TSL Textures Remastered

[Sith Holocron 2,425]

 

I remade the Telos Dancer texture myself as it seemed the easiest to do it that way.

[Zhaboka 91]

No technical opinion here. Just that those look absolutely fantastic. Hehe. Anyways. I'll go back to drooling now.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

Some more loose ends as it were, in this case I wanted to do the party members that you initially acquire at Peragus -- FYI: T3's new textures were shown in previous screens; such as Ebon Hawk.

 

 

 

 

Atton before...

 

 

Atton after light... FYI: I've done my best to reduce the seam on Atton's face, any more needs mesh / UVmap editing.

 

 

Atton after dark...

 

 

Atton head before...

 

 

Atton head light...

 

 

Atton head dark... This is based on the vanilla texture, however, I have modified it and used it so that it doesn't make the skin have crap looking light and dark grey lines -- I think I will create something else from scratch for force-sensitives along with the player character heads. The eyes I'm going to have a different style for force-sensitives, but have just gone with a golden gleam along with making the rest of the eye look red / sore.

 

 

Kreia before...

 

 

Kreia after...

 

 

 

Kreia as Traya teaser...

 

 

 

 

 

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

Revised HK series textures...

 

 

 

 

Before...

 

 

Afters... FYI: I applied the 3 variants to the same override file to make it easier to see the difference between them.

 

 

FYI: The one above and below have revised specular to my first-pass at the HK droids, they also have double the texture size to enhance detail.

 

 

FYI: The HK-47 texture below has revised specular along with a revised eye glow -- the original was a bit "flat" so to speak...

 

 

 

 

 

In order to have specular for for things like NPC clothing, I've had to make edits to the Appearance.2da file. Otherwise, specular will make the texture appear transparent, no matter what the accompanying TXI file says. 

 

Since I had to make a lot of changes, at least to one particular field within the file, I decided to also make some additional changes in way of default appearance for your characters based on class and if you put on any "clothes" object...

 

 

 

 

Before...

 

 

After...

 

 

 

 

 

As the textures and models were packaged with TSL, I decided to reinstate the Scoundrel, Scout and Soldier class look from KOTOR; especially as they kind of correspond to the Jedi classes of Consular, Sentinel and Guardian. Plus, I figure that if you were stripped of your force powers, then you would still end up doing things along the lines of your character, just without the force. So, you would end up looking like one of these classes rather than wearing dorky clothes.

 

Plus, I like the original models even if I have given the textures a quick update; I also plan on doing variant of each for a class specific unique clothing you'll be able to get in game at Peragus.

[MrPhil 58]

Looks way better than the original clothing, and since all those I've tried yet have caused problem, I sure hope yours wont and I'll finally be able to dess with regular clothes without looking like a potato sack.

[milestails 264]

It looks like you can actually see the fabric on Kreia's cowl now!

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

So, I'm coming to a point where I'm not just content to change textures and want to start changing (and editing) models for stuff. One thing I want to do is modify the male model for the Zeison Sha armor. Though it all started with wanting to make the Exar Kun amrmor in game look more appropriate, it really has to do with the model itself. As much as I like the addition of armored robes to the game, I really dislike the male version of this model as it never quite looked right to me.

 

Screens below with my main gripes:

 

 

 

 

I want to replace the model with this one with custom textures:

 

 

 

 

 

I'm kinda wondering what the reaction will be with people, as I'm sure many folks are fans of the look of the original armor, even if I am not. So, what do people think..?

 

Originally I had intended in creating a new model / body variant and then editing UTI item files to reference it, however, it seems that model variations will not go beyond N -- they range from A through N, and that is where they stop. I've tried setting this via the baseitems 2da file but in game the model shown is the Jedi Master Robe, which is model variation N.

 

If anyone knows whether you can create model variations beyond N, please let me know even if it is to point me to whatever resources online there are for them, as I can't seem to find anything definitive; though, I could be searching in the wrong place for the wrong thing .

[milestails 264]

Yeah the Zeishon Sha/Jal Shey armor was never my favorite either....

 

Head to head, the Darth Bandon armor is superior.

[MrPhil 58]

Looks mint!

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

A darker TSL...

 

 

 

 

Modified dead Republic soldier model for the Harbinger with new (alt) textures...

 

 

 

 

Modified Peragus Maintenance Officer with new (alt) textures ... FYI: when I say "alt" I mean that the holo version will not use these textures . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rtas Vadum 17]

 

I'm kinda wondering what the reaction will be with people, as I'm sure many folks are fans of the look of the original armor, even if I am not. So, what do people think..?

 

Originally I had intended in creating a new model / body variant and then editing UTI item files to reference it, however, it seems that model variations will not go beyond N -- they range from A through N, and that is where they stop. I've tried setting this via the baseitems 2da file but in game the model shown is the Jedi Master Robe, which is model variation N.

 

If anyone knows whether you can create model variations beyond N, please let me know even if it is to point me to whatever resources online there are for them, as I can't seem to find anything definitive; though, I could be searching in the wrong place for the wrong thing .

 

There are obviously those who do like those armors, many do not. Although I don't have any problem with them, I usually play the game as a female, and while I'd mostly use this mod, I'm editing the vanilla textures for my own mod at the moment.

 

As for adding model variations, unlikely, unless we had the same tools that Obsidian had when making the game. The few columns that were added to the appearance.2da obviously weren't there in K1, since the Model/Texure variation columns stop at I in that game(which is the Revan/Star Forge Robes). The only way to do this would be to replace the M models, which obviously causes the issue that there is no model comparable to Bandon's that will fit females. Though the M models and textures could only be replaced for the males, while the female models/textures stay the same.

[milestails 264]

Like the blood addition to Peragus

 

Finally realizes its potential as a horror survival level

[MrPhil 58]

This looks wicked! Finally, a Peragus Textured mod that's gonna be compatible with Canderis's great idea!

 

And that blood looks great! Makes sense too, that at least a part of them be beaten to death by the assassin's sticks, rather than having been all cut down (hence the no blood part) by Darth Lucien.

Edited September 14, 2013 by MrPhil

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

 

There are obviously those who do like those armors, many do not. Although I don't have any problem with them, I usually play the game as a female, and while I'd mostly use this mod, I'm editing the vanilla textures for my own mod at the moment.

 

As for adding model variations, unlikely, unless we had the same tools that Obsidian had when making the game. The few columns that were added to the appearance.2da obviously weren't there in K1, since the Model/Texure variation columns stop at I in that game(which is the Revan/Star Forge Robes). The only way to do this would be to replace the M models, which obviously causes the issue that there is no model comparable to Bandon's that will fit females. Though the M models and textures could only be replaced for the males, while the female models/textures stay the same.

 

I wasn't going to touch the female version, as though it can be improved, it still works. The male one doesn't and seems like it was based off of the female one.

 

I'm often quite puzzled as to why such things were hard-coded by Bioware for K1, and carried over into TSL. It seems that this is a completely unnecessary limitation to have for a game engine. At the very least, you would think you could go straight on up to Z in way of model / body variations. Yet for some reason they decided that you could only go up to I..? And my puzzlement doesn't stop there, as I find the whole 2da references a bit on the idiotic side. Why am I setting up NPC appearances via a 2da when I should be setting up these options via a utc file instead. Take Fallout 3 or Skyrim, you set up all the appearance stuff like model, textures, body / animation set to use, stats, equips etc, within the NPC's data file. I'm pretty sure that is how it was in Morrowind as well -- an old game of the same time of KOTOR.

 

I guess you could chalk it up to legacy code from NWN and the first amateurish attempts at coding an RPG game engine, but, I suspect that they still do things this way with ME3 as well.

 

Like the blood addition to Peragus

 

Finally realizes its potential as a horror survival level

 

So far it is just the Republic soldiers that have been changed along with the Maintenance officer. All the other bodies use a generic dead body placeable, in order to replace these I would need to do something similar to what Varsity Puppet did with his Peragus mod, except I would be using placeables as opposed to what I take it to be NPC characters set to being dead. Though there are some issues with the script, as I would be initiating it differently, the big problem is that unlike the Republic soldiers and Maintenance officer, where there are existing models to edit, there are none for the rest. So in order to make them look better than they currently do, I would need to make these essentially from other models -- miner uniform and NPC heads. Not sure how involving that will be to do, as I figure it would requiring getting acquainted with the "bones" (animation) skeleton in order to move the mesh about without having to do it all manually vertex by vertex.

 

It's something I'd like to do, but, I kinda wanted to have an update release by now...

[Rtas Vadum 17]

I wasn't going to touch the female version, as though it can be improved, it still works. The male one doesn't and seems like it was based off of the female one.

 

I'm often quite puzzled as to why such things were hard-coded by Bioware for K1, and carried over into TSL. It seems that this is a completely unnecessary limitation to have for a game engine. At the very least, you would think you could go straight on up to Z in way of model / body variations. Yet for some reason they decided that you could only go up to I..? And my puzzlement doesn't stop there, as I find the whole 2da references a bit on the idiotic side. Why am I setting up NPC appearances via a 2da when I should be setting up these options via a utc file instead. Take Fallout 3 or Skyrim, you set up all the appearance stuff like model, textures, body / animation set to use, stats, equips etc, within the NPC's data file. I'm pretty sure that is how it was in Morrowind as well -- an old game of the same time of KOTOR.

 

I guess you could chalk it up to legacy code from NWN and the first amateurish attempts at coding an RPG game engine, but, I suspect that they still do things this way with ME3 as well.

 

Although I haven't really done anything to mod Oblivion myself(at least not making any mods of my own), I gather that you can add a NPC to the game with a single esp file, containing every bit of information the game needs to spawn it with the appropriate race, class, birthsign, location within a cell, etc, even giving the character a large dialouge and a quest, as long as it uses Oblivions resources - where as with KOTOR, if you want to add an NPC, you have to add entries for them in at least three 2da files(portraits, heads and appearance), deal with the head models and textures for that NPC, make a utc file for the npc, alongside adding scripts to the game that will spawn the npc in the desired location(which requires coordinates. Along with likely a few other things as well. Oh, and if you want them to walk about the area? You don't have pathgrids, and thus you'd have to plot the route yourself, and hope it works as you want.

 

I'd imagine that this technical flaw with KOTOR(or more appropriately it's engine), is due to the fact that upon release, save for patches, it's meant to be complete. With the TES games, while I don't know about Arena or Daggerfall, every one since Morrowind has had expansions or DLC. I know that Dragon Age and Mass Effect has such added content as well, but I'd imagine that it just installs itself upon download, and with that, it's added to the game. I know that with Oblivion, if you don't like say the Shivering Isles or Knights of the Nine? One click and you don't have to see any of that content in the game. I'd imagine it's just like this for Morrowind and Skyrim.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

Although I haven't really done anything to mod Oblivion myself(at least not making any mods of my own), I gather that you can add a NPC to the game with a single esp file, containing every bit of information the game needs to spawn it with the appropriate race, class, birthsign, location within a cell, etc, even giving the character a large dialouge and a quest, as long as it uses Oblivions resources - where as with KOTOR, if you want to add an NPC, you have to add entries for them in at least three 2da files(portraits, heads and appearance), deal with the head models and textures for that NPC, make a utc file for the npc, alongside adding scripts to the game that will spawn the npc in the desired location(which requires coordinates. Along with likely a few other things as well. Oh, and if you want them to walk about the area? You don't have pathgrids, and thus you'd have to plot the route yourself, and hope it works as you want.

 

I'd imagine that this technical flaw with KOTOR(or more appropriately it's engine), is due to the fact that upon release, save for patches, it's meant to be complete. With the TES games, while I don't know about Arena or Daggerfall, every one since Morrowind has had expansions or DLC. I know that Dragon Age and Mass Effect has such added content as well, but I'd imagine that it just installs itself upon download, and with that, it's added to the game. I know that with Oblivion, if you don't like say the Shivering Isles or Knights of the Nine? One click and you don't have to see any of that content in the game. I'd imagine it's just like this for Morrowind and Skyrim.

 

It's an unnecessary flaw to have as part of your engine. That's the part I don't get, why hard code this limitation at all..? Why stop at I or N when you could go to Z..? Why even stop there in that you can then check to see if the next character is a number or letter, if a number, then that donates a sub-model or body variation to the base model. That way you aren't using up D, E and F for the 3 light armor body variants. These sub-models can then go up to Z as well, and if you really want, you can just keep on going until you hit a number, which then tells the engine that this is a texture variant of that (sub-)model.

 

Being "complete" has absolutely nothing to do with it at all, these are hardcoded for what I can tell is no good reason at all other than to make the game harder to mod and to make developing the game more of a pain the arse. As far as I can tell, only an egotistical idiot would code it this way -- which there are many in game development .

 

I have to be frank, some of what I've read from the KOTOR / TSL modding community seems rather naive due to my experiences with other level and world building tools. This assumption that this is the way you "mod" a game because people haven't tried to mod any other game and  don't seem to know any better; in that there are good reasons NOT to mod a game that way.

 

If someone asked me what game to mod for a first project, I wouldn't tell them to go with KOTOR or TSL -- especially if you're not strong at programming. Modding these is more along the lines of hacking, with most of the modding in way of quests at least, dependent upon your ability to script -- even if you want to place something simple like a container within a module. I would actually suggest one of the Bethseda games, as though their tools along with those developed for the community, may be buggy. They at least have some decent tools; trying to achieve the same things, will likely take you at least 3 times longer and not be anywhere near as good due to all the limitations in place. Furthermore, you are correct, all of the mod changes / additions -- beyond the asset files -- are stored in an ESP patch file; and objects are instanced rather than unique objects being stored within a module's rim file. It makes finding and editing things much easier, especially as you can easily find out what else something uses or what uses it and how many times. Then it's a simple double-click to load it up within the editor -- a proper integrated editor that allows you to edit pretty much everything, not a collection dated tools only allowing you to edit some things. More importantly, it shows the game world in 3D for world building and quest scripting. And if you make a change to a module (or dungeon) in most cases, you don't need to load up a save game where you haven't visited it yet, as the level data gets updated and you can also use various debug commands to reset variables.

 

There are limitations, but they are few and even then there are ways to get around much of it via scripting.

[InSidious 234]

You can add columns to existing .2da files using TSLPatcher. I haven't tried it, but would it not be possible to add the necessary extra columns to appearance.2da that way, as well as altering the necessary information in baseitems.2da, etc.?

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

Being "complete" has absolutely nothing to do with it at all, these are hardcoded for what I can tell is no good reason at all other than to make the game harder to mod and to make developing the game more of a pain the arse. As far as I can tell, only an egotistical idiot would code it this way -- which there are many in game development ....

 

 

....More importantly, it shows the game world in 3D for world building and quest scripting. And if you make a change to a module (or dungeon) in most cases, you don't need to load up a save game where you haven't visited it yet, as the level data gets updated and you can also use various debug commands to reset variables.

 

There's so many idiotic things you said in that post.

 

So idiotic, I simply can't write a single word....

Pictures say more anyways.

 

 

EDIT: Are you going to do any more texture changes that aren't just contrast/color/overlay tweaks?

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

There's so many idiotic things you said in that post.

 

So idiotic, I simply can't write a single word....

Pictures say more anyways.

 

 

EDIT: Are you going to do any more texture changes that aren't just contrast/color/overlay tweaks?

 

You want to explain your post to me?

 

Seems like I hit a nerve, and with your edit, you are ridiculing me.. Is that the case?

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

 

You want to explain your post to me?

 

Seems like I hit a nerve, and with your edit, you are ridiculing me.. Is that the case?

 

No and no. I just asked a question.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

No and no. I just asked a question.

 

I don't care if you're a "staff reviewer," I don't even care if you own this site. You don't call me an idiot on my own WIP thread, belittle my work, Varsity Muppet .

 

There's your answer.

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

I'm not belittling your work. I've just noticed that most of your texture changes are more or less contrast/color/overlay changes. Is this not true?

 

Of course there are some new things you changed and that's good. But you can't deny that a lot of it is just minor tweaks.

 

I am however saying that you should stop whining about the lack of tools we have to mod here. There is no development suite that we get to make expansive mods. We all know modding here is not like other communities.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

Actually, you're mistaken, and by painting my work that way, using the wording you're using. You ARE belittling my work. It takes a lot of tweaking and testing even for what I would consider "simple" texture changes in order to get something that is effective.

 

I don't care for your opinion. You don't think much of my work, you don't like what I write, that you think it is just "whining." Then just don't read it instead of making an arrogant belittling comment based on who you think you are.

 

I think you should just not post to this thread anymore, Varsity Muppet. You're comments are not welcome .

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

I don't want this to be an ongoing saga, changes make this brief.

 

1. I'm sorry for calling you a whiner. It was inaccurate. I am, however glad I did because the alternative would have warranted a lot of Preparation H.

 

Because of the butthurt. Ultimately, some of the comments you made on modding and developers are off base. This doesn't irk me, but I suspected you might have a bit of an ego.

 

And this is true, since you refuse to admit that you are mostly just making contrast and color changes. I'm not saying it's bad (don't you remember back a few pages when I praised your work?) but I would like to see some new things from you. I assumed that they way you carried yourself, that you would have a wider skill set. And you do! But you're not using it a whole lot.

 

2. You do know you sound arrogant for assuming any comment made not praising your work is automatically negative, right?

 

3. My official parody name is VarsityMUFFET. Not Muppet.

 

VP out. If I want contrast changes I'll just go do them myself.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 97]

Wow... What an apology.

 

I know I have an ego, that's why I refrain from posting on others work for the most part. For fear of writing something like what you just did, Varsity Muppet .

 

Patronizing, arrogant and ultimately belittling.

 

And you're wrong, I hardly touch contrast most of the time, not to mention color. Not saying I don't, just saying that you're a muppet who doesn't know what they're talking about if all you think I do is adjust the contrast, color and use the odd overlay most of the time to get my results.

 

And I don't need a "pep-talk" from you or for you to tell me what I am capable of; so spare me your farce of sincerity, especially when the first thing you start with is calling me an idiot, and the last thing you end with is to belittle my work by pretty much saying it is worthless.