[KotOR] Revan's Mask

[Salk 374]

Hello!

I was wondering if a modeller/texture artist could help me (a lot) implementing an idea of mine. Sadly, I don't have the know-how and the means to do this myself so I am reaching out to the community talent hoping that someone could lend a hand.

What I would like to do was to replace the dull three options that the Star Forge computer gives the player to create a Light, a Medium and a Heavy armor with the possibility to create Revan's Mask. The one Mask we see in the game movies and that has sadly never been part of the game.

The design should obviously be canon and just like for the Star Forge/Darth Revan's robes, there should be a Star Forge Mask being produced instead of Revan's Mask for non dark aligned players and for that purpose it would be good to use the already existing model for Teta's Royal Band which Darth Insidious has already restored in the past (I and others personally have problems with the model and I reported it to the original author here).

If anyone is interested in this, I'd really appreciate the support.

If successful, this will become part of the upcoming SW: KotOR Upgrade 2.0 modification, scheduled to be released in 2021.

Cheers!

[InSidious 237]

Hi Salk,

Thanks for raising this mod again here. I notice you're currently planning to include four of my mods in your compilation, namely:

- Korriban Academy Workbench 2.0

- Holocron Icon Replacement

- Hi-Res Beam Effects 2.0

- [KotOR] Mandalorian Battle Blades 2.0

 

Thanks to the recent reappearance of the Lucasforums archive, I've been able to check through my old LF inbox. So I can now happily confirm that I gave you permission to use the Korriban Academy Workbench mod. However, you appear to have only ever asked for permission for this one mod, and not for any of my other mods. The other three mods of mine you mention there also make an explicit requirement for permission to be asked before you can upload them or publish a mod deriving from them. For the Holocron Icon Replacement and Hi-Res Beam Effects, this part of the disclaimer section of the readme reads:

Use it how you like, but if you're going to post it up somewhere, or make a derivate mod, or use it in another mod, you must
ask me first.

For the Mandalorian Battles Blades, it reads:

This mod, or any derivate or part thereof, may not be uploaded to any website, ftp, server,
or as part of a torrent, except with the expressed permission of the author.

 

I'm rather disappointed that you appear to have taken advantage of my good will like this. I think, at the least, you should remove my mods from the collection in this mod, and any other you've assumed you had permission for under a similar premise.

[Salk 374]

Hello, DI!

I have not acted with any nefarious intent and I swear I was just going through the permission list and I messaged you today BEFORE reading this message of yours. I was not about to release publicly anything without getting confirmation first. The list you read was only meant to be a WIP list as reminder of which mod are currently included. I have not uploaded or distributed anything yet.

I am sorry to have disappointed you but I can honestly guarantee you that I was/am about to contact every author that gave me permission in the past for confirmation of old permissions and new permission for new material.

I have worked hard on this project for years and it would be a real shame to kill it over what is nothing but a misunderstanding.

I can absolutely guarantee you and any other contributor that I have never intended to take advantage of anyone's good will. Everyone has been properly credited for each modification.

If you really are denying permission for the other modifications I included I will not release anything to the public because I believe in providing the best quality modification possible to the community and that won't be possible anymore.

I will of course respect your final decision, DI.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Agreed. You DO NOT post a public list of mods you say you have permission to use when you never asked. That's an outright falsehood, whatever terms you want to wrap it in. I'm not sure what your plan was, "working hard for years" on a project bundling other people's mods without asking first. Maybe you thought it more likely to succeed if you asked for forgiveness rather than permission. Maybe you thought permission for one mod applied in perpetuity to everything else a modder created. But pretty much all of my mods in that list I would never have given permission for in the first place, if you had actually bothered to ask. And the ones I did give permission for was nearly three years ago for a project I thought was long dead. Maybe that part was crossed wires. But so that it is clear to you, I will be unequivocal now. Any former permissions from me, real or imagined, are hereby withdrawn. You do not have permission to use any of my mods in this or any other project. Remove my mods and my name from any public list/material immediately. This is non-negotiable, so don't bother PMing me about it.

I would suggest that you take the entire list down and contact all the other authors involved for their permission before proceeding any further. Maybe some of them will let you off the hook.

[Salk 374]

Alright.

I see there's no chance for this to go any further. I'll immediately start procedure to remove the page and the list.

 

[AmanoJyaku 184]

20 hours ago, darthbdaman said:

Anyone who cares enough to write that much about permissions for something you only talked about doing is being completely insane Salk

Yeah, @InSidious could have just said "no, piss off" and risked looking like a selfish jerk. But they chose to explain why they were telling @Salk to stop. Next time, Salk will be more careful to respect the traditions of the mod community since they have a clear explanation of what they did wrong.

I looked at the ModDB page, Salk was beyond talking and work was under way. Worse, they gave the impression they were working with all mod authors.

A lot of people who were looking forward to this release are going to be let down.

[Salk 374]

Hello @AmanoJyaku,

On 12/29/2020 at 6:02 PM, AmanoJyaku said:

Next time, Salk will be more careful to respect the traditions of the mod community since they have a clear explanation of what they did wrong.

There won't be a next time. All the original work that I have produced will never be released in any form. And, unlike what DarthParametric seemed to imply with his post above, there was a lot of original content there, including restoration of unseen material (for the latest WIP of one of the most important part interested people can take a look here) and a considerable number of various improvements, some of which I have even posted here through the years.

On 12/29/2020 at 6:02 PM, AmanoJyaku said:

I looked at the ModDB page, Salk was beyond talking and work was under way. Worse, they gave the impression they were working with all mod authors.

Of course work was under way. I have been working on this for years. But it was not a rogue operation. My error, for which I apologize(d), was to make a temporary list public before I could gather the new permissions for new mods released by authors that in the past okayed the inclusion of some of their work. A wrong assumption, I realize, but on the other hand, why would someone say "All right" to one and "No" to another? I admit I have thought it was more of a formality than anything else but I have learned the hard way that I should have kept that list private and asked each contributor first.

In the end, it would have been shut down anyway because DarthParametric clearly said he would have denied permission for many of the modifications I intended to include and the whole point of this project of mine was to provide the end user with a single modification that would take care of everything, making sure possible mod conflicts were properly removed, working with the original material for proper integration.

I am left wondering what kind of harm could I ever have caused to anyone by making something available to the community which I believed had value, by properly crediting every and each author, by going as far as including the original modification Read Me when available. Perhaps someone can be so kind to explain it to me.

On 12/29/2020 at 6:02 PM, AmanoJyaku said:

A lot of people who were looking forward to this release are going to be let down.

Well, I am sorry about that but there was nothing I could have done to make it happen anyway.

I have been asked for permission to use my material sometimes both in public and in private, I contributed (being also credited) to the K1 Community Project and I am still doing it. I have never denied permission nor did I ever ask for being credited (although it is nice when that happens) for anything I created.

My main mistake has been to believe that fellow modders of this community who have known me for years shared the same philosophy and trusted me enough to not harm any of them by releasing something that I have since inception identified as a Community Project.

Life goes on and I hope there won't be any bad blood left.

Happy new year!

[darthbdaman 71]

3 hours ago, AmanoJyaku said:

Yeah, @InSidious could have just said "no, piss off" and risked looking like a selfish jerk. But they chose to explain why they were telling @Salk to stop. Next time, Salk will be more careful to respect the traditions of the mod community since they have a clear explanation of what they did wrong.

It's free content, there isn't any reason to release all your stuff without open permissions. The traditions of modding communities in this regard are farcical

[InSidious 237]

On 12/28/2020 at 7:07 PM, Salk said:

Hello, DI!

I have not acted with any nefarious intent and I swear I was just going through the permission list and I messaged you today BEFORE reading this message of yours. I was not about to release publicly anything without getting confirmation first. The list you read was only meant to be a WIP list as reminder of which mod are currently included. I have not uploaded or distributed anything yet.

I am sorry to have disappointed you but I can honestly guarantee you that I was/am about to contact every author that gave me permission in the past for confirmation of old permissions and new permission for new material.

I have worked hard on this project for years and it would be a real shame to kill it over what is nothing but a misunderstanding.

I can absolutely guarantee you and any other contributor that I have never intended to take advantage of anyone's good will. Everyone has been properly credited for each modification.

If you really are denying permission for the other modifications I included I will not release anything to the public because I believe in providing the best quality modification possible to the community and that won't be possible anymore.

I will of course respect your final decision, DI.

Hi Salk,

Thank you for the response. Apologies for not replying sooner, but real life (as it tends to) has kept me tied up for the last few days, unfortunately.

I accept that you hadn't read this thread before PMing me. I realise you hadn't uploaded anything of the mod yet, but you have announced you were releasing a mod-pack including work you didn't have permission for. Your intention to credit is of course welcome and salutary, but you gave the impression you were presuming permission when you didn't have it. I'm sure you can appreciate why that left a rather sour taste.

I really don't see why not including three of my mods means you can't release the compilation at all. You are more than welcome to use the one mod you have permission for, and to release a smaller compilation.  That is, of course, up to you.

[AmanoJyaku 184]

On 12/29/2020 at 1:51 PM, Salk said:

I am left wondering what kind of harm could I ever have caused to anyone by making something available to the community which I believed had value, by properly crediting every and each author, by going as far as including the original modification Read Me when available. Perhaps someone can be so kind to explain it to me.

I honestly don't know, but that's the original author's decision to make. No matter how nonsensical something might seem, you still have to respect other people's wishes.

On 12/29/2020 at 1:51 PM, Salk said:

Life goes on and I hope there won't be any bad blood left.

Yes, it does. And there was never any bad blood on my part. I was simply concerned darthbdaman didn't understand the consequences: years of your work was wasted, people looking forward to the mod are left without, and a rift was created with some modders.

Fortunately, you can create something else in its place.

On 12/29/2020 at 1:51 PM, Salk said:

Happy new year!

To you, as well, friend!

On 12/29/2020 at 3:08 PM, darthbdaman said:

It's free content, there isn't any reason to release all your stuff without open permissions. The traditions of modding communities in this regard are farcical

I'm writing a tool that's even more proprietary than a mod, and I plan to release its source freely along with a detailed explanation of its design methodology. So, I agree with you in spirit.

Still, if someone else has restrictions on their work I will respect those restrictions. If you think that's wrong then you need to discuss that with folks. That's just how life is.

[Salk 374]

Hello, DI!

20 hours ago, InSidious said:

Thank you for the response. Apologies for not replying sooner, but real life (as it tends to) has kept me tied up for the last few days, unfortunately.

No apology needed at all. Thank you for keeping in touch here and giving me your reasons. You have always been very polite and kind to me in the past and perhaps that was one of the reasons I had assumed that your permission for more of your content was nothing but a formality.

20 hours ago, InSidious said:

I accept that you hadn't read this thread before PMing me. I realise you hadn't uploaded anything of the mod yet, but you have announced you were releasing a mod-pack including work you didn't have permission for.

Yes, you are right about that and I apologized for it but truth to be told, at that page I did write that the list was just a WIP list (I removed the list so that disclaimer cannot be read anymore but I hope some of you may have noticed it) and not final by any means. It was mostly meant to show that it was a community project with many contributors that were willing to be part of it. I swear I was going to ask permission for each new piece of modification that I would've in the end decided to include (I had already started the process with @eNoodles, @jc2, @DeadMan, @uwadmin12, @N-DReW25,  @R2-X2and @ndix UR. They all can confirm that I have sent messages to them and obtained permission from them this last month and half, when a release date was getting closer. Plus others from other communities, like Nexus, and from which I received permission). I was leaving last those I was truly convinced would never deny permission like yourself, @Kexikus and @JCarter426. Again, I had assumed that it was mostly a formality for people that had known me for a long time and with whom I collaborated (like @DarthParametric, for instance, a real mentor and source of inspiration, just like @Fallen Guardianhas been in the past) and with whom I have always considered myself at friendly terms.

I do understand that it did leave a sour taste although I understand a little less why anyone who agreed to be onboard would deny permission for other modifications produced later. I am the same person, I was crediting properly the author, thanking everyone there for their contributions, including the original Read Me files of the mod and I was going to put a link to the original modifications as well. Not to mention I was surely going to keep the content updated in case the original author would come out with a new version. So... all I am trying to say is I don't understand what harm I was going to do with this project. It was a gift to the community and an homage to all of you. I, like every other modder, was not profiting from this in any way and was trying to offer a single modification for the users to install to get the best of all worlds (at least in my opinion).

20 hours ago, InSidious said:

I really don't see why not including three of my mods means you can't release the compilation at all. You are more than welcome to use the one mod you have permission for, and to release a smaller compilation.  That is, of course, up to you.

Your three mods are very nice but by all means they are not truly "necessary" but after you DarthParametric joined in denying permission for his own modifications and he has authored really many that were part of SW: KotOR Upgrade because he is a great and talented modder. There was a cascade effect that perhaps would have not stopped there but could have extended to other authors that, like you, took offense. Still, even if it was just your own three modifications to be missing I would have still felt poorly about a release. I had actually edited your SIth Holocron because in my install the icon was too big and wouldn't fit in with the original Bioware look for inventory items.

I didn't want to "downgrade" what I was trying to create and cripple something that was working beautifully well. I could not guarantee compatibility with the removed modifications because they were integrated inside SW: KotOR Upgrade and there were edits made and it would simply have not worked.

My own work, which was quite considerable, cannot really be at this point released as a series of mini-mods and it's thus not going to see the light of the day. I could post WIP of much of what I created. I wrote over 300 new scripts for the game. I tried to improve some AI behavior and created custom content of various kind. It's all going to be lost but it's alright. I can personally still enjoy what I made of course but I am sad nobody else will ever do.

I'm still very, very grateful for everyone that created and shared their modifications.

Cheers!

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Hello @AmanoJyaku!

19 hours ago, AmanoJyaku said:

I honestly don't know, but that's the original author's decision to make. No matter how nonsensical something might seem, you still have to respect other people's wishes.

Absolutely. I respect the wishes of the original authors.

I am sure they have their reasons but, just like you, I don't know what they are. 

19 hours ago, AmanoJyaku said:

I was simply concerned darthbdaman didn't understand the consequences: years of your work was wasted, people looking forward to the mod are left without, and a rift was created with some modders.

Yes, looking back of course I would have behaved differently. I didn't really need this and it saddened me because my integrity was sort of questioned and I don't feel like I deserved it. I made a mistake but I am no thief.

Have a great 2021 and thanks for the work you are doing for this community.

 

[darthbdaman 71]

1 hour ago, AmanoJyaku said:

Still, if someone else has restrictions on their work I will respect those restrictions. If you think that's wrong then you need to discuss that with folks. That's just how life is.

Obviously, I agree with this and think everyone should ask permission as a courtesy. I still think it is healthy to point out that closed permissions should not be the default mindset of mod authors, and there isn't any good reason why it has become so.