What are some good KOTOR modding tools?

[Erdan5]

Hello there.   As you may know, I am new to how to download mods and all in KOTOR, as I have only ever played the vanilla games.  However, I am considering making mods of my own to make about KOTOR,  and I would like some recommendations for the best KOTOR script and/or mod editor(s) for the games.   Anyone have any recommendations that I can do?

(Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask).

[trevuar25]

As a starting point, I would recommend Holocron Toolset: https://deadlystream.com/files/file/1982-holocron-toolset/  to get an idea of how the modules are set up and to be able to view models + areas of the game. This is incredibly useful for seeing how placeables, cameras, models, scripts, creatures are laid out. This can be used to pull assets out of the game for modification. You can also use KOTOR Tool: https://deadlystream.com/files/file/280-kotor-tool/ to pull the same game resources out for modification. If you're looking to modify the particle effects of the game models, you can't go wrong with MDLEdit: https://deadlystream.com/files/file/1150-mdledit/ . This converts game models MDL+MDX into readable ASCII and back into MDL after you save the changes to the ASCII file. 

It really comes down to what the goal of your first mod is. If you're looking into making changes to scripts, that definitely is not my area of expertise. It would be helpful if you share a specific goal for your first mod idea, or at least an idea of something you'd like to achieve. 

[Erdan5]

13 hours ago, trevuar25 said:

As a starting point, I would recommend Holocron Toolset: https://deadlystream.com/files/file/1982-holocron-toolset/  to get an idea of how the modules are set up and to be able to view models + areas of the game. This is incredibly useful for seeing how placeables, cameras, models, scripts, creatures are laid out. This can be used to pull assets out of the game for modification. You can also use KOTOR Tool: https://deadlystream.com/files/file/280-kotor-tool/ to pull the same game resources out for modification. If you're looking to modify the particle effects of the game models, you can't go wrong with MDLEdit: https://deadlystream.com/files/file/1150-mdledit/ . This converts game models MDL+MDX into readable ASCII and back into MDL after you save the changes to the ASCII file. 

Thank you very much.

13 hours ago, trevuar25 said:

It really comes down to what the goal of your first mod is. If you're looking into making changes to scripts, that definitely is not my area of expertise. It would be helpful if you share a specific goal for your first mod idea, or at least an idea of something you'd like to achieve. 

Okay then.  Yeah, I should have been saying what I wanted to achieve with this mod.  So this mod I am planning to make is a bit ambitious.  Basically my plan was to create an entirely new, original humanoid character in Blender, and then port it to KOTOR to replace the Darth Nihilus NPC in cutscenes and gameplay.  

[trevuar25]

10 hours ago, Erdan5 said:

Okay then.  Yeah, I should have been saying what I wanted to achieve with this mod.  So this mod I am planning to make is a bit ambitious.  Basically my plan was to create an entirely new, original humanoid character in Blender, and then port it to KOTOR to replace the Darth Nihilus NPC in cutscenes and gameplay.  

In that case, your best bet would be to use either Holocron Tool or Kotor Tool to export the Darth Nihilus MDL and MDX (n_darthnihiuls.mdl and n_darthnihilus.mdx) files into a directory to work from. 

Then you'll want to download the appropriate version of Blender and KotorBlender https://deadlystream.com/files/file/1853-kotorblender-for-blender-36-and-42/ . The extension guide for installing it "from disk" is here https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/4.2/editors/preferences/extensions.html#bpy-ops-extensions-package-install-files This will allow you take the Darth Nihilus MDL and manipulate it from there. I'm not sure about replacing the entire model and getting all its animations to work properly, but then again, I'm a total n00b with Blender and modding as well. Hopefully this helps point you in the right direction.  I'm also not sure if this is the only model used for this character in cutscenes and gameplay. Finding that out would require that you track down the modules that this character loads into.