ChAiNz.2da Posted June 26, 2005 Share Posted June 26, 2005 The Ultimate Lightsaber Mod for TSL! As a fellow modder, I understand the testing, retesting, and scripting stages of modding. Time and energy goes into some of the greatest mods made for KotOR II. While using the 'TULM', I noiced alot of changes were made. For those of us who have never modded before, and those of us who are intrested: 1. What was your most difficult obsticle? 2.What type of boundries did you have to over come? 3. Was it hard to work in such a large team? 4. Was there something you wished you could have done, but for game design reasons you couldn't 5. Would you do it again? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> For the most part of this, Im using the USM Project as an example, but for #1 it's really about "modding in general"... 1) Getting the "nerve" to ask for help without sounding like a total goober... hehehe I actually released my very first mod before ever posting on a forum. It wasn't until I 'lurked' for awhile and found out that most modding beginners were in the same boat I was in.. so I took the plunge. Needless to say, all of my "fears" were for naught... everyone came rushing to help and were very considerate to the fact I was just beginning. So... if you're just beginning to mod, fear not, it'll only slow down your potential The biggest obstacle USM-wise, for me was... wow.. there was so many hehehe... Let's see... the 200+ line upcrystals.2da, having to do some mini-quest script work to get one of my sabers in-game (because I was adament that I needed to learn how... thank you Darth333, T7 & tk102 for your help)... and testing the sucker before Beta... keeping track of all of those files, even just your individual parts, was hectic with something this large... 2) Well... using the USM as an example, the main boundaries were numerous to say the least.. hehe TSL's shoddy game coding, horrible model hook placements (why most guns and saber either clip or are halfway up the player's left arm <_< )... I could go on and on... Though the baseitems.2da was my main pain in the arse personally. We had to overcome that obstacle because as we progressed, we realized we were going to run out of model #'s before even half of our sabers were done. Because of how we wanted to implement them in-game... many of the sabers were 'clashing' when it came time to start naming .tga's and .uti resref's... 3) Actually it was really easy, at least with the team I was lucky enough to be invited to. I'd say our hardest part was trying to be on-line at the same time for discussions At the time of creation, HL was off and on with server problems, and our RL jobs and such kept everyone pretty much in PM hell or 'celebrate'! everyone happens to be on at the same time (for reference, if you do a team mod, make sure you all have the same chat messenger prog.. I switched from AIM to YM just so I could be able to talk to everyone).. The advantage to team mods is that you have 'specialties' that can ease the burden on your fellow teammates and you can distribute the workload between everyone. We had 4 modelers, 3 scripters, all of us knew .2da work and had a little experience under our belts... it really helped out after having to pump out over 1,400+ files for just one mod 4) That's a tough one. Looking back now, I'm sure all of us would like to change some things here and there... but for the most part, we were very stringent on not letting it get released until we were all satisfied with the results. We even had to close the WIP thread because of so many "when is it going to be done?" posts... but hey, now that it's released.. we can always make updates and booster packs if there's any major changes that we'd like to see :D 5) Absolutely! I'm always game for a challenge, and the USM proved to be just that. But I have no regrets whatsoever about being part of the team, it was everything farthest from that... and I'd love to do more mods of this nature and scope :D That's about my take on things.. hehehe I can't speak for the others, but I know I had a blast and am forever grateful to have been part of the USM... "Eagles May Soar, But Weasels Don't Get Sucked Into Jet Engines" | My KotOR / TSL Mods | My WIP | USM Compatibility | Having trouble with TSL's cheat console? Try the Hak Pad. Don't forget the Booster! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jodo kast 5 Posted June 26, 2005 Share Posted June 26, 2005 hey Darth 333 can you make Sid's lightsaber that one rocked, i need to get me one of those.............................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth333 Posted June 27, 2005 Share Posted June 27, 2005 hey Darth 333 can you make Sid's lightsaber that one rocked, i need to get me one of those.............................. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not a modeler...I could give it a shot but who knows what you would end up with " To avoid breaking people's monitors with my poor talent with graphics, I only worked on the invisible part of the mod: scripting . Starwarsknights.com - Learning to mod - Kotor modding en espa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChAiNz.2da Posted June 27, 2005 Share Posted June 27, 2005 hey Darth 333 can you make Sid's lightsaber that one rocked, i need to get me one of those.............................. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not a modeler...I could give it a shot but who knows what you would end up with " To avoid breaking people's monitors with my poor talent with graphics, I only worked on the invisible part of the mod: scripting . <{POST_SNAPBACK}> the "invisible" parts of the mod... aka one of THE most important aspects of the mod :D So am I going to be the only USM'er that answers that interview *hint* *hint* *nudge* *nudge* "Eagles May Soar, But Weasels Don't Get Sucked Into Jet Engines" | My KotOR / TSL Mods | My WIP | USM Compatibility | Having trouble with TSL's cheat console? Try the Hak Pad. Don't forget the Booster! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthMoeller Posted June 27, 2005 Share Posted June 27, 2005 the "invisible" parts of the mod... aka one of THE most important aspects of the mod :D Definately the most important part. Without that scripting, the crystals wouldn't be in the loot system. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MacleodCorp Posted June 28, 2005 Share Posted June 28, 2005 hey Darth 333 can you make Sid's lightsaber that one rocked, i need to get me one of those.............................. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not a modeler...I could give it a shot but who knows what you would end up with " To avoid breaking people's monitors with my poor talent with graphics, I only worked on the invisible part of the mod: scripting . <{POST_SNAPBACK}> the "invisible" parts of the mod... aka one of THE most important aspects of the mod :D So am I going to be the only USM'er that answers that interview *hint* *hint* *nudge* *nudge* <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Lol... I thought it would be neat to add some insight about modding. I hope you didn't mind me posting the interview in the main thread. Since this modd delt with so much scriptin, skinning, and building, I thought people who would like to start modding could learn from the best... (w00t) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T7nowhere Posted June 28, 2005 Author Share Posted June 28, 2005 Ok, with that little nudge I'll pipe in. I'm not really one for self premotion and I always first and foremost mod for myself, though I do like to hear that people enjoy the mods I make. We all like to be appreciated. :)But don't look for pearls of wisdom in my words, I'm just a guy that likes to learn something new and to overcome a challenge. 1. What was your most difficult obsticle? The most difficult part of making this mod for me was scripting the Sabers into the game. I am not a programmer, (Before USM I knew the very basics of scripting for KotOR/TSL) nor do I really have ANY inclination to focus on that side of modding, Personally I find it incredibly frustrating and quite boring . But I dislike not being able to do things for myself so I took the opportunity to learn what I needed to learn. Darth333 helped me get started on it by working out the first scene where I had to replace sabers, and I took what she showed me and set about appllying it to the rest of the game. In the end though I was pleased with what we accomplished. 2.What type of boundries did you have to over come? I don't know that there were really any firm boundries in our way, I and the rest of the USM team pretty much knew the amount of work and what could and could not be done, But we didn't really understand the amount of time it would take. I think probably the biggest boundry was just coordinating and getting online together. This problem did also delay the mod a couple times, But I think that was a good thing it gaves us all sometime to catch our breath. 3. Was it hard to work in such a large team? By KotOR/TSL modding stand point I suppose 5 modders working together was a large modding team, though I don't think any of us really saw it that way. Well maybe the others did, But I just thought of it as a group of friends pooling there skills and work into a single mod. 4. Was there something you wished you could have done, but for game design reasons you couldn't There were several things that I wanted to do with the trainable jedi, but with only being able to work with what was in TSL(NPC VO) I did the best I could. There were also a few scripting aspects I couldn't figure out and chose to drop the ideas and just focus on what what needed to be done. 5. Would you do it again? Sure. It was the largest scale mod I have been involved in and I had alot of fun with it. Everyone involved got along pretty well. On a personal note I suppose the art side of modding in general is the most difficult part for me, I have always had the desire, but never the skill or talent. Last year if someone told me that I would be able to build a model and skin it from scratch I probably wouldn't have believed them, My first mod (which was for KotOR) consisted of recoloring the games textures. I really had very little understanding of how to use a paint program, and I had no idea what an Alpha channel was To anyone that is interested in modding don't be discouraged or say to yourself "naw I can't mod" , aslong as your willing to read, and learn you can make a mod. best way to start is to start small and to keep working at it, eventually what was once difficult will become second nature. T7nowhere's KotOR Mods Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alissa Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Quick question. I dowloaded the mod and so far I haven't received any USM products. *I just finished Telos and now I'm on Dantooine* Do I need to start a whole new game or did I not download it right? Thanks! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassidy Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 I'm guessing you installed it incorrectly. Did you unpack it into your override folder using winrar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alissa Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 I doubled clicked on the little book icon called "Usm_Released*, using Winar I clicked the Extract To button...Told it to extract it to the Kotor2 overide. Now, I have a folder that says USM_released in the overide folder. Copyed the "StreamVoice" folder and pasted it in the regular "StramVoice" folder. Am I missing something? *I hope you understood that* Thanks. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heckur Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 I'm guessing you installed it incorrectly. Did you unpack it into your override folder using winrar? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> One of the pitfalls of winrar is that its default behavior is to use the full path of the files you're extracting. So when you've opened winrar, clicked your way to the override folder (inside the winrar archive file) and are ready to extract the files to your Kotor override folder on your harddisk, you will effectively be creating an override folder inside your Kotor override folder. To avoid that, extract the files without their paths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alissa Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Thanks for the information. Though, since I'm a noob with Winar, how excatly would I downlaod the files without their paths? This is what I orignally did. Doubled clicked the file>Exctact To>C Hardrive>Program Files>Luscas Art folder>Kotor2>Override. Just noticed, that I also have the USM_released file outside the whole Kotor2 files. It's sitting on the hardrive alone I believe. Should I delete that? Its location: C Hardrive>USM_released. Once again, Thanks! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChAiNz.2da Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Heckur's right With WinRar, it's usually best just to select all of the files in the "override" folder (in the USM .rar) and drag-n-drop them to your game's override folder... For the StreamVoice folder, drag the entire folder (not just it's contents) into your game's main directory. You should get a message asking about overwriting files... go ahead and allow it (it won't really overwrite anything... just the folder's "name")... that should be all you have to do.. "Eagles May Soar, But Weasels Don't Get Sucked Into Jet Engines" | My KotOR / TSL Mods | My WIP | USM Compatibility | Having trouble with TSL's cheat console? Try the Hak Pad. Don't forget the Booster! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alissa Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Thanks a bunch ChAiNz.2da! I just did all of what you told me and hopefully it should work now. Thanks! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassidy Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 If you are already past Peragus, you should start a new game or you will not get Kreia's unique saber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alissa Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Thanks for the tip Cassidy, I think I just might do that. Just for the sake of Kreia's saber. :D *Goes to start another game* :D Hmm, however, Bao's Charged Amour doesn't show up now. It gives the stats that he has it on. But it looks like he's wearing regular clothing. Thanks! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassidy Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Kreia's saber is cool looking, plus it gives her some good bonuses. So far though, I like Visas' unique saber the best, especially the bonuses she gets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alissa Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Well since I've already have Visas and my lightsaber built, I think I'm too late for the "new" lightsaber hilts and such. So, making a whole new game will be worth it, I bet. Besides, I don't mind playing three games at once. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
destinasi Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 Is there a double-bladed lightsaber in the ULM? My Disciple was using one because he started with 2-weapon fighting. When I asked him to build his own saber, he built a normal one. And I don't have a spare short lightsaber to give him to use in the left hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassidy Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 Yes, you can make double's. Zez Kai Ell's saber is a double so you can steal his if you need to. If you read the readme you will know that double and single sabers use diferent focusing crystals. I have found 30 or so double blade crystals and I'm still on the 3rd planet, surely you have at least one. I believe all you need to do is switch out the focusing crystal and that will change the saber type. Just be sure not to try and use the USM crystals in the default game sabers, and vice versa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heckur Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 Or visit Dantooine and check out the new computer panel at the space port... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChAiNz.2da Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 Thanks for the tip Cassidy, I think I just might do that. Just for the sake of Kreia's saber. :D *Goes to start another game* :D Hmm, however, Bao's Charged Amour doesn't show up now. It gives the stats that he has it on. But it looks like he's wearing regular clothing. Thanks! :D <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hey Alissa, a quick fix for this... 1) uninstall Bao-Dur's Charged Armor mod. 2) Install the USM, 3) THEN install Bao-Dur's Charged Armor mod again... The installer that I included with Bao's Armor will automatically adjust the baseitems.2da and the .uti file for you.. It'll save you alot of time rather than trying to manually edit all of the files yourself, I went ahead and did the "dirty work" for you with Bao's installer "Eagles May Soar, But Weasels Don't Get Sucked Into Jet Engines" | My KotOR / TSL Mods | My WIP | USM Compatibility | Having trouble with TSL's cheat console? Try the Hak Pad. Don't forget the Booster! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChAiNz.2da Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 Is there a double-bladed lightsaber in the ULM? My Disciple was using one because he started with 2-weapon fighting. When I asked him to build his own saber, he built a normal one. And I don't have a spare short lightsaber to give him to use in the left hand. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Or visit Dantooine and check out the new computer panel at the space port... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If I remember correctly, the Rocarian Crystal (Darth Maul model) is a double-saber, and Heckur's suggestion about the HiTek Assembly Station (Dantooine Landing Pad) will work for you as well... just make sure you have a repair skill of 9 or higher, and you MUST have the BA-122 Prototype Saber blueprints (you get them in the Underground Base on Telos' surface)...it'll be a datapad in your inventory... The Hi-Tek will assemble 2 sabers and a double-saber (same color BA-122 model) for you. Plus it acts as a component bench and medlab "Eagles May Soar, But Weasels Don't Get Sucked Into Jet Engines" | My KotOR / TSL Mods | My WIP | USM Compatibility | Having trouble with TSL's cheat console? Try the Hak Pad. Don't forget the Booster! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassidy Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 What's this about blueprints? I don't recall any blueprints. And sadly, in my current game I can't go through my datapads to check because I break them all down for parts every couple of planets. :'( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChAiNz.2da Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 What's this about blueprints? I don't recall any blueprints. And sadly, in my current game I can't go through my datapads to check because I break them all down for parts every couple of planets. :'( <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Rut Ro Raggy... When you're in the Military Underground Base (Telos Surface) there was a placeable called "Czerka Courrier Case"... inside is the blueprints for the BA-122 Prototype Saber... there should've been a pop-up message saying "Don't break this down".. hehehe... It's a required item to have for the HiTek Assembly Station to "assemble" those sabers for you (and a Repair of 9+)... if you don't have the blueprints, the station just acts as a component bench and lab... however, if you have the pre-requisites.. a new dialogue option will show... If worse comes to worse, use KSE or cheat codes to give yourself the blueprints, then re-visit the HTAS on Dantooine. Luckily, it's not a game-breaking 'mini-quest' if you cheat to get the blueprints... I'm at work right now, so I can't remember the exact cheat code, but i believe it's "giveitem ba_blueprint" or "giveitem ba_blueprints" or something of that nature (just look in your override for the proper .uti filename).. "Eagles May Soar, But Weasels Don't Get Sucked Into Jet Engines" | My KotOR / TSL Mods | My WIP | USM Compatibility | Having trouble with TSL's cheat console? Try the Hak Pad. Don't forget the Booster! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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