes and branches (since currently they both use the same texture) Heck, most of the geometry is blurred terribly because of how bad the UVW maps are; is there a tutorial somewhere on how to assign or remap textures specifically in GMax? Regarding the clothing, my ultimate goal is to introduce actual collars to the various armor and clothing meshes instead of the painted on ones in Vanilla. Thankfully the area around the neck doesn't have to deform much, as far as I know.
  11. Malkior
    Finally finished the mesh fixes. 231tela.zip I imagine my polygons are kind of horrible in places, but as far as I've tested, you no longer float three feet above the ground. Thank you for the primer in using Gmax; I've found a few useful tutorials, and even so it is quite stripped down so even something as simple as the Bridge function has to be done manually. Still it's a fine alternative to paying $700, so I'll take what I can get. Now, I'm looking at improving the trees if I can, but I need a few more steps laid out for me. There are a few tree models out there, but will they work with the game models and is there a process required to add them to the geometry with minimal issues? Lastly, I want to do some armor editing on the side. Do the armor models need specific animations, or are they basically static objects and don't have their own animations? Again, thank you for the massive help you've provided in my first foray into 3d modelling; If there is a want, I can draft each of my many hard-earned lessons into a lengthy tutorial.
  12. Malkior
    Well... turns out I wasn't looking at the ticker on the bottom right letting me know that it was actually exporting the entire time. I'm so trained by popup boxes that it didn't even occur to me. Also, the green snooper icon was exactly where you said it'd be in the hidden icon tab. So, back on track I guess.. (I hope my pratfalls benefit someone trying this for the first time, because I'm sure these constant panic moments are no doubt exhausting. Thank you for helping out with this process as I hit each speedbump one after the other..)
  13. Malkior
    I have Kotormax.exe in my Gmax root and use a shortcut to it on my desktop to start the program, but I don't see any green icons when I'm running it. I'm running it from Direct3D on Windows 10, if that has anything to do with it.
  14. Malkior
    I am currently in the process of proverbially pulling my hair out in trying to figure the GMax interface. Every time I hit Export in the Kotormax bar, it acts like nothing happens and any time I hit "Set" it says "No Odyssey mesh selected". I tried to set the "Browse" parameter to the folder I want the export to go to, but nothing in GMax can export GMax files to MDLs. Should I just keep the program running at all times since Gmax files are less than useless if I hope to keep using the MDL? Is there a way to save files as anything but GMax's through the Kotormax interface? More importantly, did I make a huge mistake by ever saving my files as GMax's?
  15. Malkior
    Finally got the new vertices and moved them to hopefully match the walkmesh better. However, I can't find any way to display the textures in GMax. Is there some step I'm missing, or is it more complicated than just ticking a box? Also, just in case it'd be easier to test it in game; how do I export it to the game? Just an inverse of how I imported it? (IE Save, open in MDLOPs and convert it to Binary, Put the Binary into the Override, ????, Profit)
  16. Malkior
    Alright. I extracted the WOK, MDL, MDX, ran Read/Write with MDLOPS; and then Imported the LYT and MDL into GMax. Everything seems to be working properly, so now the actual editing begins.. And here's where my inexperience shows through. I want to add a vertex to the area with a red arrow in the pic. How exactly would I do that? I know how to get to the sub-object, but is there a tool like the knife tool in Blender to bisect the edge/ add vertices? More importantly, is there a better way to do this instead of just adding a vertex and pushing it up?
  17. Malkior
    For extra fun, those textures you're showing of Peragus were ported from Manaan, so the grey uninspired look is almost intentional, and personally, I'd be inclined to echo the feeling of the Yavin Space Station module from Kotor rather than that. Peragus is a dirty and potentially lethal place (but with great hazard pay) not unlike a Mining Platform we find in everyday life, and visuals in Vanilla Kotor2 hardly echo that. For a bit of more trivia, the fans on the ceilings on Nar Shadaa were also ported from Manaan. TSL is basically a hodgepodge of Kotor 1 textures, and again it's no surprise that it looks as bland as it does since it lacks actual artistic consistency.
  18. Malkior
    Ah, so edit the area mesh around the Walkmesh.. Makes a lot more sense. Now to do that, I just convert the 231TELA.mdl to ASCII and then import it into GMax, right?
  19. Malkior
    Alright. I've finally got KotorMax installed, primed, and a nice (Mildly warm now) cup of coffee close nearby; let's get this crazy train rolling. First things first. I've been working constantly on updating or at least fixing some of the many modeling problems with the Telos Restoration Zone, and chief of these being the ground itself. The most glaring issue with it; the mesh is too high in one part (The characters float above the ground) And near the wall, the mesh is so low, the characters are half covered by the ground ' Unfortunately, fixing this isn't as easy as moving the offending vertices into place since someone has informed me that the pathfinding AI can get stuck if the walkmesh is edited too dramatically. To add further challenge to this exercise, I personally am probably the most uninitiated when it comes to using GMax (and 3d modelling in general), so something as basic as importing and exporting may require the information step by step. As with most of my forum topics, I hope to continually update this thread as I stumble upon more 3d modelling projects including some character edits such as adding actual collar meshes to the armor models and tree/ foliage fixes.
  20. Malkior
    Telos Foliage Retexture V4 - Cliff Test 1
    Actually, I was just in talks about that very thing. I was about to post a request for assistance since, well I'm barely a novice at 3d modelling due to my general lack of a viable 3d program. However, I just downloaded gmax and kotormax and am ready to start learning. (Cliche I know, but what are ya gonna do? : | ) The topic of my request post will basically be on how I would reliably edit the walkmesh. (To fix an issue where your character floats above the ground on one part and sinkis into it on another) I need help, since apparently the AI Pathing in Aurora is terrible on a good day; and editing even a small portion of the walkmesh could cause them to get stuck if I'm not careful. Additionally, the trees are technically part of the area model, and as you are no doubt aware, are probably the worst modeled trees in recent history. I can do a lot with the textures, but fixing the actual geometry will be the difference between a making it look like a good visual from 2003 and a decent visual from 2013. Heck, I have hopes that I could get them to look comparable with something like Half-Life 2, if given the opportunity. Also, the bushes are literally two copies of the branch texture crossing together and yeah.. there has to be something done to fix at least that.
  21. Malkior
    Telos Retexture V4 - Cliff Test 2

    From the album: Tests

    Dynamic shot of the new cliff texture. It's generally a much lower resolution than the rest, and I may add a lot of miniature details to make them blend together better.
  22. Malkior
    Telos Foliage Retexture V4 - Cliff Test 1

    From the album: Tests

    Testing some work on the cliff textures. I tried to stay closer to the Vanilla look both because I like its visual impact and because I want this to be a test for more similar upscales without having to rebuild every texture from scratch.
  23. Malkior

    After increasing the visual contrast by brightening the Lightmap files up a bit, I noticed that the shadows on Telos were baked at a differing angle to the shadow cast by your characters. Heh.. who knew?..

  24. Malkior
    Telos Foliage Retexture V4 Small Update

    From the album: Tests

    Nothing big today, just a quick test of a fast and cheap way to add fake bumpmaps to basically anything. I will be implementing it regularly in my further retexture projects and possibly an entirely new project will be necesary.
  25. Malkior
    Ironically, I was just in a long drawn out argument/discussion with someone specifically about Ambient Occlusion, so I had to do a bit of research on the topic. It turns out that shader AO or at least Screen Space AO has that problem with darkening the image too much due to its technical limitations. Quite interesting to be having so many conversations about these graphical advancements with Reshade when only a few years ago we could only change the colors and contrast.