Changing Admiral Varko's Appearance, But not Saul Karath - KOTOR 1

[Revanite 2]

I wanted to change Admiral Varko's appearance to a custom Sith Officer Reskin that I made. I'm just not fond of having the good ol doctor, Zelka from Taris as having the same face as Malak's Sith Admiral. The new Varko here is just a bearded version of the Sith Officer model. I think I may still have to tweak it a little because it looks like someone just drew a fake beard with a marker haha.

 

 

HOWEVER, by changing Varko's appearance via .utc to Override, it also changes the appearance of Saul Karath himself. Here's a screenshot of Saul talking to Malak over Taris. He uses the new Varko appearance. And the .utc file that Varko uses is apparently Karath's aswell, n_admrlsaulka001.utc, rather than a unique name like n_admrlvarko.utc. Another existing mod which also attempts to change Varko's appearance Todevuch's Sith Officer Fix K1 1.3 has the same problem too.

 

 

I had attempted to use ERF Editor to add my custom n_admrlsaulka001.utc file into STUNT_19_s.rim, which is the scene where Varko appears, and save it as a .mod file to place it in the modules folder, hoping that it would isolate and contain his new appearance to only that scene, but unfortunately that didn't work. I admit that I'm no expert at .rim or .mod files. I'm just going off of what I think makes sense. So any help would be appreciated.

 

[DarthParametric 3,777]

23 minutes ago, Revanite said:

via .utc to Override

Never do that, for any GFF or script, unless you are explicitly overriding a global file.

24 minutes ago, Revanite said:

save it as a .mod file to place it in the modules folder

Yes, this is the correct approach. However, since you only mentioned the _s RIM I assume you forgot the other RIM. A vanilla module comprises two separate RIM files. The contents of both are required in a MOD. The _s RIM contains all the scripts and GFFs, the other RIM contains the ARE/GIT/IFO.

[Revanite 2]

40 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

Yes, this is the correct approach. However, since you only mentioned the _s RIM I assume you forgot the other RIM. A vanilla module comprises two separate RIM files. The contents of both are required in a MOD. The _s RIM contains all the scripts and GFFs, the other RIM contains the ARE/GIT/IFO.

Yes I did not include the non _s RIM contents with the ARE/GIT/IFO into the .mod file initially. However I've now included those in my STUNT_19_s.mod, along with the modified n_admrlsaulka001.utc, but still nothing happens. Still shows the default Admiral Varko appearance unless I put the utc to override.

 

Here's what the STUNT_19_s.mod looks like, I've highlighted the changes:

[DarthParametric 3,777]

23 minutes ago, Revanite said:

STUNT_19_s.mod

It's named incorrectly. Drop the _s. It should just be STUNT_19.mod instead.

[Revanite 2]

5 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

It's named incorrectly. Drop the _s. It should just be STUNT_19.mod instead.

Hmm.. Ok I've renamed the file and placed it into the modules folder, but the game immediately brings me back to the main menu as soon as the Varko cutscene is about to play out. Not sure what's causing it. I even made a copy of the vanilla STUNT_19.rim but saved as .mod file, put it in modules to see what happens and the same thing occured. The game seem to doesn't want any STUNT_19.mod files... 

[DarthParametric 3,777]

Attach your MOD file.

[Revanite 2]

7 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

Attach your MOD file.

STUNT_19.mod

[DarthParametric 3,777]

You didn't save it correctly. You saved it as an ERF and then renamed it rather than saving it as a MOD. You can tell by looking at the file's header in a hex editor.

There's a filetype drop-down in ERFEdit's save dialogue:

[Revanite 2]

That's very strange... I'm sure I saved it as a .MOD file in ERF Editor.

 

I'll just list down my process:

1. I fetched the vanilla rim files from Modules, ie. STUNT_19.rim, STUNT_19_s.rim

2. Opened STUNT_19.rim in ERF Editor, extracted it's contents, ie. ARE, GIT, IFO

3. Opened STUNT_19_s.rim in ERF Editor, added ARE, GIT, IFO from  STUNT_19.rim and added/replaced n_admrlsaulka001.utc

4. Saved the STUNT_19_s.rim as (.mod) NOT (.erf)

5. Renamed STUNT_19_s.mod to STUNT_19.mod and place it into the modules folder

[DarthParametric 3,777]

If you extracted the files, just create a new MOD from scratch and then drag and drop the files into it, then save.

[Revanite 2]

29 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

If you extracted the files, just create a new MOD from scratch and then drag and drop the files into it, then save.

I didn't manage to create a new module from the ERF Editor, however I did manage to do so in KOTOR Tool. Can't believe I was so oblivious to the existence of the ERF File Builder option for the longest time. Anyways it worked. Thanks.