Kotor 2 Movie Style Overhaul

[Jorak Uln 458]

@BekHavent revealed the Hawk yet. And what do you think about Manaan, Dantooine?

[Bek 9]

5 hours ago, Jorak Uln said:

@BekHavent revealed the Hawk yet. And what do you think about Manaan, Dantooine?

They both look great! I've been following this thread for a very long time. I'm very excited for the release of this mod, if you decide to release it.

My favorite thing about this mod is it makes the environments look distinctly different. I wish you the best of luck with this mod, and I hope your creativity remains high. I'll continue to follow your mod with great interest.

[Jorak Uln 458]

3 hours ago, Bek said:

They both look great! I've been following this thread for a very long time. I'm very excited for the release of this mod, if you decide to release it.

My favorite thing about this mod is it makes the environments look distinctly different. I wish you the best of luck with this mod, and I hope your creativity remains high. I'll continue to follow your mod with great interest.

Thank you, thats nice to hear!

Quantity-wise, the planets are all textured now, so you dont have to worry about the mod release.

However, there is still quite a lot of work regarding model editing, QC on the textures & performance Optimization to do - for example i'll hex different instances of textures to use the same name to increase fps..

Also, many textures still  need special attention to details like small lights etc. to radiate that Star Wars flair at every corner of the game.

[Hunters Run 57]

Looking very good. I think what @Bek  meant was that you can see part of the Ebon Hawk on one of  the Manaan pics.

3 hours ago, Jorak Uln said:

for example i'll hex different instances of textures to use the same name to increase fps..

I am unclear what you mean by this. Can you give me any examples?

[Jorak Uln 458]

1 hour ago, Hunters Run said:

I am unclear what you mean by this. Can you give me any examples?

quite simple - for example for  Telos you have  TEL_HW1, TEL_HW8, TEL_HW10 that use the same texture :

Instead of having the same texture loaded 3 times into Kotor, i hex edit the area model to have only one instance, lets say TEL_HW1.  That way visual quality is the same but it uses much less system ressources. Of course that goes for any modded texture as well. 

About the Hawk, its still needs a lot of polish, im thinking about giving it a matte metallic shell, but lets see how it turns out.  

 

[Hunters Run 57]

5 hours ago, Jorak Uln said:

quite simple - for example for  Telos you have  TEL_HW1, TEL_HW8, TEL_HW10 that use the same texture :

Instead of having the same texture loaded 3 times into Kotor, i hex edit the area model to have only one instance, lets say TEL_HW1.  That way visual quality is the same but it uses much less system ressources. Of course that goes for any modded texture as well. 

About the Hawk, its still needs a lot of polish, im thinking about giving it a matte metallic shell, but lets see how it turns out.  

 

Ah, I see. In that case why don't you just convert to ascii and use notepad++ to find and replace?

 

[Jorak Uln 458]

13 hours ago, Hunters Run said:

Ah, I see. In that case why don't you just convert to ascii and use notepad++ to find and replace?

 

How do you mean exactly?

When i tried out custom cubemaps, in MdlEdit 1.0.104B there was an option to rename texture instances; however, the texture rename didnt work after saving the file.

It only worked when i hex edited the mdl manually.

As it seems, you have another solution for this?

[Hunters Run 57]

What  I mean is that you save the model as ascii  in mdledit (cntrl-s for windows).

It should save to a chosen location with an .ascii extension. Go to where you saved the model and open it with notepad++. 

To use the example you gave me find and replace TEL_HW10 with TEL_HW1. 

Save your ascii and close it. 

Open your ascii in mdledit. You can check the textures if you want, but they should be changed. 

Save as a  binary (cntrl-b for windows).

Choose your location to save. 

Note: the binary will have an .ascii extension.  You can delete the  .ascii extension when you save the binary.

All in all, it should take an average of five minutes per model, although YMMV.

[Jorak Uln 458]

On 7/30/2020 at 7:38 PM, Hunters Run said:

What  I mean is that you save the model as ascii  in mdledit (cntrl-s for windows).

It should save to a chosen location with an .ascii extension. Go to where you saved the model and open it with notepad++. 

To use the example you gave me find and replace TEL_HW10 with TEL_HW1. 

Save your ascii and close it. 

Open your ascii in mdledit. You can check the textures if you want, but they should be changed. 

Save as a  binary (cntrl-b for windows).

Choose your location to save. 

Note: the binary will have an .ascii extension.  You can delete the  .ascii extension when you save the binary.

All in all, it should take an average of five minutes per model, although YMMV.

Thank you. I'll see if it can speed up my editing with this. 

---

 

[Jorak Uln 458]

Here some updated screenshots - its amazes me how much graphical improvement can be made with texturing alone, although adding custom lightmaps is something thats hopefully is doable later, too.

Recently created highly detailed heightmaps for a realistic look on (uneven) surfaces:

Vanilla texture:

recreated tex:

Ingame:

primarily used on Korriban:

misc planets:

Please give me a short feedback whether you like/dislike the new look and why.

[Natural Law 47]

By the Force! Do you want me to never stop playing Kotor?!

Such artistry.

Lehon at the cusp of dusk... Gorgeous.

Kashyyyk finally matching the aesthetic of the descent into the shadow lands. Brilliant.

The tiny sediment grain and tangible glyphs looking so good you want to touch them in the monastery? I'm sold. 

I suppose only the back entrance of the Sith Academy seems rather jarring, unfinished?

[Bek 9]

Literally nothing with the screenshots you posted. This is very fine work. I am anticipating your release

[KnifeMaster 33]

I have no criticism, except maybe the back door to the academy that @Natural Law mentioned. everything looks great, especially Lehon (and Dantooine... and all the rest). you've made K1 look so much better, while retaining much of the classic look and feel. I cant wait to see your work on Taris 😄

[Jorak Uln 458]

Thanks guys, glad you like my work!😀 Means a lot to me also for keeping spirits high to go through the non-fun stuff like redrawing textures. 

About Telos i still seeking inspiration regarding especially the lower & undercity / Daviks Estate. 

The Upper Apartments are almost done though:

I know the door is a tad too clean, but the texture model is totally messed up, so i cant promise to change it:

 

 

[superSzym 155]

Wow, this really gives Taris a new flavor. Looks tasty.

[Hunters Run 57]

Looking very good,  just one question:

19 hours ago, Jorak Uln said:

 

 

 

Is the door supposed to be transparent? 

[Jorak Uln 458]

1 hour ago, Hunters Run said:

Looking very good,  just one question:

Is the door supposed to be transparent? 

Yes, absolutely. It gives a bit of an exclusive touch  to the uppercity. As you see in earlier posted pics, i try to give every area a unique look, which may differ greatly even on the same planet. In Vanilla, everything is too conform to the point you dont really feel much of a difference.

[TSLforever 3]

Amazing work Jorak. Have not played the original KOTOR in over a decade (I'm a TSL guy 😁), but I simply must do so once this mod is ready to go!

[KnifeMaster 33]

Taris never looked so good o.o and I like the door lol. I suppose you could make the brown part slightly darker to make it look less "clean". or would that clash with other parts of upper Taris?

[Guest Sam Fisher]

I personally think the Taris door would look for spiffy the other way around, with the middle bit being transparent and the outlying bits being the opaque "metal" bits. 

But otherwise absolutely superb, between the eventual release of this and Kek's Skyboxes, we'll have KOTOR completely HD-ified. 

(Apart from the repeating NPC issue.) 

[Pramod Marlon 4]

All of these planets are looking so great! I'm especially loving your work on Taris and Lehon

[Jorak Uln 458]

Ive taken a break from modding for couple month to keep things fresh, however, there have been improvements for K2 that ive not shown yet. 

A lot of research regarding  a noise - friendly Implementation of reflective surfaces has been done - now the "shinyness" of textures is not "in your face" anymore like in the k1 complete overhaul series but depending on the surface itself - e.g. shine on brushed metal spots that are visible through a worn, rusty texture  can now be selected easily in most complex patterns & appearances.

Secondly, with that development added to the repertoire i redid Peragus completely and applying the method to places like Nar Shaddaa as well. Due to model editing every area looks different but planetwise conform.

I try also to maintain the original games color scheme when possible:

Some screens from the reworked Peragus:

New "Mustafar" wall concept:

Nar Shaddaa is also receiving treatment:

Before:

after:

New console:

Before:

After:

Tell me what you think, also about the Peragus "Mustafar" walls.

[achoota 3]

Peragus looks great. Really makes it feel like a dirty, gritty mining station, while still keeping close to the original feel. Too many vanilla areas are endless seas of grey panels.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you can do with the Trayus Academy (assuming it's on the agenda). It's always been the blandest looking part of the game to me and I've never found any retextures that managed to make it look good. 

[Jorak Uln 458]

On 1/16/2021 at 10:50 PM, achoota said:

Peragus looks great. Really makes it feel like a dirty, gritty mining station, while still keeping close to the original feel. Too many vanilla areas are endless seas of grey panels.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you can do with the Trayus Academy (assuming it's on the agenda). It's always been the blandest looking part of the game to me and I've never found any retextures that managed to make it look good. 

Thanks. 

I cant agree more! Compared to todays standards i cant even watch the old Kotor /especially TSL anymore.

The levels look so bland and unlike Star Wars, and even modded its harsh when you switch from e.g. Control to K2.

To aim for a realistic look i tried to emulate a lot of assets from the Mandalorian series lately , which seems to be the better choice  to get a natural looking result than when orienting on games like BF2 & FO.

The Trayus Academy will be last on the list, but i dont think it would be more difficult to pull of than the other planets.

[The Meme Repository 6]

On 8/24/2020 at 3:37 AM, Jorak Uln said:

Yes, absolutely. It gives a bit of an exclusive touch  to the uppercity. As you see in earlier posted pics, i try to give every area a unique look, which may differ greatly even on the same planet. In Vanilla, everything is too conform to the point you dont really feel much of a difference.

So, this is only the smallest critique compared to huge strides you've made in overhauling the game's look (I'm really excited to see what it looks like when you're done with it), but it seems a bit strange to me that apartment doors would be transparent, as that would leave the occupants without privacy. I could certainly see it as an optional feature (the upper city is home to the obscenely wealthy, after all), but logically, people would want privacy, especially if they were paying out the nose to live there.

The door does look fantastic, I just felt the need to bring this up from an in-universe perspective, as that could be immersion-breaking for some people.