TSL Darksaber

[JDub96 54]

So... while I do take the Clone Wars/Rebels canon with a grain of salt, I did enjoy the idea of the darksaber. However, since I acknowledge the EU as the true canon, it seems that Mira was the first Mandalorian Jedi on record. So I thought it might be interesting to have the Darksaber implemented in TSL for Mira's use. No idea if making such a lightsaber is actually possible on the TSL engine, but if anyone thinks it's a possibility....

[JCarter426 1,215]

There were mods that attempted it in the past, but it was never really feasible as you suspected. However, that may have changed thanks to recent tool updates. The main problem before was that it was difficult to compile a lightsaber model - it could only be done in a specific, limited way or else the blending mode of the blade would break, making the game render it behind things instead of on top of things. So we were mostly limited to changing the hilt and nothing else. But that has changed.

 

I've actually been thinking about making one. I haven't attempted it yet because I'm not a very good modeler and would need some practice before taking a shot at the hilt (the geometry isn't too complicated, but the texture mapping is a bit). But I do have a pretty good idea of how to make the blade.

 

The way I'd do it is I'd keep the existing saber blades, using a silver texture, and I'd add another mesh that would be solid black (illumination values set to 0). The trick is getting that to animate properly, but I believe that is doable with the new tools.

[Roth9 14]

I made one darksaber for TSL, the hilt is something between the darksaber of clone wars and rebels, the blade I was unable to make the same from both series, so I gave it a regular one but with a black color with white contour. I gave it to Mandalore and during the fight against Hanhar close to the ending I gave to Mira.

 

I will try to upload an image latter.

[JCarter426 1,215]

Here's my proof of concept:

 

[Domino5555 119]

Yeah, I watched it as soon as I got the notification from YouTube.

 

P.S. Who do you think the voice actress for the female PC is?

[Guest]

Here's my proof of concept:

 

That actually looks really good if you ask me, maybe these new tools can finally fix the blade tips too.

[JCarter426 1,215]

Well, I finished it!

 

I've submitted the K1 version (just waiting for administrative oversight now) and I'll probably send the K2 version along later today. Getting it into the game is a bit more involved because of bad file naming practices.

 

For future reference, I'll go over how I managed the blade. There are three key points that made it possible:

1. The Darksaber must have two sets of saber blades. One is for the black core, the other for the white outline. Past attempts in other mods have utilized a blade texture with both the black and white on it - which by necessity loses the additive blending that makes the sabers glow - or a black mesh for the core - which won't animate properly. Adding more blades wasn't really an option before, but it was made possible thanks to new tools. For my Darksaber, I simply cloned all the saber blades and changed the texture.
2. I noticed the blades on the game saber model w_lghtsbr_001 weren't quite right. Some of them were not saber objects, but rather plain old trimeshes. I believe that was causing some other blending problems. I resolved this by deleting the offending objects and putting proper saber objects (cloned one of the good ones) in their places.
3. The dark blades must be at the bottom of the model hierarchy. This part is key. The white set of blades has an additive property, so the white gets added to whatever's rendered behind it. Normally that would mean the white would be drawn on top of the black, rather than the reverse that we want. Or since the two sets of blades occupy the same space, there would be other issues such as Z-fighting. Putting the dark blades lower in the hierarchy is a sort of exploit to avoid all those problems. Objects with this additive property will be occluded by any objects that were rendered more recently, rather than blending with them. It's actually not supposed to work this way, but it does. That means if the dark set of blades is lower in the model's hieraarchy, the game will render the white blades first, then the dark blades, and hey, the dark blades set is the more recent one, so it'll be rendered on top of the white. To ensure the hierarchy order is the way we want it, we have to link the blades to the model base in order - first the white set, then the dark set. If you load the model in MDLEdit, you should see the dark blade objects way at the bottom. They must be below the white ones for this to work.

I hope that helps, hypothetical future people.

 

 

P.S. Who do you think the voice actress for the female PC is?

No idea.

[Arson Hole 29]

I think if you REALLY want this mod to stand out, make it restricted to certain characters For KOTOR 1, how about restricting it to the PC and Canderous only since they've fought in the Mandalorian Wars (if restricting items to certain characters is a thing in K1 anyway) and for TSL, restrict it to Mira and Mandalore since they're both Mandalorian and the PC doesn't have as much experience with Mandalorian fighting as K1's PC (and the TSL PC is buffed enough). You don't HAVE to do it this way, of course. It's just my silly personal opinion! <P

 

...wow I sound like a complete nerd, don't I? ._.'

[JDub96 54]

Not to push my luck or anything... but I don't suppose you were able to integrate the SFX the Darksaber uses in the Clone Wars?

[JCarter426 1,215]

No, that wouldn't be possible without making a new item type, and then you wouldn't be able to use Force jump with it, or deflect blasters, or receive bonuses from lightsaber feats.

[JDub96 54]

These new modding tools... are they capable of say... adding a new companion slot to the original amount?

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

These new modding tools... are they capable of say... adding a new companion slot to the original amount?

[jc2 581]

These new modding tools... are they capable of say... adding a new companion slot to the original amount?

Don't kill me though.....

 

 

No, it's hardcoded into the game how many companions you can have, in both games. But as always you can recruit other characters instead, going further off topic, would be neat to have some characters on the Ebon Hawk that were not officially companions, but still along for the ride. (basically what ME has).

[JDub96 54]

Sorry. I wasn't sure if it was necessarily off-topic since the tools were referenced earlier in the post, and I wasn't sure the question warranted a new thread of its own. Won't happen again... except this apology.

[Guest]

Don't kill me though.....

 

 

No, it's hardcoded into the game how many companions you can have, in both games. But as always you can recruit other characters instead, going further off topic, would be neat to have some characters on the Ebon Hawk that were not officially companions, but still along for the ride. (basically what ME has).

Aka what the Disciple should have been IMO.

[Roth9 14]

Well, I finished it!

 

I've submitted the K1 version (just waiting for administrative oversight now) and I'll probably send the K2 version along later today. Getting it into the game is a bit more involved because of bad file naming practices.

Just wanted to thank you. I have been wanting this hilt for some time, I even made one but yours is much better. So, thanks again.