Some modding ideas and questions for the community.

[xander2077 80]

I have been delving into the game models a lot lately, and there are some things i always wondered about.

Now it seems to me that there are some models that never got fully implemented, or perhaps could be utilized a bit differently.

One is the belts. I cant remember right off the top of my head but i think that a lot of the items have a spinning animation and these belt models were intended to not only do that but appear in the upgrade workbench. I could be wrong but i think it would be kind of cool.

But not only that, has anyone tried to make the belts a wearable item? Im not even sure how that would be pulled off, since there is no "belt hook" on the body types, and it would probably clash with any drawn in belts on armor and robe textures. just an idea i was thinking about. (im pretty sure the belts themselves would have to be grafted into the various armor and robe types which would then increase the number of body models exponentially)

Then there is the light collar. it has to be cheated in, but there is a model for it and it probably was intended to spin somewhere in the inventory or upgrade bench. But that is easy to make a wearable, just may not look right the way the model is.

Finally there is an unused mask texture, that is called I_Neuralband.tga, and i was really curious if anyone has ever found ,in a separate location in the game archives, a model that goes to this mask texture. It lines up with almost nothing. It sort of works on a couple of the models but doesn't.

 

I think it was the prototype texture for the Neuralband2 design, and the model was scrapped but the texture remains in the game. I do have plans to create a model that will work with this texture, but i am not sure yet how i will make it look. It is hard to judge what the appearance should be, and it is definitely trying to reverse engineer something with no clue about the shape or dimensions.

 

From what i can tell the model structure seems to be something similar to the light collar, but different, to the aural amps, but different... and even a few elements of the actual neural band that made it into the game, but not quite. My first guess is they are goggles, and i have a hunch some of the textures were intended for the inside where the player cant see them, like all the other masks/goggles (yes they do have this level of detail  for some reason, maybe for the spinning animation? can you imagine why? maybe a K1 FPS?). And this also lends credence to the thought that maybe all the headgear was also originally intended to be upgradeable.

 

So anyway, i guess the question is, since K1 and K2 share the same mask models, has anyone ever found a model yet that goes to that texture? It may not be in the items.bif, but it could have been put somewhere else that i am not aware of on accident/purpose/oops.

[Malkior 472]

I am glad you are among those that noticed this.

 

Kotor also has textures and models for the computer spike, gloves, and even credits. I like to imagine that Bioware had far more immersive plans for the character equipment models, but it either looked tacky, (I mean, the belts are bright magenta and armor is neon yellow in some cases...) 

or they just ran out of time and had to cut it. It would be worth it to me if someone went crazy and added a bunch of hooks for gloves, belts, and items, but it would be quite the undertaking. 

 

 

[Edit: I considered it, and they could have used the various models as placeable items in equipment shops, but I like to think of what could have been..=P ]

[xander2077 80]

im not sure if those can be added quite right with a belt hook. the hands is even more complicated because the models are not set up to even be that way, so that would definitely be a texture swap for hands. but even that is complicated in this case. for the armbands or the forearm shields, those would have to be additional models over any existing body model arms. i think the rule is one texture per mesh so they cant be in the same mesh, but i am not sure if they can be in the same mdl or not. so those may be something that can have a hook added and actually work but im not sure.

 

and then there is the issue of them overlapping the belts on robes and armor.

 

if they were already integrated then it would be easy as pie, but the models seem to only be for the turtable view in the inventory/uprgade bench.

 

thats why i was thinking maybe they could be used in a visible manner on the character, if higher detailed versions were grafted into the skinned models in some way and then separated into their own object so they can reference the correct texture file.

 

for the unused texture, i have no idea what i will do. i made a nice model but the texture does not work on it like i had hoped, so i have to approach it from a diffferent angle, perhaps more like some welding goggles. i can always reuse that other model for a new set of googles.

 

as far as the colors go, they can be changed to be more pleasing to the eye, but based on the same design elements as vanilla. however whether they will line up with the models they need to texture is another thing.

 

really it boils down to the limitations of the engine. it may not like new hooks on body models or heads. it may go haywire and reject them or even crash in the attempt.

 

then there is an issue with how to handle the belts. if they replace the existing drawn on belts or existing mesh belt parts on models, then those have to be added in as default belts somehow as well as new items in their own right. which can be done in the inventory view, but might be a handful on the actual characters.

 

the reason this is an interesting concept for me is because if it works in some form, then it might enable a whole new range of items, and enable some wearable antique sith or jedi artifacts that would otherwise be very hard to recreate in a believable manner.

 

somthing like this will be largely trial and error, so until i have proof of concept, there is no way to know what will happen.