Misc TOR Ports

[DarthParametric 3,782]

I figured I'd post some pics as I mess around with various TOR stuff, figuring out what works and what doesn't.

I posted these in a status update the other day:

And here's the latest experiment:

But those bloody envmaps, ugh. So terrible. They ruin everything.

Edit: Although @Darth_Sapiens' CM_baremetal replacement is a lot nicer:

Edit 2: Sapien's CM_SpecMap is arguably better again. Shiny, but not an overpowering mirrored chrome:

[L0ki194 82]

While I'm not too big on TOR's artsyle (or maybe just the way that game looks), I've gotta say, it's nice to see those models in KOTOR's engine. Interested to see what else gets ported. Also hyped for the Revan mask being ported, because that would be really nice to have. Do you think it'd be possible to have it replace the vanilla model in the cutscene where Revan takes the mask off?

[Kainzorus Prime 205]

/silently hoping for Eradicator armor.

[A Future Pilot 161]

Where can I get those CM_Baremetal and CM_SpecMap versions?

[N-DReW25 1,336]

13 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

 

I'm going to sound stupid asking this but aren't those K2 Sith Commandos? I haven't played TOR so I might not be recognizing a TOR Sith Soldier or something.

[Sith Holocron 2,477]

11 minutes ago, N-DReW25 said:

I'm going to sound stupid asking this but aren't those K2 Sith Commandos? I haven't played TOR so I might not be recognizing a TOR Sith Soldier or something.

It was one of the outfits that you could get from the Cartel Market in SWTOR.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

9 hours ago, L0ki194 said:

Do you think it'd be possible to have it replace the vanilla model in the cutscene where Revan takes the mask off?

Yeah the plan was to replace the vanilla mask. Like the Eradicator mask I'll have to make a new backface for it, as in TOR it's always used with the full head covering.

8 hours ago, Kainzorus Prime said:

/silently hoping for Eradicator armor.

Don't get your hopes up. Anything with capes or other flappy bits is probably too much trouble to deal with.

2 hours ago, N-DReW25 said:

aren't those K2 Sith Commandos

I think they are meant to be, yeah. In TOR it is called "Restored Triumvirate" armour.  But it's more like a K1 Sith Trooper body with a TSL Commando-style helmet. I was thinking of doing a variant using the vanilla K1 helmet. Could probably do one with the vanilla TSL helmet as well.

6 hours ago, A Future Pilot said:

Where can I get those CM_Baremetal and CM_SpecMap versions?

From here:

 

 

[Sith Holocron 2,477]

15 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

I think they are meant to be, yeah. In TOR it is called "Restored Triumvirate" armour.  

I think they were trying to replicate this concept art.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Trying out a new Republic officer uniform:

Although of course that introduces a bunch of new problems with holograms:

I'll have to lop off the arms at the shoulders and have them as separate meshes. Not sure what to do about the neckline. Either the neck shows through the collar, or the collar shows through the neck, depending on hierarchy order.

I'm also not a fan of the boots. I think I'll swap them out for something more suitable.

[Jorak Uln 458]

@DP:
regarding the envmaps earlier in this thread i found out a trick lately.  Basically you can use ANY jpg/png etc. picture as envmap. The important part is, when - lets say - looking at Sapiens Cubemaps; they all have a .txi file with the entry "cube 1" added.

E.g.  the Baremetal.tga also got a baremetal.txi. But when you now delete the baremetal.txi, and only use the baremetal.tga,  Kotor/TSL doesnt recognise it as cubemap while it acts like one  ingame  - and it works wonders with shiny surfaces.

In general less contrast between the different colors in the picture is better to get a matte  shine,  by adding a bit gaussian blur to the picture.

What you might wanna try out is to make the dirt, screws areas non-reflective on the Triumvirate armor for further fidelity.

Other than that, im really hyped for your project - it would be totally awesome to see more of not only the Kotor armors  but some of the other iconic armors & jedi robes replacing the outdated vanilla
K1/TSL ones.
 

[ebmar 893]

30 minutes ago, Jorak Uln said:

@DP:
regarding the envmaps earlier in this thread i found out a trick lately.  Basically you can use ANY jpg/png etc. picture as envmap. The important part is, when - lets say - looking at Sapiens Cubemaps; they all have a .txi file with the entry "cube 1" added.

E.g.  the Baremetal.tga also got a baremetal.txi. But when you now delete the baremetal.txi, and put in any jpg from the internet converted to tga, Kotor/TSL doesnt recognise it as cubemap but ingame it works wonders with shiny surfaces.

Thanks for sharing this, Jorak Uln! and I like to add some points in case some didn't know before; it is also possible to make a envmap "unique", to prevent conflicts with an already present vanilla CM. For example: we could just name the CM_Baremetal.tga and .txi of Sapiens' pack with MyCM.tga and MyCM.txi [try to make sure the .txi parameter is set as "Cube 1"] and link it with textures that will use it by setting the waypoint of envmaptexture to MyCM. So, this envmap will only applied to textures linked with MyCM, as for others, they are still using the vanilla CM_Baremetal for the envmap.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

I think I have most of the hologram issues sorted out now, at least within the limits of what is practical with the engine:

I've also added a ceremonial sash, similar to what is painted on the original K1 Saul uniform, but this one is an actual 3D mesh (swiped from the TOR Imperial Officer model):

I'll do a female version for Admiral Dodonna in K1, although her hologram version might be a pain. K1 did holograms differently to TSL.

I was thinking I can also do a plain version with no shoulder bars and changed up rank insignia for the captain, nav officer, etc.

Edit: Added the Cede and captain versions:

Although I've since gone back and also removed that black block on the collar. Still haven't swapped the boots yet though.

Now on to converting the female model.

[superSzym 155]

Wow! The Republic Uniform is absolutely awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing a female version - can we expect a consistency mod for K1 with a new admiral for Forn Dodonna. Also, high quality Sith Troopers seem great, although I think TOR model is too bulky.

[Kainzorus Prime 205]

In the vein of the Republic, perhaps some ports of their TOR trooper armors? Would nicely even out the gear with the Sith Troops, rather than having the Galactic-scale military look like they're proto-rebels, especially with the idiotic half-egg helmets.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

17 hours ago, superSzym said:

can we expect a consistency mod for K1 with a new admiral for Forn Dodonna

As I said above:

On 7/14/2018 at 6:13 PM, DarthParametric said:

I'll do a female version for Admiral Dodonna in K1, although her hologram version might be a pain. K1 did holograms differently to TSL.

 

 

12 hours ago, Kainzorus Prime said:

perhaps some ports of their TOR trooper armors

Like the full-on Clone Trooper stuff? While I like the look of some of it, it has never really struck me as lore-appropriate for the period.

 

Edit: I've converted the female version, at least for TSL:

 

 

 

 

You can see the occlusion conundrum in the last two videoes. In the current hierarchy configuration, the arms properly occlude the legs when crossed in front of the body. Yet as a result they are also visible through the legs when behind the body. If you change the hierarchy to fix the second animation, then the legs are visible through the arms in the first animation.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Dodonna in action. Seems like she has some claw hands going on though, might need to play around with that (or even just try and swap out the gloves for a native KOTOR mesh - damn fingers are hell).

     

 

 

[superSzym 155]

Wow, Dodonna looks freakin' cool! Isn't she taller than previously? She always made me laugh in vanilla because she seemed so small and whatever it is, just new proportions or new height, is definitely an improvement. What I am not convinced of, though, is the utilization of the same uniform for naval admirals as well as for officers of a low rank. Although rank distinguishment by the panel on the breast and other little details is quite neat, generic officers also appear as army commanders on the field of combat. 

The biggest problem are still the Republic Troopers, though. They look like they're wearing pyjamas in KotOR and so looks the vintage Republic Trooper armor in SWTOR. In SWTOR, though, Republic Troopers already look like they're wearing clone trooper armors. IMHO, this would be the best look for them:

But it can't really be done by porting. There was once a project to make them look in such way on Deadly Stream, but it has gone dead.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

21 minutes ago, superSzym said:

Isn't she taller than previously?

Probably shorter, if anything. The source female model was scaled and skinwrapped to the K1 Dodonna model, so the body is more or less the same, but the point of attachment for the head is a bit higher in the K1 model.

21 minutes ago, superSzym said:

What I am not convinced of, though, is the utilization of the same uniform for naval admirals as well as for officers of a low rank

Aside from special ceremonial exceptions. I'm pretty sure every single military force has had consistent officer uniforms, with the only real distinction being various badges of rank.

21 minutes ago, superSzym said:

But it can't really be done by porting

Not necessarily true. I believe you could cobble together something along those lines from TOR body parts. It would probably require custom textures though.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Playing around with some of the Jedi Knight visors. I think they will be good replacements for some of the vanilla masks:

         

 

         

I haven't adjusted the textures yet, so they are still their default (mostly) brown. I also need to add some glow meshes for the first one, like you can see in the second and third ones. I think I'll also use an envmap for the lenses, give them a bit of reflection. Perhaps the first two could also have their lenses changed from black to something more bluish like the other two.

[Vriff 21]

Wow, these look great. Are you having to do a lot of editing to get them to work in KOTOR/TSL? Just wondering an idea of how much work is involved in each piece.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Depends on the specific model. Something like a mask isn't typically too much work. Mostly repositioning and scaling the mesh to suit. Although in order to make effective use of KOTOR's self-illumination for the emissive parts of the texture, extra geometry typically needs to be added. This might be editing the original mesh and then repairing the UVs, or creating entirely new meshes. This is because self-illum is set per-mesh, so unless the majority of the texture is black then the entire thing will glow.

For heads, as well as repositioning/scaling there needs to be a lot of mesh work to deal with KOTOR's limitations. That means splitting out the eyes, mouthbox/tongue, and teeth as separate meshes. Then the whole thing needs to be skinned to KOTOR's rig.

Bodies are probably the biggest pain, because they are in more of a modern-style A pose. So as well as just scaling, the arms need extensive repositioning to match the KOTOR rig. Once that is done they then need to be skinned to the KOTOR rig.

In addition to that, a more general issue with the import scripts is that its implementation of generating smoothing groups results in a mess that needs to be cleaned up. I think this is probably due to the way the mesh is split, so the first step is welding and then re-generating smoothing groups, manually assigning them where necessary.

[ebmar 893]

12 hours ago, DarthParametric said:

Playing around with some of the Jedi Knight visors. I think they will be good replacements for some of the vanilla masks:

Yes! Please made them available for K1 also. 😁

Quote

Spoiler

         

 

         

I also need to add some glow meshes for the first one, like you can see in the second and third ones. I think I'll also use an envmap for the lenses, give them a bit of reflection.

How will you manage to use two envmap in one item? I mean, if I follow your plan 100% correctly, you were planning to add some glow meshes [which pointing to the use of CM_Bright] and then use an envmap for the lenses for a bit of reflection [which could be a CM_SpecMap].

[DarthParametric 3,782]

No, the glow is via self-illumination, Odyssey's implementation of emissive. Similar to how emissive in other engines works, it multiplies the texture via some colour value (typically only greyscale in vanilla models, but you can use RGB values). However, unlike in other engines, KOTOR's self-illum does not make use of an emissive mask, so the entire mesh with the self-illum flag will glow. This is why you typically need to split the emissive sections out into their own mesh.

That's why they came up with using CM_Bright, as an alternative way to fake emissive where the pattern is far too complex to split out as a separate mesh. But as you say, you can't combine that with other envmaps.

Here's how I've done the self-illum meshes for that first visor:

Only the mesh with the lights uses self-illum, so the rest of the model is not affected.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Some additional masks:

    

I still need a few more, particularly for the full face masks, but I have enough to start trying to figure out what replaces what. I plan to edit UTIs to point to the new models, rather than just overwrite the vanilla models. That will allow for swapping things around a bit. Here's how the vanilla items are set up:

I figure the Eradicator mask in the first post is an obvious choice for the Sith mask, but I'm open to suggestions for which other items should get which model.

[ebmar 893]

2 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

Some additional masks:

Spoiler

    

 

Dang, those masks looks very old-school. 😂

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I still need a few more, particularly for the full face masks...

Yes! 🤪