MOD:Taris Dueling Arena Adjustment

[DarthParametric 3,785]

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Taris Dueling Arena Adjustment

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This mod makes some alterations to the arena in the Taris Upper City cantina. The primary change is the removal of the original low quality crowd sprites. In the vanilla game these are VFX nodes. It appears that Bioware's original intention was for these to be animated, but that was likely disabled due to performance issues on the Xbox. Subsequently, most of the sprites are lacking arms. Another issue is the scaling. The sprites are completely out of scale with the rest of the game world, appearing to be about half the height of an average human. This was possibly an attempt to skew the perspective, an attempt to make the arena look bigger than it actually is. The original sprites have been completely removed in favour of better quality crowd sprites ported from The Old Republic. Additionally, the bays housing the crowd have been resized in order to fit proper human-sized figures. To comply with recent local ordinance changes, transparisteel safety screens have been fitted for the crowd’s protection. Other minor changes include some texture swaps on the roof section and a dummy door model to hide some unsightly fog on the original.

Additionally, players participating in duels should now correctly face their opponent, and give an alignment-specific emote when they are announced. Opponents will now politely wait until their name is announced before giving their little fist pump. After some complaints by their union about a lack of proper medical services, defeated opponents are now healed back to full health post-match rather than being left to limp around. The view screens in the cantina have been upgraded to have a dynamic display of the current arena rankings. These will change as the player progresses up the ranks. The placeable computer screens have all had their positions adjusted so that they properly contact the walls they are supposed to be mounted to, and to align them with one another. Ajuur the Hutt’s dialogue has also had some minor surgery performed on it, to better deal with player and party positioning. Carth should now properly face Ajuur and the player during his relevant interjections, and won't be replying from across the room.

N.B. - Because alterations are made to the module's GIT file, the mod requires a save before entering the Upper City cantina for the first time. It is thus best suited for a new game. If you load a save after having entered, none of the screens will line up properly with the computer placeables.

Known Issues:

• If you initiate a conversation with Ajuur while the party is standing in the corner with the medpac bin, you will likely see them jump out of frame as they are moved to their now scripted fixed positions directly in front of the Hutt. That's an unfortunate consequence of the way it was handled, but the camera angle should mask the transition from pretty much anywhere else.

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to @bead-v for MDLEdit
• Thanks to @ndix UR for TGA2TPC
• Special thanks to @JCarter426 for helping with some scripting, particularly extended troubleshooting of the Ajuur party positioning script
• Thanks to @Salk for alerting me to the TSLPatcher problem with v1.0
• Thanks to @A Future Pilot for pointing me to the fixed version of TSLPatcher
• Thanks to @Publicola for informing me about the ability to click through announcement animations
• Some screenshots feature @Sithspecter's High Quality Blasters
• The video features @ndix UR's KOTOR High Resolution Menus
• Crowd and glass textures ported from The Old Republic MMO

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• Submitter
  DarthParametric
• Submitted
  11/18/2018
• Category
  Mods
• K1R Compatible
  No

 

[Salk 374]

DP,

first of all, congratulations on yet another great piece of modding. Said that, can you please confirm that the Installer, finding already the .mod file it intends to alter in the game will just work on that one rather than overwrite it with the .mod packaged with the modification itself?

Thanks!

[DarthParametric 3,785]

It is set to only copy the MOD file if one doesn't already exist. It will inject the changes into a pre-existing MOD file. As such, the included MOD is not pre-patched.

[Salk 374]

Unfortunately, I noticed how the repackaging of the .mod has issues.

I could easily do it by comparing the number of files inside the .mod before and after. Rather than finding 3 more files (your custom scripts), the total was actually a smaller number.

I used WInmerge to compare after extraction and these are the additional files found in the modified .mod:

- DP_ArenaScreenA.ncs

- DP_ArenaScreenH.ncs

- DP_ArenaScreenJ.ncs

- k_ptar_duela01.ncs

- k_ptar_duela02.ncs

- k_ptar_duela03.ncs

- k_ptar_duela04.ncs

These instead are the files that were originally there but are now missing:

- k_ptar_duel01+.ncs

- k_ptar_duel02+.ncs

- k_ptar_duel03+.ncs

- k_ptar_duel04+.ncs

- k_ptar_duel05+.ncs

- k_ptar_duela01+.ncs

- k_ptar_duela02+.ncs

- k_ptar_duela03+.ncs

- k_ptar_duela04+.ncs

I believe that the repackaging removed the "+" from the repackaged files so that the original k_ptar_duel0(1-5)+.ncs files will be overwriting the game's k_ptar_duel0(1-5).ncs files.

Two files were  replaced: 

- k_ptar_a02ae_en.ncs

- k_ptar_duelend.ncs

And three were modified:

- m02ae.git

- tar02_duelann022.dlg

- tar02_duelorg021.dlg

[DarthParametric 3,785]

Ah, crap, that's a TSLPatcher bug. I thought it was only that it couldn't edit filenames with + and other symbols, but it seems it also completely nukes them when repacking an ERF. That's a problem. @Fair Strides help?

Edit: Thanks to @A Future Pilot pointing me to a fixed version of TSLPatcher, this bug should now be resolved in v1.1. For anyone that downloaded the original v1.0 release, I have provided a separate patch that will inject the missing files back into the MOD.

[Salk 374]

Eh I thought it was the same problem that ERFEdit has.

FairStrides pushed out a version that has no longer that kind of bug but I wouldn't know how to fix the TSLPatcher, sorry.

[Salk 374]

By the way,

one thing that always bothered me during the match presentation is that the Player faces a completely wrong direction and I assume it is because it faces the source of the announcer's .dlg. The .dlg file is tar02_duelann021.dlg but I couldn't find what file it is associated to. Do you happen to know, perhaps?

Cheers! 

[DarthParametric 3,785]

It looks like there's a facing command in the script that jumps the player to the arena. There's also a separate facing script. I'll look at inserting that (or my own script) into the dialogue once I have a fixed version to upload.

[A Future Pilot 161]

Just to leave here for future Googlers: the TSLPatcher included in the K1CP has the fix for + in filenames

[Salk 374]

DarthParametric,

I suppose you didn't do anything about the wrong Player facing during the fight presentation?

Kudos for taking care of the issue so promptly!

[DarthParametric 3,785]

Yes, I have fixed it in v1.2, along with some other minor tweaks. I am in the process of testing it now. Will probably release it tomorrow, all things being well.

[Salk 374]

DarthParametric,

I took a quick look at the last version and I have a question and a minor observation.

The question: the changes.ini show this entry:

WaypointList\30\YOrientation=1.22514845490862E-16

I checked the m02ae.git file for it and didn't find it anywhere. I installed 1.2 over 1.0 and checked for the differences. Since v1.0 didn't have this entry I expected m02ae.git to be modified with the new entry but Winmerge showed me the files were identical. I am completely unfamiliar with TSLPatcher so I am probably missing something.

The observation: you have made some changes to some game scripts which originally could be decompiled but no longer after your changes. I believe you should move the int declarations from where you placed them (where the functions are) to, for example, inside the void(main) function.

If you do that, the script can be decompiled again afterwards.

Cheers!

 

[DarthParametric 3,785]

I provided the source NSS for all the scripts, so there should be no problems.

The adjustment was to the waypoint the player jumps to (tar02_wppcarena2), as initially I thought that might be the source of the orientation issues. You can see the change in the Y orientation if you compare it to the vanilla GIT (1.22514845490862e-016 vs 3.29414865518629e-006). As it turned out it made no difference to the player's orientation, but I just forgot to revert the change.

[ebmar 893]

Greetings, Thread Master!

A report here as on my end, after defeating Twitch the dialogue with some NPCs is locked; such with the duelers, duel spectators and Bendak himself- which leaves us stucked on progressing the side-quest further. There is a remedy though, with loading the saved game allowed the dialogue to be triggered again. Not sure if this is universal or local issue that I am having, but an insight and/or fix to this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks for considering this!

[DarthParametric 3,785]

I never encountered that myself during testing. The mod doesn't touch the dialogues of Bendak or the other duelists. It does make some script edits, but nothing that should change any of the quest progression. What other mods do you have installed?

[ebmar 893]

1 hour ago, DarthParametric said:

What other mods do you have installed?

Quite a few, but one that is relevant is K1R's portion on this particular module. Also, I have once installed Bendak's armour mod by redrob41 but have taken out the DLG and script files and leaving only its unique appearance. Most likely it's local issue on my end; perhaps if there are other similar reports an further inspection is required then.

Edited December 29, 2018 by ebmar

[DarthParametric 3,785]

Redrob's mod also overrides tar02_duelorg021.dlg, which will negate the speaker/listener changes I made to that dialogue, and break one of the view screen updates, but it still shouldn't affect dialogues with duelists (at least not due to anything I did).

I gather K1R has the Pazaak tournament in the cantina? It seems like they added a bunch of custom stuff to the module, but I don't believe they made any changes to the dueling ring elements besides adding the announcer as a physical NPC (which uses new content, not vanilla stuff).

[ebmar 893]

1 hour ago, DarthParametric said:

Redrob's mod also overrides tar02_duelorg021.dlg...

Yes, I noticed the similar instance; in fact I already removed the said DLG from the 'Override' way back before installing your mod.

Quote

I gather K1R has the Pazaak tournament in the cantina?

K1R has no Pazaak tourney content in the Upper City cantina- far as I can recall [though that'd be a really cool idea; as compared to other planets the only appearance of sitting commoners playing Pazaak was there 🤔].

Quote

It seems like they added a bunch of custom stuff to the module... adding the announcer as a physical NPC...

Yes, stuffs like the announcer and Bartender Droid were added by K1R.

Quote

...I don't believe they made any changes to the dueling ring elements...

That's what I thought. 🤔

[Salk 374]

DarthParametric,

while I am a bit ambivalent about the fact that the duelists are healed after a fight (it makes sense but the wounded animation is quite iconic and it sorts of makes you visually feel your climbing of the ranks by looking at the room), I would like to ask you if it would be possible to make the duelists resume their original animations after fighting you. What they do now is just stand and do nothing.

Perhaps you can tell me what script governs this behavior and I can take a look myself?

Thanks!

[DarthParametric 3,785]

Should be in their OnUserDefine scripts I would think.

[Salk 374]

Right, thanks!

And I think I will try to replace the straight healing with EffectRegenerate so that the duelists will keep their pose for a time.

Cheers!

 

[DarthParametric 3,785]

Oh you were asking about the healing. I thought you meant what script controls their animations. The heal is added to the end of k_ptar_duelend.

[SirDoge27 1]

Heyo,so I installed this,and now I am getting a weird texture bug on the monitor supports,I did the duplicate tga/tpc thing and didn't find any conflicts.Anybody know what file could cause this ?

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

19 minutes ago, SirDoge27 said:

Heyo,so I installed this,and now I am getting a weird texture bug on the monitor supports,I did the duplicate tga/tpc thing and didn't find any conflicts.Anybody know what file could cause this ?

Please list all of your mods and link to where they can be found.

[DarthParametric 3,785]

4 hours ago, SirDoge27 said:

Anybody know what file could cause this ?

It has nothing to do with my mod. I don't touch the actual monitor texture.