With all the efforts towards to removing bugs and graphical errors. Why leave out the broken lightsaber hilts?

[Janetgeorge67 0]

https://deadlystream.com/topic/10981-attention-needed-major-bug-found-please-fix-the-lightsaber-brightness-glitch/      

Something like this should be viewed as a model fix. Yes it is actually also considered a bug. Do you like having bugs in your game? Would you rather get rid of it or leave it more ugly? I don't believe there is a Modder who wishes for that. This involves directly tweaking the broken models/hilts so that they match the one's that do work properly. Effectively fixing the brightness issue. I guess the majority of Modder's must of thought of it as a blade texture issue in which it is not. Might I recommend somebody who does have remodeling experience, the proper resources, and somebody who can very clearly reach out and communicate with somebody who can provide a fix, if not himself. His name is Thor110. This would coincide with projects like the expanded galaxy seeing as there is already a ton of model fixes involved over there. See I believe Thor110 or any of the remodeling contributors towards expanded galaxy is the correct person to fix this issue because fixed lightsaber hilts makes sense while your adding almost every other fix to the game. Allow players to optionally choose whether to use crazy34 or other retextures but at least fix the vanilla base models. Don't shrug issues like these off. Little fixes can make big differences. The overall care, response, or effort to resolve this bug is disappointing for me to find. Not very happy to find this person's mod request ignored. Lightsabers play a big part in both games. Players look forward to swinging those lasers around. Why not fix the models to make them look better? Does it take almost a year to find somebody and fix the issue?

Since the high poly tin cans made by varsity puppet do look better as vanilla representations, perhaps somebody can fix those models and use them in the expanded galaxy? Makes a ton of sense to me everyone. The community patches for both games should also implement the model fix for this once resolved. Anyway don't leave bugs in your game deadly stream especially after somebody did thoroughly explain the issue, and after a whole year it's still not resolved. So don't use the time constraint excuse. This mod request has been sitting here for close to a year and has every right to relativity as all other model fixes going into expanded galaxy for example. I sincerely wish that the Modder of high poly tin cans review his hilt models and fixes them. Reconsider fixing this issue especially when game fixes are up your alley and area of knowledge.

  
    

[Thor110 508]

1 hour ago, Janetgeorge67 said:

https://deadlystream.com/topic/10981-attention-needed-major-bug-found-please-fix-the-lightsaber-brightness-glitch/      

Something like this should be viewed as a model fix. Yes it is actually also considered a bug. Do you like having bugs in your game? Would you rather get rid of it or leave it more ugly? I don't believe there is a Modder who wishes for that. This involves directly tweaking the broken models/hilts so that they match the one's that do work properly. Effectively fixing the brightness issue. I guess the majority of Modder's must of thought of it as a blade texture issue in which it is not. Might I recommend somebody who does have remodeling experience, the proper resources, and somebody who can very clearly reach out and communicate with somebody who can provide a fix, if not himself. His name is Thor110. This would coincide with projects like the expanded galaxy seeing as there is already a ton of model fixes involved over there. See I believe Thor110 or any of the remodeling contributors towards expanded galaxy is the correct person to fix this issue because fixed lightsaber hilts makes sense while your adding almost every other fix to the game. Allow players to optionally choose whether to use crazy34 or other retextures but at least fix the vanilla base models. Don't shrug issues like these off. Little fixes can make big differences. The overall care, response, or effort to resolve this bug is disappointing for me to find. Not very happy to find this person's mod request ignored. Lightsabers play a big part in both games. Players look forward to swinging those lasers around. Why not fix the models to make them look better? Does it take almost a year to find somebody and fix the issue?

Since the high poly tin cans made by varsity puppet do look better as vanilla representations, perhaps somebody can fix those models and use them in the expanded galaxy? Makes a ton of sense to me everyone. The community patches for both games should also implement the model fix for this once resolved. Anyway don't leave bugs in your game deadly stream especially after somebody did thoroughly explain the issue, and after a whole year it's still not resolved. So don't use the time constraint excuse. This mod request has been sitting here for close to a year and has every right to relativity as all other model fixes going into expanded galaxy for example. I sincerely wish that the Modder of high poly tin cans review his hilt models and fixes them. Reconsider fixing this issue especially when game fixes are up your alley and area of knowledge.

  
    

Interesting that I find myself mentioned directly! For future reference you can @Janetgeorge67 with the @ symbol followed by a name to tag people.

While these little fixes can appear to be seemingly simple, they soon cascade into a larger set of problems or grow exponentially in the time required to apply the relevant fixes due to the number of models involved.

Usually modders pick and choose what they want to work on/with and this results in other things getting left behind, not so much shrugged off but not being focused on.

For example @Salk recently asked me about applying Shadows to the placeable models, which is definitely something that is considered to be simple.

What is not simple however, is how many there are, a total of 222 placeables or 232 entries in the placeables.2da file, 10 of which are dud entries or placeables, there are probably a few more and some which don't need shadows at all.

So while fixing the shadow for one model, might take three attempts and 15-20 minutes, at 15 minutes each that soon cascades into requiring 55.5 hours of work to apply that same fix to all of the placeable models, based entirely on the assumption that it is the first model I tried it with, this doesn't take into account the extra time it takes to find a good location to view the placeable from to ensure it's shadow looks good or that something hasn't been missed due to the way the model is set up.

So for something as simple as ticking a shadow flag on 222 models, it can soon result in requiring between 3 & 4 days ( SOLID ) of work.

 

While I have been trying to persuade everyone to work on one overhaul of the game so that these things are more easily accessible for people, modders are busy with their own lives and they often like to pick and choose what they work on anyway.

Up until very recently it has been just me working on the Expanded Galaxy Project and while I would love to include everything, that isn't always possible as first I have to get permission to do so, then I have to properly include it, both tasks can take many hours or days, sometimes even longer with regards to getting permission.

And even now, there is only one other person working alongside me that I have also had to tutor to bring up to speed with the project and various intricate details of the game and how it works.

 

There is also the hotly debated topic or issue of what should or shouldn't be included with what mod or project, for example some people like to attain just fixes to the base game, nothing aesthetic in order to maintain the vanilla look and feel, while others like to go for the full overhaul route, there is also mods that seem out of place and are only going to be used by some people, stormtrooper armour for example.

 

Even with my project, there are people that like things one way or want it to be another and I have to try to take that into account while also staying focused on what I think matters.

 

Mod requests aren't always even looked at, it might not have been specifically ignored and even if it was, that would only be because people have their own projects to work on.

 

You also have to remember, modders don't get paid, so while I am considering doing the shadow fixes for KotOR1, the thought of spending 60 or more hours doing so puts me off of the idea, coupled with the fact that I would then need to do exactly the same process to fix them for KotOR2 which I took a look at doing and it seems would require even more time to do so, because the lighting system in the games isn't perfect.

 

For example see the following screenshots.

Ignoring the big shadow in the middle which is cast by something else.

The star map casts a shadow which can be clearly seen.

However!

Because of the way the game works, the moment it is off camera, the shadow disappears.

 

Now, it might be possible to fix this by adding a dummy mesh that takes up a large amount of space to ensure it is always visible, but this could again require perhaps hours of tinkering and testing to get perfect, it then would add another 5-10 minutes to the time it would take to apply to each placeable model.

Given a conservative estimate of 30 minutes a model, that adds up to 111 hours of work.

 

So for what might seem like some, to be a seemingly simple issue or fix, the scale of applying them to a large number of models, soon becomes troublesome.

 

As showcased with these screenshots, it took me three attempts to get the desk placeable looking right in KotOR1

This is because the model has various parts to it and those parts all interact with the lighting system, as can be seen here the panels prevented the shadow being cast.

So I went back and enabled shadows for that part of the model.

Only to go back in-game and notice that I had missed a part on the side.

Which meant I had to do it again. ( this can be seen in the bottom left of the shadow and is caused by the light on the side )

 

I hope this illustrates my point and why perhaps not every mod request has been seen to.

 

People also tend to take on mod requests which interest them personally and ignore those that don't which is perfectly understandable and entirely fair.

[Janetgeorge67 0]

I hope you continue to work on your expanded galaxy project Thor110.  I'm very excited for it's completion perhaps the stories, the characters, and the adventures far outweigh the minor graphical errors. They can just be patched in when time allows. I do wonder what places like Kickstarter could do for projects on KOTOR though. If those crowd fundings could actually give rise to a whole new game. We never did get KOTOR 3. Maybe deadly stream can make it? Would be interesting to have KOTOR 3 with the previous K1 and K2 games also incorporated as playing options. The support for it would be through the roof. Considering the strength of the KOTOR community, the popularity of these older games is actually increasing not declining. Maybe by assembling a trusted mod team that works within their own time frames and contributing incrementally is also effective. Well, that's my two cents. I won't bring it up anymore I'll just look forward to the adventures.

https://www.kickstarter.com/

I wish you well and your project good success.

Thanks deadly stream for supporting knights of the old republic.   
 

[Thor110 508]

12 minutes ago, Janetgeorge67 said:

I hope you continue to work on your expanded galaxy project Thor110.

I will do.

12 minutes ago, Janetgeorge67 said:

I do wonder what places like Kickstarter could do for projects on KOTOR though. If those crowd fundings could actually give rise to a whole new game.

This isn't possible to do.

13 minutes ago, Janetgeorge67 said:

Maybe by assembling a trusted mod team that works within their own time frames and contributing incrementally is also effective.

I have been trying to do so for a long time now, but the kotor modding community is relatively small, the game has a lot of bugs and requires specific know-how to work with.

 

Early on I had hoped to get the entire community involved in the project, but it just didn't happen.

 

There is also a lot of debate that revolves around which game is better or which version of the games are superior.

 

Some of these things would have to be figured out before moving forward with a large team, though I have tried to support all versions of the game on my own so far.

 

16 minutes ago, Janetgeorge67 said:

Well, that's my two cents. I won't bring it up anymore I'll just look forward to the adventures.

I am more than happy to hear what people have to say, I just wanted to point out the reason why some things haven't been done.

 

Would love to spend every waking moment working on this project sometimes, but I also have a lot of other projects that I work on and not enough time to do so.

 

Here's to hoping that I can indeed one day finish the project, but I wouldn't hold your breath as the scope and scale of it is almost inconceivable.