Customization Suite

[doboy 7]

This mod has 3, potentially 4, different parts. It does most of these by replacing the workbench interface from a computer terminal to a conversation.

 

The mod allows you change armor skins which unlock when you pick up a new piece of armor. For example, if I am wearing a jedi robe and a pick up a dark jedi robe, I could replace the jedi robe skin with the dark jedi robe skin, retaining the original item name and properties. It's kind of like a dye system, so you're are not tied to an ugly armor just because of it's stats. Personally, I think it's a little incongruous that you can equip red light sabers. Meanwhile, the dark side has a patent on black fabric.

 

You can also toggle headgear on and off. Pretty self-explanatory.

 

The third part, which I'm still working on, allows you to replace and upgrade new lightsaber hilt models regardless of color crystals. The custom models function the same as regular ones. There is a little trick to do this, but it does have drawbacks.

 

The last part would add options for switching out character textures. I realized that many party members have static character models and wouldn't be eligible to change armor skins. It would just be something like alternate appearances. I'm not too sure on this one because it would require a lot of appearance.2da changes and would cause compatibility issues with other mods.

 

Here's a rough demo of what I've got so far.

https://youtu.be/lqIigPoWi-8

 

Pretty much everything works on a small scale, I just haven't smoothly implemented all the features into the game yet, because I'm not quite finished. So there are a couple of drawbacks to the system that I thought were tolerable enough to accept. You have to reapply the upgrades from the previous armor if you change skins. There will be a notification of the previous upgrades before you hit apply so you don't have to memorize them though. Not too much of a big deal. You can also only upgrade the items that are equipped on your character or present party members. I don't really feel good about it, but that's pretty much all I do anyways. But It's necessary for the lightsaber hilts to be swapped out. Basically since I can know the hilt of the lightsaber the player is changing or upgrading, I can just replace color crystals in the inventory with it's hilt analog. I haven't come up with a way to smoothly implement the hilt styles in the game yet though.

 

I have a nagging feeling that I'm wasting my time on this thing, so I wanted to know what y'all think.

[xander2077 80]

This is a very interesting concept. What would make it better is if there were a lot of different textures for each body type, perhaps even using textures intended to overwrite each other as alternates by renaming them to give more variety. especially if the new textures that are replacers are different from each other significantly.

 

I'm not sure if this would conflict with other mods or not, but it is definitely not a waste of time.

[doboy 7]

Thanks, I kind of went down the rabbit hole with this and started questioning whether it is actually worthwhile.

 

I'm not sure I'm understanding correctly, but you can use all the texture variations that exist for each armor in the game. The video above just shows 2, but when the dialog tree is filled out, there are about 8 different texture variations for that particular armor, Mandalorian Combat Suit. Some armors have more variation options because Obsidian/Bioware used them more often, like jedi master robes which have 14 different variations. I'm reluctant to redo the textures because it's a lot of work to retexture that many items. There are also other pretty good retextures and model replacement mods out there that I'm pretty positive would be compatible since I've only edited .uti files. Not sure if this is what you were talking about though lol.

 

I don't know what to do with the lightsaber situation, though. That's my biggest problem.

[xander2077 80]

Well . . . I was not talking about retexturing them. I plan on doing some updated variations at some point in the future, but that would not be necessary for you to release the mod, and it would be fairly simple to integrate multiple variations later by simply doing the edits and including them in addition to the vanilla variations texture names. so if there is a variation that departs wildly from the vanilla, it can be added in addition to the existing vanilla texture names by changing the texture name to the next highest number sequence and adding it to the 2da and uti. (from how I understand it) and this would open up a lot of possibilities for variation. This could also enable one to choose between two different textures that are supposed to replace the same vanilla one but are so different from each other and the vanilla that they kind of warrant being additional textures in their own right. I can’t remember the body type that most people use for armor retextures, but that class has so many additional texture variations it is ridiculous, and you could possibly integrate all of them just by editing the file names and adding them all to the uti and 2da.

 

Now as far as the lightsaber problem, I’m kind of a noob when it comes to editing any scripts or game files besides the models and textures, so I would not know where to begin there, but I am sure there are a lot of experienced modders here who you can talk to for suggestions.

[doboy 7]

Hmm... So you're talking about adding new texture options aside from the vanilla ones? I believe this is possible. Personally I don't really have the time to create my own (or want to), but they could be implemented if you, or anyone else, decide to make some cool ones. I'd gladly include them.

 

At it's core, that part of the mod is really not intuitive in the slightest though. Basically there are new .uti's for all of the combinations, so there is some overkill (8 variations = 64 .uti combinations). But the .uti's are only 2kb max and the edits pretty much take less than a second to do. Just a minor annoyance, and I've already done the hard work.

 

As far as lightsabers go, I don't have too much of a problem getting them into the game and such. I'm honestly just lowkey wondering if anybody would want to help. I can do it myself, and will if need be, but creating an arsenal of lightsabers and textures by myself is exhausting because I'm not too experienced with modeling. I've been messing around with this for far too long lol.

[xander2077 80]

Well in the future, some day I would like to add some ancient light sabers and even a force saber or two, and these will be new models. However, there are a plethora of saber hilt models all over the place already made up for other mods and it would simply be a matter of finding them, contacting the mod creators, and then asking if they can be used in your mod.

 

Some of those modders are still active members here, and some have taken a break from modding.

 

Some of the saber hilts are already made up and released as modders resources but never used in a mod.

[doboy 7]

Yeah I'll probably start doing that. The idea got me thinking that it would be cool for this to be a sort of community mod compilation. The mod, currently, is really just a 3d interface for swapping textures, models, and the like. It could maybe be developed more as an in-game mod selector. Probably not realistic but an interesting thought at least.

[jc2 581]

This sounds like a great idea! Has there been any news about it?

[doboy 7]

This sounds like a great idea! Has there been any news about it?

Yeah I took a little break, but I'm going to start to work on it again. Luckily I have a proof of concept for each of the parts, so I know everything is possible.

 

I have to model and texture some lightsabers. There are (should be) 9 different, distinct sets of lightsabers. I don't want to overload the player with options and it seems a reasonable amount to unlock over the course of the game. Also, in my experience, there are only so many ways to model a tiny little cylinder that are really unique from another. The styles are generally inspired by existing lightsabers from the movies and games. The really cool thing is that every style can be changed to any color. And when you unlock a style, you can change any lightsaber you have to that style be it a double-bladed and a short saber. 

 

I've basically modeled 9 of the single bladed variants, so I have to model their double-bladed and short counterparts and texture them. I still have to figure out a good way to progressively unlock the lightsaber styles throughout the course of the game. I would also love to include a party member alternate appearance since a good amount of them can't take advantage of the changing armor skins part. I don't have the time or will to make new character textures though. I might search around and see if I can gather enough existing character textures to make it worthwhile. If anybody happens to have some or make some, I will welcome them with open arms lol. But for now it seems like a hassle.

[jc2 581]

Glad to hear you haven't given up on it ^^                 Will this be compatible with tslrcm?