PFHC05 Head Port from K2 to K1

[DarthVarkor 384]

Hey guys,

Would it be possible for anyone to port the player head PFHC05 from KOTOR 2 to K1? Also, if this were possible, would this mod then be compatible with it in K1?

 

Thanks!

[DarthParametric 3,785]

The textures from that other mod would be compatible in layout, but would not be a case of simply dropping in the Override folder - at least assuming you wanted to leave the existing K1 heads intact. K1 already has a PFHC05, so unless you plan to replace that, you'd have to rename the TSL PFHC05 into something else, then rename the textures accordingly. Of course if you just want to outright replace K1's PFHC05 then that makes things simpler. Any TSL PFHC05 texture mod would be a straight drop-in override just like they would be in TSL.

[DarthVarkor 384]

So say if I were to outright replace K1's PFHC05, all I'd have to do is replace it with TSL version/ TSL reskin mod?

[DarthParametric 3,785]

I was talking purely about using 3rd party reskins. The head model needs to be recompiled for K1. You need to decide whether you want it to replace K1's PFHC05 or have a new designation.

[DarthVarkor 384]

Just now, DarthParametric said:

I was talking purely about using 3rd party reskins. The head model needs to be recompiled for K1. You need to decide whether you want it to replace K1's PFHC05 or have a new designation.

Ah right. Okay, I'll go with replacing K1's PFHC05, what next?

[DarthParametric 3,785]

I've tried recompiling it with both MDLEdit and MDLOps, but I'm getting some shading issues at the mouth corners not present in the original model. I've tried it with the original smoothing groups and creating new ones but the issue persists.

The other thing I realised is that it's still not drag and drop for 3rd party texture mods anyway, due to the differences between portrait names and DS transitions in K1. You'll need to remove the leading 0 from the portrait filenames, and adjust both DS transition and portrait names to account for K1's DS transitions going D1, D2, D3, D.

 

You can test out this version while I try and resolve the model issues - https://www.darthparametric.com/files/kotor/k1/[K1]_TSLs_PFHC05_Ported_To_K1.7z

[DarthVarkor 384]

3 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

I've tried recompiling it with both MDLEdit and MDLOps, but I'm getting some shading issues at the mouth corners not present in the original model. I've tried it with the original smoothing groups and creating new ones but the issue persists.

The other thing I realised is that it's still not drag and drop for 3rd party texture mods anyway, due to the differences between portrait names and DS transitions in K1. You'll need to remove the leading 0 from the portrait filenames, and adjust both DS transition and portrait names to account for K1's DS transitions going D1, D2, D3, D.

Thanks for this, man. Think I get what you mean regarding the 3rd party texture mod. What would be the next step with fixing the shading issues?

[DarthParametric 3,785]

I'll play around with it, but it probably requires input from @bead-v and @ndix UR on what might be done.

[DarthVarkor 384]

2 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

I'll play around with it, but it probably requires input from @bead-v and @ndix UR on what might be done.

I appreciate it, thanks for your help so far!

[bead-v 251]

4 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

I'll play around with it, but it probably requires input from @bead-v and @ndix UR on what might be done.

The position where the dark patch originates from is shared by four verts in the node, some of which belong to the outside of the face, while the others belong to the box inside the mouth. If you make the box inside the mouth a different smoothing group, the issue goes away.

Basically, the tools are in this case not able to get the correct SGs from the normals during decompilation and assign the same SG to all the faces sharing the verts, causing smoothing between faces that are facing opposite directions, which ends up looking like a dark patch.

The conversion of vertex normals to SGs is an imperfect process (basically a bunch of guesswork), so not much can be done about it on that level, besides taking a lot of time to think of another algorithm, implement it and hope it works. I still think the best solution is to start putting SGs into the model directly, so we won't need to guess them from the normals on the models that were already recompiled once. But this still requires discussion.

[DarthParametric 3,785]

Ah, I never would have thought of that. I split the lips out as a separate smoothing group, but the mouthbox was presumably still sharing the same group as the rest of the face. I'll compile a fixed version of the model and test it out.

[JCarter426 1,215]

I've had that problem as well. Generally the inside of the mouth is a separate element, so I select that and then give it a new smoothing group (usually what it has +10). Have to do that for the inside of the mouth and sometimes the nostrils, and I do the tongue to be safe too. Same deal if you have a mesh with faces close together, like each side of a piece of cloth.

I don't think any KOTORMax/MDLEdits are a priority here. It would certainly be more convenient if it actually got all the information on a decompile but I've gotten used to double-checking all the smoothing groups on the models because they often have bad smoothing from the start. No tool update will fix that.

[DarthParametric 3,785]

OK, fixed. Redownload from the link posted above.

Weirdly I got some odd bug with the danglymesh hair looking like the diffuse/ambient wasn't set at 1.0, even though they were. Had to go back and decompile the earlier version.

[DarthVarkor 384]

6 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

OK, fixed. Redownload from the link posted above.

Weirdly I got some odd bug with the danglymesh hair looking like the diffuse/ambient wasn't set at 1.0, even though they were. Had to go back and decompile the earlier version.

Thanks, DP. I'll check it shortly!

[DarthVarkor 384]

Can't notice any issues - looking pretty good on my end: