Cerez

Sure... I can, @@Ping... I take you don't have KOTOR, yet, then? Why the specific interest? It's not so easy for me to take screenshots in KOTOR, but I can try to take a few more of her if you like.

That's true, but they're wanting to become one. Their recent moves seem to be very much self-interest guided. Here's a little fun info I've drafted: http://jkhub.org/topic/5488-the-four-empires-of-it-space/ This news report inspired me to finally write it. Now I'll let you guys get back on topic here. Google Code shutting down is a serious problem for many projects, after all.

Typical... Use open source and community-based projects as much as possible, people! Forget about relying on corporations. Even Mozilla is bad news... Just because these large companies have bigger funds does not make working with them more stable.

I meant the whole original trilogy as one large project... Well, considering that other major details were shifted around and changed as the scripts were developed and the movies filmed, I don't find the thought of Luke and Leia's relationship going from a two-way romance with Han to a sister and brother relationship surprising. I think the only steady plot point from the beginning would have been the big twist with Luke and his father, though even that can be questionable, whether the idea was present before the completion of the first movie. One thing seems certain, George wanted to create a big Hollywood movie adventure (space opera) for families from the beginning (like Flash Gordon), so the family bond themes seem rather fitting in that context, and hints at incest do not at all, even by today's standards.

I think a lot of what Lucas says and has said is exaggeration for the sake of financial and publisher support. Screenplays, novels, and longer pieces of writing are always subject to a lot of detail removal and additions, story restructuring, rewriting, and other major revisions over time. It would have taken him many years to finalise the sequence of scripts to such a perfection. He was very young when he made the original trilogy. He may have had a preliminary concept for the prequels and preliminary bits and pieces of a draft for the sequels at the time he was making the first movie, but even by the time he had finished shooting the third movie, his concepts for the prequels would have been just vague, rough ideas on where the story in them could go. If he had had a clear idea about the prequels, or written a first draft when he was young, then the story in them wouldn't have turned out to be so different to the original trilogy. (Midichlorians anyone?) It's a similar story with the original sequels. He would have had remaining parts from the first draft that he would have had to restructure and rewrite into a comprehensive story as he was making the movies. Chances are that what the preliminary draft contained, and what ended up as the final scripts for the sequels are almost two entirely different storylines. Being a writer, I'm highly sceptical of such supernatural planning skills. Also, I imagine he would have had a lot of support from people around him when structuring the story of the original trilogy, and shooting the movies. They were his first really large-scale project after all... But that's an interesting interview, @@CrimsonStrife. Thanks for sharing. It's nice to see a more humble Lucas parting with his wild experiences making the first movie.

Oh, nevermind what I said, then. If the graphics and detail improvement is consistent across all aspects of the game world, then the suspension of disbelief is maintained, but with better (more detailed and realistic) visuals.

Well, the original Juhani had an unorthodox design that was neither Cathar nor nice looking. While her story involves being treated bad for being different, that doesn't mean she had to be ugly, exactly... being a Cathar is quite enough reason to appear different, or ugly, to humans. Considering that she has a gripping emotional story, and the player can establish a close friendly bond with her throughout the story, I felt it necessary to remedy Bioware's poor design decision. So I've developed this mod, inspired and based on others' work who were thinking similar (see credits in readme), which replaces Juhani's look and UI graphics entirely to give her the canon-like appearance you see in the screenshot. This is the original Juhani in the game: And these are the canon references I've used for the new look:

That's the spirit! Be sure to ask for help in the Modding Assistance section of the forums if you really get stuck.

Knights of the Old Republic: you know, the other great Star Wars game... Showcase and share your mods for KOTOR here. I thought it'd be a fun idea to get all the KOTOR mods we've created into one place. I've made these three worth sharing: Iriaz on Dantooine Download This is a very simple mod that restores the Iriaz to the planes of Dantooine. Now they're suppressed by the Kath Hounds, and as you free the planes from the dark taint, the Iriaz start to reappear all over. Sith Academy Robes Download This is an alternative, vanilla version of Shem's uniform mod for the Sith Academy students and instructors on Korriban that doesn't change any of the game stats, but simply changes the Academy members' uniforms to Dark Jedi robes, and retains all the original game's stats and content. It also fixes the name bug (Hijata) from the original game. Juhani - Canon-like Cathar Download This mod is my big pride and joy. I've spent a long-long time perfecting it. It gives Juhani a real (original canon) Cathar appearance, so she actually appears normal in the game. It's made to blend in with the original concept and art of the game, so that it appears as if it were an official update as much as possible. Juhani is one my favourite characters in KOTOR now.

I think it's just that they are quite red (single colour) and have a very sharp and precise geometrical shape. Reality is a little less perfect. It's really starting to look like her, @@Archangel35757. Impressive work.

Oh, I see! Cool. Thanks @@Xycaleth, that explains it.

Forgive my total ignorance -- please bear with me -- but what exactly is rend2? I've been hearing a lot about it on the forums, and about its LOD support and the like, but I can't find any information about what it really is and how it's exactly meant to improve on the JK visual/gameplay experience. So, what is rend2?

Oh, my bad, then. What does that mean? A system setup issue?

Hang on, you're using make from the root of the source. cd into the "build" folder before running make. Follow the steps in the guide here, carefully: https://github.com/JACoders/OpenJK/wiki/Compilation-guide

If you're having trouble with the installer-maker, I suggest using InstallJammer as an alternative. I've found to be quite easy to use, neat, and efficient. Both the install and uninstall work really well.

I have limited knowledge on this, but it doesn't look like you're missing any libraries. It's more like there's something actually wrong with the code. Is this a custom build, or the latest source? Have you tried compiling a different version of the OpenJK source? Perhaps an earlier one?

And when in fixed 3rd person view, yes. And by adding more depth to cinematic cutscenes, we are creating a more lively world for the game overall. But the extent to which we add detailed animation needs to be balanced with the rest of the visuals in the game, I think. Unless we are upgrading the whole look of the game. So to an extent things like detailed facial wrinkles on all characters, detailed pupil animations, etc. may be an overkill. If the animation/detail stands out too much from the rest of the game, then that doesn't help to make it more believable. Edit: Not to mention that the more detail in the shapable face, the more work (the longer it takes) for the scripter/animator to script the character expressions for each cutscene for the game. Don't get me wrong, I admire the ambitious effort of putting as much detail in the facial animations as possible; I'm just not sure if for the game we need so much detail in the face. It may be better to simplify a little for the sake of blending the new animations into the game's existing world (style).

I can't really visualise how a GUI will work with scripting cutscenes, but the slider solution you've mentioned earlier sounds like a pretty advanced way to go -- anything more than that would be too much detail, I think. Just having the basic 6 emotions expressed is already an enormous improvement on the default JKA engine. Add to that eye movement, body animation, and lip-sync, and you've got one lively character. The fixed eye position has been a major detriment in the original game to realism, and the overall lack of expression in the character's faces. Visual breathing would be a nice addition to the idle animation, but I'm not sure if the Q3 engine would support something like that well without extensive expansion work. The pupil animation is a very fine touch. I'm not sure if it's worth all the work, but I'm sure it would add a lot of depth to drama with extreme close-ups on the eyes. The thing is, the Q3 engine does maintain a certain break from realism because of its old-school design, like the floating character walk, rough body animations, and other features. Therefore, my recommendation is actually to not spend too much time on very fine details, but to fill the void where there is really space for improvement -- like the added eye movement, improved body animations, and expanded facial expressions. If we can achieve a decent and believable level of detail in these areas, a feeling that the characters are alive will be created. The visual experience of the whole game world needs to be taken into account when considering how much detail is really worth it -- how much of it really makes a difference to the player. The player is in a suspension of disbelief based on the world they see in the game, and the way the game stylises real life. Maybe that's not what you want to hear, but I'm trying always to stay practical. I think these facial animations will be an amazing expansion to the core engine. But how much detail do we really need? That's something we need to consider carefully, I think -- especially because it impacts performance.

You're never gonna look at that scene the same way again!

Get the tools out and start tinkering yourself. It's worth it! It's quite fun, actually. And it makes you feel more able. I know exactly how you feel. I've been in your shoes not too long ago. You can't have it made for you, unfortunately. Gotta work for it. And I'm sure you'll find help along the way. But get things started on your own first. Put a little effort into it.

No worries. Hope it helps to see things clearer, for everyone. There's really no point for us to argue over these things anymore. Certain things have their way that's practically proven to be best over time. Copyright, especially in fan art, is a complicated issue all around the world, but as long as we keep with certain common sense, we should be fine. And let's leave the site rules and moderation to the decision of the staff. Among each other we can always share files privately, host, and create whatever we like. A community is more than just a site.

That's true. Someone released a version of the whole Academy Temple map recently in their vision that's a lot more vast and logical than the JK2 Jedi Academy. I'm not sure if anyone's ever ported the JK2 map to JK3. I imagine someone would have. But it would take a lot of work getting all the scripts to work, I would think. Still, it's an interesting idea.

Hi Eez! Thanks for your insight. Hmm... 1. A bit far-streched, but it could be, you're right. It could be a reference to the times before when Luke felt a disturbance due to the consequences of Kyle's mixed and rash actions. Since Kyle is quite the trouble-maker. That would explain a lot. I hadn't thought of it like that before. 2. That's fine, but that still doesn't explain his attitude here... which is quite snappy... They're bickering like a long-married couple, haha! 3. Yeah, but Kyle's been through a lot already. He doesn't really need to be watched over, like a little kid, LOL! XD And Luke was taking care of his students, so it's not really about the students' safety, either. I guess it could be a reference to Kyle's previous encounters with the dark side, but the way it's voice acted it still sounds too soft and caring... not like a casual warning at all... LOL!

Oh yes, publicly distributing a ported model you don't own on a website is a serious legal breach that could jeopardise this whole website very quickly. If you see this kind of thing being done elsewhere, not for private use, but as a public distribution, then that website is playing with dangerous fire. If you by chance see it done on JKHub, report it to the staff, so they can value up the risk and decide on the best course of action. If you make such a port, keep it to yourself, or share it only with your closest friends, hosted privately. Don't put the whole community in jeopardy by trying to publish it publicly on the site. You can use Dropbox to host your private files. Just open a free account with them: https://www.dropbox.com/

I understand your feelings on this, but please take my advice, @-Tulak_Hord- and @@Oobah, it's not worth the long discussion and bitterness. We've been through this a million times on these forums, and the general, practical effect comes down to this: Everything that is ported work is done privately, without open community involvement -- and most of the time you'll need to do this yourself. There is not enough manpower and interest/willingness around to take care of port requests. There is not even enough for full-scale, "legitimate" model design requests. However, there is plenty of friendly support in the community to help you learn aspects of modding, modelling, texturing, and coding yourself. While I know this doesn't offer immediate satisfaction, it's the only thing we have that works. If you want to get this model working in-game, you'll need to start learning the nuts and bolts of modelling yourself, and then perhaps seek help from a more experienced modeller to guide you in your efforts, or help you out. It may take a while, but eventually you'll get there, and it will open new possibilities for you to experiment with the game you like, and expand on the experience. You'll see that modelling is not a simple task, either. It takes a lot of time and effort to get even the simplest model in-game. It took me a while to learn that, too. Simple porting is not nearly as simple as it sounds. I wish you good luck and courage to follow your wishes and dreams. I hope you'll join the community as an active creative member. Be patient and don't try to change things -- just accept them as they are. I've learned the hard way that some things have long histories and reasons for being so in a community. And this is a special community with its own rules and etiquette. It's a friendly and productive community, but everyone needs to take an active part, and no-one is here to serve the other. We are all creatively active in our own work. We welcome you to take part in this with your own projects. I hope this helps to understand how things are working around here, and helps to avoid any misunderstandings.