SWTOR-Style Zakuulan Exile's Blaster

[DarthParametric 3,783]

Those that have played the latest SWTOR expansion Knights of the Fallen Empire will be familiar with new companion Koth Vortena and his kind of fancy blaster. It has an animated blade attachment that extends when the weapon is drawn with some sort of electrical FX. Koth uses a blaster rifle, but as of the latest Cartel Pack they have also made blaster pistol and sniper rifle versions available as well. I decided to do up a version for KOTOR.

 

Here's the blaster rifle version in SWTOR:

 

 

 

And here's the WIP so far of my version:

 

 

It looks like they started with a Mauser C96 that was the basis of the BlasTech DL-44 (Han Solo's blaster) but then chucked a bolt-action rifle on top of it. Then added an under-slung retractable machete for good measure.

 

I won't be doing the blade extending/retracting animation seeing as you can't holster weapons in KOTOR, but I'll see what I can do with the electrical bit.

[milestails 264]

Exciting stuff! Love seeing TOR stuff in KotOR.

[DarthParametric 3,783]

Tweaked some of the proportions and added the underslung blade:

 

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

Considering that it had an electrified blade, it would be interesting if you could wield as both a ranged and a melee weapon.

[DarthParametric 3,783]

I could try adding some bonus slashing damage to it perhaps. Would that even work for a ranged weapon?

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

Not sure. I am also not sure what the animation for swinging it would look like.

[DarthParametric 3,783]

I think the modelling is mostly done, just need to make a couple of minor tweaks.

 

 

I played around with the electrical arc thing and got something working. A guy on DeviantArt made some lightning bolt PS brushes, so I used those to make the basic shapes, added some glow and colour overlay, then went through a few iterations to create a handful of suitable frames of animation. Then I employed the same trick that lightsabers use, a star-shaped array of planes:

 

 

It's actually hard to get a close-up look at it in the game, but here it is in the TSL workbench interface:

 

 

And if you want to test if you have epilepsy:

 

 

 

[LDR 234]

You, sir, are a miracle.

 

Bravo! Bravo! This is spectacular.

[Sithspecter 909]

Now let's see it get animated!!

[DarthParametric 3,783]

I need to make some colour adjustments and play around with the alpha for the envmap, but I think the texture is more or less done:

 

 

 

Now let's see it get animated!!

The blade? As I said above I don't have any plans for that. Could you get it to only extend at the start of combat and retract at the end? You wouldn't want it constantly animating while firing. Same deal as a lightsaber I guess, but could you manage the same for a blaster?

[redeemer6666 9]

Wow that is truly awesome work, I do reckon it could be animated though.

 

Not sure how but like you said through thorough examination of the Lightsaber animations it do believe it could be done.

[DeadMan 103]

Could you get it to only extend at the start of combat and retract at the end? You wouldn't want it constantly animating while firing. Same deal as a lightsaber I guess, but could you manage the same for a blaster?

I believe it's possible, but you'll also need to edit baseitems.2da to make it work. Just set "powereditem" to 1 for it's row, and it will use powerup/powerdown animations if they are in the model. You can also sounds for blade extending/retracting

[Todd Hellid 16]

That looks awesome. When will you release it?

[DarthParametric 3,783]

I might not be able to release it at all. I'm getting crashes when equipping it in both TSL and K1. The weird thing is in TSL it works fine in one old save, but in another new save it causes a crash when equipped. In K1 I can see it in the workbench, but equipping it causes a crash. I have no idea what the cause is at this point.

 

Edit: OK, I think I solved it, looks like it was enabling shadows on the base trimesh that was causing it. I created a low poly shadow mesh and that seems to have fixed it based on a few quick tests. I gather it was not generating shadows in the workbench interface, hence no crash there, although I have no idea why it worked fine in one TSL save and not another.

[Sithspecter 909]

 

The blade? As I said above I don't have any plans for that. Could you get it to only extend at the start of combat and retract at the end? You wouldn't want it constantly animating while firing. Same deal as a lightsaber I guess, but could you manage the same for a blaster?

 

I think animating the blade would be within the realm of possibilities. A while back I made a sword that retracted into the hilt, and it worked alright: http://deadlystream.com/forum/files/file/712-yinchorr-dueling-sword/

 

The blade operation was actually very similar to what you have. If you want, I'd even be willing to take a crack at it.

[DarthParametric 3,783]

So I took a crack at it. The animations themselves are pretty straightforward. Here's a slowed down version of the power up and power down:

 

 

The weird thing though is that it's not exporting any position/rotation/scale data. I noticed that other models also seem to have keys for the AuroraBase, so I added some and it exported key values for it fine, but nothing else. For example:

 

 

 

newanim off w_pwrblstr_001
  length 0.5
  transtime 0.25
  animroot w_pwrblstr_001
    node dummy w_pwrblstr_001
        parent NULL
        positionkey
            0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
            0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0
        endlist
        orientationkey
            0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
            0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
        endlist
    endnode
    node trimesh DP_Zak_Blaster
        parent w_pwrblstr_001
    endnode
    node dummy bullethook
        parent DP_Zak_Blaster
    endnode
    node trimesh SHADOW
        parent DP_Zak_Blaster
    endnode
    node dummy Blade_Root
        parent DP_Zak_Blaster
    endnode
    node trimesh SPARK_PLANE
        parent Blade_Root
    endnode
    node trimesh Knob
        parent Blade_Root
    endnode
    node trimesh Blade
        parent Blade_Root
    endnode
    node trimesh SHAD_BLADE
        parent Blade
    endnode
doneanim off w_pwrblstr_001

 

 

I've never messed around with custom animation export. The animations are all set in the AuroraBase and look to be fine. I did try the Bake Animation function in NWMax, but it complained about a scene not being allowed more than one AuroraBase (which there isn't, so I don't what it is talking about) and created a key every frame that resulted in a 0 byte export. Any suggestions?

[redrob41 86]

that is looking pretty awesome.

 

One way that you could have it as both a melee and ranged weapon is to have two versions of it (two models and two uti). A player can equip one into each of the weapon slots so that they can swap between the two. Maybe it could be collapsed when being used as a rifle, but then the blade animation could happen when you switch to melee? The big question then is what type of melee to make it; stun baton (for spearing) or double bladed sword (for slashing)?

 

The only real downside is that a player could choose to give the ranged weapon to one character and the melee to another.

[Sithspecter 909]

 

I've never messed around with custom animation export. The animations are all set in the AuroraBase and look to be fine. I did try the Bake Animation function in NWMax, but it complained about a scene not being allowed more than one AuroraBase (which there isn't, so I don't what it is talking about) and created a key every frame that resulted in a 0 byte export. Any suggestions?

 

 

The only way that I got my sword to work with animations was to import an existing KotOR model into 3DSMax with animations, and use that AuroraBase to export. What I would recommend is to bring a quarterstaff model into 3DSMax using MDLOps 0.6a and NWMax, and then animate yours based on the AuroraBase's animation sets. Rename the AuroraBase and then export.

 

Another thing to note is that the scale animation might not work...I'm not 100% certain on this. Let me know if it works or doesn't, because I'm curious.

 

One last thing that's essential to allowing this to work: you'll need to open up baseitems.2da, and find the row of whatever baseitem you are making this (or make a new one), but the column titled "powereditem" needs to be set to 1. You could also add sounds if you like.

 

Let me know how this helps, I think this will be pretty awesome!

[DarthParametric 3,783]

Ah, yeah that works. I wonder what the issue there is? Must be some hidden value in the AuroraBase or something. Got a slight issue where the little knob thing is offset for some reason, so it is floating out in space. I can probably just merge it back into the blade mesh seeing as the only reason I split it off was for the little "locking" animation, but you are never going to see details that small in-game. Otherwise it seems to work pretty well:

 

 

Now I just need to make some sounds for it. I'm just using the saber sounds at the moment to test it was working.

 

It didn't export any scaling keys for the arc planes btw. Although that's what saber blade planes use, so it should be possible. Doesn't seem like it is visible inside the blaster body when sheathed though, so I guess it's not a big deal.

[Sithspecter 909]

Awesome!! Looks great! I'm glad you went for the animation and all!

 

Not sure what the deal is with the knob? Maybe seems like a pivot point issue. Oh, and I do remember that the scale keys work. I played around with those when I made the crossguard lightsabers.

[DarthParametric 3,783]

Not sure, the pivot should be fine. I ran a Reset XForm on it after splitting it off and centering the pivot. Could just be typical MDLOps screwiness. I'll have to play around with it.

[Sithspecter 909]

Yep, gotta love those mysterious little quirks that the tools put out.

[redeemer6666 9]

Awesome you got it working! 

 

Well done buddy its looking great

[DarthParametric 3,783]

Hit a snag. I was preparing to release it and went to get some screenshots when I discovered a bug/issue. In a save I loaded where it was already equipped, the blade was permanently stuck in the extended position, and wouldn't retract when idle. I couldn't fix it by flourishing, swapping weapons, or even unequipping and re-equipping. I loaded an older save before it had been equipped, and the animations played fine in that, so something must happen when saving after being equipped.

[Fair Strides 509]

Hit a snag. I was preparing to release it and went to get some screenshots when I discovered a bug/issue. In a save I loaded where it was already equipped, the blade was permanently stuck in the extended position, and wouldn't retract when idle. I couldn't fix it by flourishing, swapping weapons, or even unequipping and re-equipping. I loaded an older save before it had been equipped, and the animations played fine in that, so something must happen when saving after being equipped.

Or could it be like the old lightsaber thing where you had to go load a different level and flourish it?