Rooxon

@@Langerd I'll do them, but one after another. I'm just about done modeling the first of MagSul's hilts.

Allright, here it is. I'll do luke's sometime during the weekend and I hope It'll be release ready by then, but there's still a lot of other things to do for the mod before that.

The Outcast (Kyle's hilt):

I'm making the staffs throwable in my packs and in addition to that, giving all sabers return damage. In all Star Wars games I've had the chance to witness saber throws, the saber was also spinning when returning, that's why I decided to do so for JKA too.

Regarding the switch to the saber when you want to throw it, i wouldn't really change it. It's logical and it's realistic like that... but that's just my 5 cents worth of oppinion.  @@redsaurus, I know how to make the noghri staff useable and I could do the gun in theory too. Schould I do it for you?

Allright now it loads fine, thank you very much! And I'm just about done with the Outcast too, which means I'll most certainly start on MagSul's hilts today, and tomorrow it's your turn @@Nikomaru14 , at least it schould be. But I might take longer, as I'll do the hilts rather slowly and in good quality rather than in a quick job.

Allright, I've got only two opinions, but the ring really does look better. I think I'll go with the ring version, then.

This is where I left off earlier today, I've finished working and now it's time to get back to modding. I'm just starting to do the color map, later only realism filters/brush work remain.
The Outcast:

I'm trying really hard to stay realistic, not to do any mistakes and so on. This is one of my favorite hilts from the game and JKA's trademark, kind off so the work has to be befitting of that.

Can't decide which holstering mechanism to use on the outcast, which looks better?

yay! Thanks for making them! Ok so there's not really a cannon picture of his hilt up close yet, but these are some pictures that show how others have interpreted it. The top picture is my favorite. You would probably have to incorporate a little of your own design on parts of it, though. 

 

https://jkhub.org/images/MH1dHyt.jpg

 

http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture/625x465_2924581_7820978_1420261537.jpg

 

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/351/b/5/lightsaber__kylo_ren__the_force_awakens__by_thehatter_10_6-d8a6ayv.png

Only the top picture won't load for me...if it does for you, could you help me out?

I partly understand exactly what you mean. I'm in the process of building my own house, though for now there's just the walls and the asphalt to the house done. Might take two or three more years before I save up enough money to complete it. I'm gonna have a recording studio in my own house, too as I'm a singer and guitarist. Probably merged with the computer room. Also, I'm playing the accordion and a little bit of the piano. Just love making music that can be played and sung real-time.

@@Circa, what was wrong with JKHub earlier today, giving an error instead of loading the website?  Oh and other than that, I tried out both the button mechanism and the ring... I couldn't decide at first which to use on the outcast (kyle's hilt) but I decided to go with the ring rather then the button. I can post both pictures if you want, in one I replaced one of the bottom boxes on the hilt with the holster button, in the other I installed the holstering ring I created for use with all my hilts (I'm sure you know which I mean, it's on alora's and tavion's hilts, also the updated zayne carrick's hilt).

And one other thing, buddy... I downloaded your fix for the hilts and I want to apply the same for all of my models. Regarding just the dual sabers and the upcoming finalized misc. sabers pack, would you mind helping me position and resize all of the hilts right? Either with positioning/resizing them yourself if I send you the max files or just telling me for how much I schould move the hilt and where. Either would work for me.

@@Nikomaru14, good news for you. I'm 2 hilts away from finalizing the first of my packs, after that I'm gonna do all 4 hilts you and @@MagSul requested. But could you please try to find a better picture of Kylo Ren's (as the png's name states) hilt? That would be very helpfull. Otherwise, I could come up with my own design of such a hilt, but it's still kinda tricky to do it good.

Like, as a SP choice? Well... it wouldn't hurt, even though I wanted to keep all of the new hilts originals, your designs. I guess I could, yes. Also what's more, I need to play around with the hilt sizes a bit as I noticed I did some of them too big and some too small.

The Outcast:

This one was modeled literary around the old one, so it's as much of a copy as it can be.

I'll join in here, guys. @@dark_apprentice Most of all, I agree with zefilus and Xycaleth; both stated very good points. But whether a mod gets completed or not depends only on the team members themselves and their devotion. For example, we all know ourselves as computer geeks very good; we'd lie if we said, we're not at least an hour in front of the computer each day. Some do this, others that, I use most of my time in front of the comp for modding. Getting the RIGHT team members together, who share your view, your ambitions and goals is a must above all, so that they devote themselves to the project just as much as you do. Believe me, I've worked in teams before too and I noticed that these are the requirements for getting a mod completed, hard working and devoted people.

Other than that, creating the first stage schouldn't be too hard. I mean, I've learned to map back in the day and done a small scripted 3 room map in a few hours. Cutscenes and all. That would be a perfect start to attract people to helping you out.. but if it's too much for you,
do something a bit smaller but still in range of the presentation of your project, like I don't know... characters, concepts, more detailed ideas and so on. For example, you told us the point of the project, the story... Do you have any more detailed ideas about that ready to share?

@@MagSul, ain't the first one the initial Kenobi's hilt? Though there are some differences, especially the bottom of the hilt. Well I'll get to it soon and release both.

THIS POST WILL BE UPDATED WITH EVERY MOD I RELEASE AND WAS REQUESTED HERE!

Hello! I know for some time now that not too many people bring new hilts to the community. Which is why I thought of making this topic; In here, anyone can post any possible wishes for such weapons and I'll create them. I love creating sword/saber weapons, because I finish quickly both the textures and model, I can do about 2-3 in an evenings time (given I've got enough time, which I usually don't but I'm active every day, so the end result schould get to you pretty fast nevertheless). I actually thought about starting doing very diverse things myself, but it's easier to fulfill your wishes than me picking random weapons out and creating them. So, in short, that's it! I look forward to your wishes!

P.S. I know some of my hilts have some major flaws in them, some because I had problems with photoshop opening psd files saying they're not compatible with the version (even though they were made with the very same version of photoshop to begin with ) and some other things, but I'm sorting these things and all other faults out all the time with my buddies, that are helping me get better at this, especially @@AshuraDX. So no worries, I'll make sure to deliver only top-notch quality weapons!

Fullfilled requests (so you won't request the same thing twice):
 

Thank you but I've decided I'm gonna take a shot at the droids with new models, once I've finalized my packs. I won't need any help up to the point where it needs to be rigged and animated, that's where I'm weak as I haven't done too many animations in my modding time. I'll join the discussion there once I get this far.

Tried it out, holsters look good, though using Rooxon's hilts with the new tags would be great. Would it be possible to add those new tags to the default hilts? With Blender, maybe? Also, you said that you can set where they are holstered, hips/back/none, but what about the sides of the hips? Like if we wanted the saber to be on the left side instead of the right (I think that's the typical Jedi practice, on the left)?

 

Also, every time I do a vid_restart, it crashes.

I'm working on adding the holsters and tags to all my publicized models. Today I've just uploaded Zayne Carrick's hilt, more to come in due time but very soon! All of them will have holsters, though. Normal maps too but I won't pack them with the mod files just yet, I'll wait for rend2 sp and then just update all my mods.

If any of you need, I know a few different ways to make normal maps and a dozen tricks how you can easily create normal map illusions using either filters or plugins in Photoshop. I know you can come across various tutorials on google, I'm proposing I'd share the best of what I could find during these two years of skyrim modding.

Looking forward to the completed SP port, seems I can slowly start making normal maps for my hilts.

Yes but actually, I saw such ring holsters in Sword Art Online, to be honest and in some other movies/animes with laser swords. This holstering system is somewhat unique to Star Wars, isn't it? I could do this button you showed me from Kenobi's hilt for each of mine OR if the rings are really cool, for those which would look odd otherwise. Though I've got a lot of thoughts about the physics you mentioned... is it even possible in JKA to animate a saber? I confess, I have not yet witnessed that with my own eyes.

Anyway, finished Zefilus's design of the Stinger, this time around I decided I'd reveal my texture-creation progression, so I made a screenshot everytime I loaded the texture in ModView:

First two are just the base texture. Later I added lights, after that two screenshots of both lightning tone fix, then I added the lines and some other small details around the box, lights and emitter. Last but not least, I tackled the dust and scratches, and for the last picture on the far right, you'll notice I did various opacity fixes, added three different cloud filters with different complementary color pairs to create this illusion of being something else than plain gray and last but not least, a black/white cloud overlay with 10% noise at 5% opacity to give it realism. The various filters help keep nice edges and a crispy gorgeous texture. Sometimes I copy the finished texture and add an emboss mask to it, which further creates realistic looks. Given the fact that I'm meticulous and like having things done only the right way, it took me 1 whole evening yesterday and 2 hours today to finish the texture. A lot, yes, but keep in mind I started with a blank new file and I'm using mouse and keyboard, a lot of backstepping and redoing most steps.

I'm sharing that because honestly, I'm creating my own textures, not baking them. Every single detail. Before I had some similiar logic behind it, but in the last year, I evolved this routine to the max, I think. That's why I'm telling others in hope it would help somebody in their own work. Now it's Kyle and Luke's turn!


ANYWAY, important decision: I think I'll let my first version of the stinger fall into Rosh's hands and take up the place of the Training saber/Rosh's Jedi saber. Any objections? Just asking because I'll be finished with the finalized pack by this tuesday, hopefully.

That's something worth considering, I've also seen like such a ring with a small separation being just "hanged" on a piece of cloth. Guess I schould keep what you said in mind.

I'm working on adding some holsters for the holstering addon on which @@redsaurus is working on separately, if I'm not mistaken. Here's a quick screenshot, I'm positioning them on the left side at this point, we'll work out the correct position when you've got the time:

@@Circa It's a very simple ring holster, I could leave it like that or I'm also thinking, that it wouldn't hurt to make a small separation on either the left or right side, making it actually possible to holster it to something, if we're concerned about such small realism details, otherwise I'll just leave it like that and merge it with other hilts. What do you think?

The Revenger (I'm finishing up on the texture work, now there's just a bunch of colors and filters missing to make everything more realistic [LOOK AT THE HILT INSIDE THE WHITE BORDERS]):

I'm trying to make it look pretty used up. Just for the sake of logic; Tavion would have probably scratched it up pretty bad in all the events she was part of. Is it allright like that? Any comments, people?

On the contrary to Alora's hilts, this one won't come with a fancy chrome shader. Well I'm just about satisfied with the textures, I just need to fade out the scratches a bit (I think I went a bit overboard) and to make a few disappear. Other than that, there's some tone fixes I need to attend to and also maybe a nice noise overlay for the whole texture. I dunno but all that matters to me is the in-game look anyhow. This time around, I'll try changing the material layer around a bit, so that when the spec map shows the metal reflections that are dark on the diffuse map, schould appear inverted - white, thus making an illusion of the reflection actually happening real-time.

EDIT: Done.
The Revenger:

The last bits of editing were done with Photoshop CC 2014. I gotta say, it brought great quality regarding it's filters and effects. Most things are easier to do now, too (or at least quicker). I look forward to working with it! Having said that, I'll start another hilt right away, if I'm not mistaken, there's only the Stinger from Zefilus's design left to do and something easy for the training saber/Rosh. Or I think I'm gonna tackle the original models's texture from my Misc. Sabers Pack to finalize it, at long last.

of course, that's what I was thinking about first off, seeing stormtroopers having their guns pulled away by a jedi, it would be realistic, fitting and immersive all at the same time, don't you think? Let's make it real!

@@JAWSFreelao actually you gave me another idea, based on yours. Force pull level 2 (sometimes) and level 3 (always) schould dissarm enemies! What do you guys think about that? Is it possible, is it a good idea?