Mod take aways

[Zombiewells 7]

These are my take ways from attempting to mod KOTOR; motivated from my love for the game and disappointment from not having any official update in all these years I felt like I could give it a go. 
- Using more modern techniques to get meshes and textures out the door can be pretty fast
- normal maps are not bad, not awesome but not bad, and with the help of bumping some of the geo out can look pretty good in game. but I would NOT cook out normals for items, cooking down flat/tile normals are handy, (walls, floors, "flat items") if your going to make chest, chairs, droids etc I would basically lean on smoothing groups or vert weighted normals for all the shapes, and if you want damage or chips all that good jazz you can give a flat blue normal some overlay damage in painter or PS.
- end results just looking at this with no real texture love ,could look pretty cool

The down shot
- the tools and guess work to get anything in game is exhausting. I spent more time trail and error then actually making anything. Its more, like, yes its faster to make assets these days, but the more you put into the game the more the system starts to put up walls. Its kind of like trying to pack way too stuff into your luggage, yes it all going to fit? probably,  but your in for a fight, and that fight is going to take a while. It could also be a learning curve on my part, so I would also take that into account. I also want to say thanks to DarthParametric for taking time to address my questions!

Here are some shots of half done stuff, with, like I said no real texture love or unification here. Also started in on some HP heads, some funky jazz is going on with some of them or I would have more images up

Edited November 21, 2023 by Zombiewells
moving text

[N-DReW25 1,338]

I'd just want to say I am REALLY digging these screenshots, great stuff!

I wish you well on your project ahead, and I really hope we see your work finished and released sometime in the future.

 

I'd like to ask, is your first language English or do you primarily speak another language (Like Russian for example?).

[Zombiewells 7]

Thanks! yeah I think I am going to just work on things here and there, get them in a good place or at least a place I am happy with and see about releasing from there. English is my first language just not that great at it  

[th3w1zard1 30]

It do be feeling like I do more testing than actually making things. That resonated deeply with me. Thank you for sharing your experience.