KotOR II High-Res Icon Suite

[LiliArch 115]

I thought TSLRCM fixed the thing by editing the corresponding .2da entries, not by dumping the icon files into the Override. The separate icon fix downloadable, on the other hand, uses the icon files. I may remember wrong, though.

[Kexikus 995]

I thought TSLRCM fixed the thing by editing the corresponding .2da entries, not by dumping the icon files into the Override. The separate icon fix downloadable, on the other hand, uses the icon files. I may remember wrong, though.

You're right about that. But those two fixes don't rrsult in The same outcome. I don't remember the difference though, I thinkit was discussed in The icon fix mod thread.

 

Also amazing Work with those icons. Thes certainly make the Game look netter.

[Sithspecter 909]

Excellent work going on here! I hope that a KotOR 1 version will be in the works as well.

[DarthParametric 3,783]

K1 should use all the same base icons, shouldn't it?

[Sithspecter 909]

KotOR 1 does indeed use most of the same icons, although they are colored differently to blend with the GUI. I wouldn't think a KotOR 1 icon pack would be difficult to derive from the icons Nomnisang is already creating.

[LiliArch 115]

And changing the colours for K1 shouldn't be that difficult, if you've already created them from the scratch. If you decide to do that, of course.

 

Also, I forgot to say in my previous post: the icons look good to me, too. Keep it up.

[DarthParametric 3,783]

they are colored differently to blend with the GUI.

Ah yeah, the blue vs green thing. You should be able to set up a batch job in PS fairly easily though to automate a colour correction and export.

[Nomnisang 23]

Actually, the way that I'm doing things now, I expect that it would be easier for me to make a Hue/saturation adjustment layer and save both icons, rather than automate a batch.  Doing it this way means that if I want a a gray-value gradient, I can place it above the layer.  If I just do an automate action, it would take those gray values and make them sage green or blue.

 

Aside from this, the only problem I see with doing this for K1 is the UI scaling it does.  The menu screens are locked to a tiny resolution.  It would definitely be worth doing the icons that make it to the combat queue.

[Fair Strides 509]

Okay, with the Weapons Finesse Icon fix mod, it swaps the texture names.

TSLRCM swaps the textures used in the feat.2da.

 

If you use these mods together, you'll make it vanilla again...

[Jorak Uln 458]

@Nomnisang:

 

the icons look great! 

and actually they are very easy to get into the game:

 

1.Download Kotor Tool.

2. open ERFs Texture Packs

3. open swpc_tex_gui.erf

 

here at i_  you find all talents, 

and mostly on g) the different gui elements.

 

4. just rename you retextured files exactly like shown in Kotor Tool. Then flip them vertical (Kotor1 +2 flips most files) and put them into Override folder. Done!

 

 

Im looking forward to this project - are you planning to do the gui interface as well?

[Nomnisang 23]

 

Big thank you to Rece.  Thanks to his video tutorial, I was able to get KotOR Tools working on my mac.

 

I tried the attack icon in the game.  This is a test icon, and not the final image.  I tried it at 128x128, and it looks fairly good at 2560x1600.  Unfortunately, my game takes a hit to FPS at my max resolution, so I've included a third image for what the icon looks like at 1600x1050, and the image suffers a bit.  For those of you wondering about 512x512; I didn't see a noticeable difference in quality in game.  I'm going to keep experimenting for the time being, and try getting a few more icons into the game.

 

Edit:  Further Testing

 

 

After further testing, I'm pretty sure that 512x512 looks jaggier in-game than 128x128.  I might have to eliminate 512 as a size for now.  I'll test 256x and 64x and see how the game handles it at a later time.  If, however, someone finds a way to up the size that icons are rendered in-game, 512x might be viable.  The current size of the icons when the game is running at a widescreen HD resolution leaves a lot of unnecessary negative space, and I would love to find a way to bump up up the icon size.

 

I'll also note that while the image files for feats are TPCs in game, I'm currently saving my icons as Targas, as TPC doesn't seem to be a format that Photoshop supports.

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

A thought... there are a few mods out there that add new force powers. Might icons be created for those too? I imagine people here could chime in with links to specific mods. (I'd do so myself but I'm on my phone right now. )

[DarthParametric 3,783]

TPC doesn't seem to be a format that Photoshop supports.

It's Bioware's own format for Aurora/Odyssey. I assume it is their customised version of DDS. Exporting as TGA is fine. Icons are so small that format should be of no real consequence.

[Nomnisang 23]

A thought... there are a few mods out there that add new force powers. Might icons be created for those too? I imagine people here could chime in with links to specific mods. (I'd do so myself but I'm on my phone right now. )

 

While that might be something I'm interested in doing down the line, I've yet to scratch the surface of all the icons for the game's original feats and force powers.  This is a topic that I'd be willing to come back to further down the line.

 

Edit:

 

 

Tested the Flurry icons in KotOR I.  Unfortunately, the game is very low resolution without  widescreen fix, and I don't have a widescreen fix available to me at this time [the woes of trying to be a Mac gamer].  If anyone else is interested in testing the icons, let me know.  So far, I've discovered that imgur won't host Targa format, and after trying to attach them to this post, I've been chastised by the forum gods.

[Jorak Uln 458]

While that might be something I'm interested in doing down the line, I've yet to scratch the surface of all the icons for the game's original feats and force powers.  This is a topic that I'd be willing to come back to further down the line.

 

Edit:

 

 

Tested the Flurry icons in KotOR I.  Unfortunately, the game is very low resolution without  widescreen fix, and I don't have a widescreen fix available to me at this time [the woes of trying to be a Mac gamer].  If anyone else is interested in testing the icons, let me know.  So far, I've discovered that imgur won't host Targa format, and after trying to attach them to this post, I've been chastised by the forum gods.

one thing, the new icons have a black background, but if you watch the vanilla ones below, they dont - any chance you can make the back transparent?

[Nomnisang 23]

one thing, the new icons have a black background, but if you watch the vanilla ones below, they dont - any chance you can make the back transparent?

Yeah, that's something I've been trying to figure out.  I've never worked with a Targa before.  I was hoping that they would be like PNGs, and that I could save them as interlaced, but that didn't seem to work.

 

Tomorrow is my off day, so I plan to spend some time making more icons.  Hopefully I can figure it out by then.

[DarthParametric 3,783]

You need an alpha channel to define transparency. Black is 100% transparent, white 100% opaque. Save the TGA out as 32bit.

[Jorak Uln 458]

Yeah, that's something I've been trying to figure out.  I've never worked with a Targa before.  I was hoping that they would be like PNGs, and that I could save them as interlaced, but that didn't seem to work.

 

Tomorrow is my off day, so I plan to spend some time making more icons.  Hopefully I can figure it out by then.

if i understand correctly, that you just want to convert the .tga files into .png? 

Well thats simple. Install XnView for Linux & convert them.

 

Out of curiosity, i dont work with Photoshop, but how do you work on these? Can you import images? 

And im not sure - regarding color brilliance - how precise the alpha channel method is - is it possible to select only the shape of the feat and cut it on a transparent background?

[Kexikus 995]

It's actually pretty simple to make alpha channels in Photoshop. All you have to do is make a selection of what you don't want to be transparent (in this case the icons), then go to "Save selection" and save it as a new one called "alpha 1". If you save the image as .tga with 32bit it'll have the alpha channel and the background will be transparent ingame.

 

About the resolution:

I feel like 512 would be overkill, so I'd go with either 128 or 256 depending if there is a noticable difference seen ingame. And if you do K1 128 would certainly be enough as the GUI doesn't scale at all with the screen resolution.

[Nomnisang 23]

if i understand correctly, that you just want to convert the .tga files into .png? 

 

Actually, I can open a .tga [short for Targa] in photoshop without any issues.  I've been working on these for a bit and saving them as PSDs.  It's only now that I have access to KotOR tools that I'm experimenting with Targa's.  My issue is that so far, when I save a Targa, it saves the icon with a white background.  It could be as simple as fishing for some box that needs to be left unchecked while saving, but I haven't figured it out quite yet.

 

Out of curiosity, i dont work with Photoshop, but how do you work on these? Can you import images? 

And im not sure - regarding color brilliance - how precise the alpha channel method is - is it possible to select only the shape of the feat and cut it on a transparent background?

 

 

Well, I start with the original sprite.  I refer to it continuously throughout the process for color accuracy, proportions, and overall fidelity.

 

Next, I open in in photoshop, and magnify it to a size where I feel comfortable.  Throughout the process, I'll use the dropper to sample colors from the sprite.  This really helps with the icons fidelity.

 

 

Next, I create the assets.  For something simple like the arrow, I'll create the shapes, and edit them with the transform tool until I have something I like.

 

After that, I'll select each of the layers I'm using to build the new assets, and go under layer>Objects>Convert to Smart Object.

 

 

Once I'm at this point, I'll go under Layer Styles and start messing with Color Overlays, Gradient Overlays, and Strokes.  Even Strokes can use gradients.

 

The great thing about this is that if I'm unhappy with an asset, I can still edit the Smart Object.  I can go back in and mess with it until I'm happy.  If I have multiples of this particular smart object in the image, they'll automatically update after I'm done editing the smart object.

 

For something more complex like the Blaster, I might have to break out the pen tool, or reference an item icon.  I tend to avoid the pen tool if at all possible.

 

Does that make sense?

[Nomnisang 23]

It's actually pretty simple to make alpha channels in Photoshop. All you have to do is make a selection of what you don't want to be transparent (in this case the icons), then go to "Save selection" and save it as a new one called "alpha 1". If you save the image as .tga with 32bit it'll have the alpha channel and the background will be transparent ingame.

 

I'll need to look into this.  As for how to select this stuff, it would probably be easier to selected the areas that I want to be transparent, then invert the selection [shift+Cmd+i].

 

Edit:  Crap.  I meant to add the quote to my last post;  I had no intention of double-posting.

 

Edit2:  I might as well put this post to use.  Here's the Critical Strike Feat Chain.

 

 

Here's the new Attack icon

And here's Power Attack.

Edit 3:  Did a little more testing.  256 looks better than 512, but I still think that 128 holds up better overall.

 

 

The difference thus far is close to negligible, but I feel that 128 ends up being better optimized.

[Nomnisang 23]

I think I've made more than a reasonable number of additions to that last post.  This will make it a triple post.

 

Weapon Focus:  Lightsaber

[Xuul 224]

I have to say this. You are very talented, seem to be good at explaining what you are doing and work quickly.

 

Great work!

[DarthParametric 3,783]

256 looks better than 512, but I still think that 128 holds up better overall.

Looks like more blur in the 128 to me. I guess it depends on personal preference. For myself, I'd rather the 256, at least on that minor evidence.

[Nomnisang 23]

Looks like more blur in the 128 to me. I guess it depends on personal preference. For myself, I'd rather the 256, at least on that minor evidence.

I'll keep experimenting and see what works.

 

Finally started messing around with alpha masks in .tga's.  I've never needed to use this kind of format before.  I tried dropping PNGs into the override folder, and of course the game didn't use them.

 

 

So I did a quick mockup.  At this point, I'm really glad I keep my original documents, because if I had to remove those individual pixels by hand I'd give up now.  Truly, though, I'm happy with the results.  These critical strike icons are at 256x256.  I still think that 128 scales better, but that's just me.

 

Also; to whoever it was at Bioware who decided that icons should use Targa's:  Why?!?