SKIN:TSL Backdrop Improvements

[Mutilator57 140]

Awesomely-quick bug-fixing!

[Guibaesa 15]

Jus tested the fix, it works perfectly fine. Thanks

But, i'm afraid think I encountered other problems with the mod. Xd

 

The red and blue glowing smoke that appears when Visas is meditating in her chamber have also disappeared due to this mod.

 

Sorry to be the one always bringing the bad news, but there is one more thing

 

On the upper level of the Ravager, there are sections of the map, close to the bridge where the illumination changes when you cross the door to another section. It goes from very dark to normal light in a second.

 

The sections with this problem are in the red circles:

 

 

Can you take a look on it please?
 

Edited July 11, 2017 by Guibaesa

[Kexikus 995]

I can confirm the second bug. My guess would be that it's a similar issue to the fire bug and I'll check that later today or tomorrow.

 

However, I cannot reproduce the bug in Visa's chamber. I don't have any smoke there independent of whether I use the mod or not. Are you sure it's this mod causing the change?

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Do the Visas meditation VFX only appear when you first go there? I can confirm that loading a save from the end of that deck on an unmodded Steam version I see no VFX in that room.

[Mutilator57 140]

Do the Visas meditation VFX only appear when you first go there? I can confirm that loading a save from the end of that deck on an unmodded Steam version I see no VFX in that room.

Well I just tried on my game and the VFX was there. Admittedly, it was a heavily modded save but crucially, NOT one with this mod installed.

[Kexikus 995]

Well I just tried on my game and the VFX was there. Admittedly, it was a heavily modded save but crucially, NOT one with this mod installed.

 

I tried with a TSLRCM only save in the gog version and the VFX was not there WITHOUT this mod installed. So this might very well be another issue.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Well I just tried on my game and the VFX was there.

At what point though? Does it persist after Visas does her meditation? Post a save with the VFX active for others to test.

[Guibaesa 15]

I can confirm the second bug. My guess would be that it's a similar issue to the fire bug and I'll check that later today or tomorrow.

 

However, I cannot reproduce the bug in Visa's chamber. I don't have any smoke there independent of whether I use the mod or not. Are you sure it's this mod causing the change?

 

Absolutely, that smoke that is in Visas chamber was there before I installed the mod, after I installed it, it disappeared.

 

I loaded a save back in Citadel Station before entering the Ravager just to be sure. the problem persists.

 

In the cutscene when she goes to speak to Nihilus about a disturbance in the force, this smoke is still there, but the smoke that should be when she meditates near the end of the game has disappeared.

[Kexikus 995]

So that smoke is only visible in cutscenes? Or is it always there when going to the chamber?

 

And can you please do what DarthParametric asked and post a savegame that has the smoke?

[Guibaesa 15]

So that smoke is only visible in cutscenes? Or is it always there when going to the chamber?

 

And can you please do what DarthParametric asked and post a savegame that has the smoke?

 

The smoke only appears on in-game cutscenes (you know, when an event happens in game and you dont have any control of what is happening), when Visas is meditating.

 

Here is an example:

 

[Mutilator57 140]

And can you please do what DarthParametric asked and post a savegame that has the smoke?

No need to be snappy, I was just about to get to that - I do have a life you know. I was a bit reluctant to post a save because as I said, I have used *a lot* of mods and am using an old version of TSLRCM (I haven't really gotten around to updating it) + since I haven't done a full playthrough in ages, I didn't really have a save anywhere near the Ravager (the closest was on the Ebon Hawk barely after finishing Korriban - my first planet) so I had to warp there; I didn't really think that under such circumstances, my save would be useful but whatever.

 

Anyway here is a save just before her chamber.

000127 - Game126.rar

[Kexikus 995]

No need to be snappy, I was just about to get to that - I do have a life you know. I was a bit reluctant to post a save because as I said, I have used *a lot* of mods and am using an old version of TSLRCM (I haven't really gotten around to updating it) + since I haven't done a full playthrough in ages, I didn't really have a save anywhere near the Ravager (the closest was on the Ebon Hawk barely after finishing Korriban - my first planet) so I had to warp there; I didn't really think that under such circumstances, my save would be useful but whatever.

 

Anyway here is a save just before her chamber.

 

Sorry. I didn't intend to sound snappy :/ In fact my comment wasn't even directed to you, but to Guibeasa as I was hoping he might also be able to provide a savegame.

Anyway, thank you very much

[Kexikus 995]

The latest version is now uploaded. All reported issues are fixed.

 

Thanks for reporting them Guibaesa, thanks for the savegame Mutilator57 and thanks for fixing them DarthParametric and bead-v

[Todd Hellid 16]

Can I just copy this over the original one?

[Kexikus 995]

Can I just copy this over the original one?

 

You can copy the latest version over 1.1 and 1.2. If you prievously had version 1.0, you can also copy the new one on top of it but you then need to remove 851nih.are and 852nih.are from your Override.

 

This was also the case for updating from 1.0 to 1.1 or 1.2. So unless you never had 1.0 or already deleted these two files (e.g. by doing a new installation), you have to do that.

[Mutilator57 140]

Sorry. I didn't intend to sound snappy :/ In fact my comment wasn't even directed to you, but to Guibeasa as I was hoping he might also be able to provide a savegame.

Anyway, thank you very much

I probably overreacted to your comment anyway. Besides, it's difficult to convey tone through text. 

 

Glad everything is sorted now; time to download the new version!

[Guibaesa 15]

The latest version is now uploaded. All reported issues are fixed.

 

Thanks for reporting them Guibaesa, thanks for the savegame Mutilator57 and thanks for fixing them DarthParametric and bead-v

 

Thanks, it was a pleasure.

 

Excellent work, everyone.

 

MTFBWU, always.

[SalaciousCrumb 23]

Hi, I'm experiencing a problem with one of the backdrops on Peragus II:

 

Mods I have installed:

TSLRCM 1.8.5 (Mod DB version)

Unofficial TSLRCM Tweak Pack 1.2.2

High Quality Blasters 1.0

Darth Sapien's Mandalore (HD Reskin)

HD Darth Nihilus 1.00

HD 2K Visas Marr 1.0

TSL Backdrop Improvements 1.3

4k Atton 1.0

Canonical Jedi Exile 1.2

Ebon Hawk Cockpit Fix 1.0

TSL Animated Galaxy Map 4.1

 

I've installed all of them manually to ensure there are no conflicts, so none of those mods are from Steam Workshop.

[Kexikus 995]

Thanks for reporting this. I found the issue. It's a missing alpha channel on a vanilla texture. To fix it for now, you can either use Trench's Peragus II replacement (highly recommended anyway) or use KotOR tool to extract the EBO_Per texture, rename that one to PER_Plnt01 and drop it in your Override folder.

 

My fix would be to have my custom model 151HARs use EBO_Per instead of PER_Plnt01. Obviously I can't just hex-edit that, so I decompiled the model again (as I seem to have lost some of the original files...), replaced the bitmap and compiled it. But for some reason that results in Peragus and the nebula behind it to vanish completely. Other parts of the model (i.e. the moving asteroids) are still there though. If anyone with more model experience could help me (again), I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

[bead-v 251]

My fix would be to have my custom model 151HARs use EBO_Per instead of PER_Plnt01. Obviously I can't just hex-edit that, so I decompiled the model again (as I seem to have lost some of the original files...), replaced the bitmap and compiled it. But for some reason that results in Peragus and the nebula behind it to vanish completely. Other parts of the model (i.e. the moving asteroids) are still there though. If anyone with more model experience could help me (again), I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

 

Well, you could hex-edit that you just need to make sure that the texture name is less than 32 characters, and that there's a 00 byte after the last character.

Edited July 23, 2017 by bead-v

[Kexikus 995]

Well, you could hex-edit that you just need to make sure that the texture name is less than 32 characters, and that there's a 00 byte after the last character.

 

Uhm, let me rephrase my issue with a complete description of the problem this time...^^

In vanilla there are two Peragus backdrop textures (EBO_Per and PER_Plnt01) and for some reason only one of them (EBO_Per) has an alpha channel to cut out Peragus without having a black square around it. When I created this mod, I had Trench's Peragus replacement installed which replaces both of these textures and has an alpha channel for both, so I never noticed that and used PER_Plnt01 for the new Harbinger backdrop model (151HARs). As long as one uses Trench's mod, that's fine, but most people probably don't and they'll end up with the black square shown in SalaciousCrumb's picture.

If I were to simply hex-edit my model to use a new texture that's neither PER_Plnt01 nor EBO_Per or if I simply did what I suggested above and replaced PER_Plnt01 with EBO_Per, I could of course fix the issue. But that would result in more work for someone trying to use my mod with Trench's Peragus texture, which is why I'd rather use the correct vanilla texture instead (like I did in all other places).

[bead-v 251]

But that would result in more work for someone trying to use my mod with Trench's Peragus texture

 

Trench's Peragus replacement installed which replaces both of these textures and has an alpha channel for both

 

Considering the second quote, I don't get the first one If Trench updates both, then your new model should be fine even if it references the other texture, no?

 

 

which is why I'd rather use the correct vanilla texture instead (like I did in all other places).

 

So, in the end, you've decided not to edit the model at all, you'll just add an alpha channel to the texture? (This makes the most to me as well, if I understand the issue correctly.)

[Kexikus 995]

Okay, let me try again^^

 

There are two vanilla textures: EBO_Per (with alpha channel) and PER_Plnt01 (without)

 

I accidently used PER_Plnt01 on one of my models, resulting in the black square SalaciousCrumb described.

 

To solve this, there are multiple possible solutions:
 

1. Giving PER_Plnt01 an alpha channel and including it with my pack. That seems really unnecessary, considering that EBO_Per already does that and would also result in a conflict with other mods editing PER_Plnt01 (like Trench's). That conflict would of course be solved by simply using the texture from the other mod instead of mine, but not having that conflict at all would still be a better solution.
2. Hex editing my model to use a new texture, that's also just a copy of EBO_Per. Once again, that's a really ugly solution considering that EBO_Per already exists and would also cause even more issues with mods editing the Peragus backdrop as it's very unlikely that they also include my new texture, thus requiring extra work for the user to get the replacement texture in this scene instead of the vanilla one.
3. Editing the model to use EBO_Per. That's what I want to do, since it requires no new texture and will be perfectly compatible with any mod altering the Peragus backdrop texture. The problem is that I can't just hex-edit the model to get from PER_Plnt01 to EBO_Per as their names don't have the same number of characters. And since I somehow lost my original files, I had to decompile the 151HARs model from my mod, replace PER_Plnt01 with EBO_Per and recompile it. But for some reason, that didn't work as it made both Peragus and the orange nebula vanish. And this is why I asked for help, as I've no idea what's causing this (my guess would be mdlOps though).

I hope that's clear now

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

You have my permission to include the relevant texture if you properly credit Trench. If that makes your life easier, Kexikus.

[bead-v 251]

The problem is that I can't just hex-edit the model to get from PER_Plnt01 to EBO_Per as their names don't have the same number of characters.

 

But that's what I was telling you in my first post, you can

 

You just need to make sure that you add a 00 byte (written as \0 below) after EBO_Per. So if the hex looks like this:

P E R _ P l n t 0 1 \0

.. and you change it to this:

E B O _ P e r \0 0 1 \0

 

.. it's fine. The game will only read the name until it encounters a 00 byte. Anything that comes after 00 is irrelevant. BUT, the field only has space for 32 characters, so the name has to be less than 32 characters long.

 

EDIT: Note, the 32 character limit doesn't apply to all strings. For example, object names and flare texture names cannot be made longer than they are, but they can be made shorter. The 32 character limit also holds for emitter strings (except chunkname is 16), the mesh bitmap and bitmap2 (lightmap) textures, event names, reference model names, model name, supermodel name, animation names, animroot names.

Edited July 23, 2017 by bead-v