NumberWan

I would agree, that this is quite an interesting post here, and looks like fun!
I also introduced a few people to the JO at one point and JA later, mostly friends, but some relatives too. This caused some interesting discussions, as non-fans were surprised to know, that besides A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi – there were more stories to tell. 

I've been looking for a few things from old JO/JA files as well. And unfortunately they aren't in the net, but I got some rare PK3s from CD/DVDs from video games magazines. Those included demos, maps, weapons, skins and other things. But finding a disc is a more difficult thing to do these days, even though not impossible, as some fans made copies of old magazines and DVD content. I

I even thought of uploading a few of those to JKHUB, even though the content isn't very good for the most part. 

I think, I saw one here in the forum, but I can be wrong. Not the Senate Commandos from TCW, but the guards like in the picture above.

The right thing to do is to start looking in this topic by Jeff – it includes a variety of very different and quite often unexpected models from Star Wars films, as well as books, cartoons and other games.

We actually completed this part of the city, as well as the area around the Palace – not as large as in DF2, as it includes some portion of it. Due to various limitations of JA engine, we had to split the location into several maps.

11 hours ago, Cornelius CornJulio said:

Oh man, bloody nostalgia!

Glad to see people to trying to remaster places from other games into JKA from scratch.  Really appreciate it, and Chapeau for the hard work! 

Thanks! that's what we also thought, I guess, actually some years ago. I played Dark Forces II multiple times as a kid, and this location was probably the first i my experience to show a simple town in a Star Wars game. You would have to fight off a few mercs there, but still possible to enjoy the feel of a city, occupied by the Empire. It was fun to build.

2 hours ago, SephFF said:

The question i got for ya.... is how did you build this part?...... the angles for the pillars in the market place?

There is no big secret, but it was probably the hardest thing to pull off in Radiant. In this regards NetRadiant works far better than the original level editor, as I used meshes and Brush triangles. The brushes were used for pillars, several triangle ones were placed together to form a wall under certain angle. The method you show either an ase or md3 model is actually a nice method! This was used for the mountains of Tatooine in JA, but we use it too for a more complex architecture, when using meshes and brushes aren't enough.

We also thought of making the city 1:1 like in Dark Forces, but it was difficult back when we started. Besides our map shows the city almost 10+ years after the events of the original game. We assumed, that the Empire is gone and the city is slowly restoring it, so the general layout is probably the same, but the materials and details look differently this time. We didn't recreate the Canal area, which you've recreated most remarkably.

Revan is pretty much established for me and I wouldn't like some new story about him – like being a different Sith/Jedi with completely replaced companions and motivations, with his life taking place in a different era. Revan is a well formed character through a variety of sources and publications, as well as through introduction thanks to Darth Malak, Kreia and other characters, which help his looks and philosophy evolve as you get to know him.

But seeing him as a flashback or a vision – is okey in case of the TV series, but I doubt this would happen.

Reminds The Challenge in Jedi Valley, where different enemies constantly attack you after you defeat the first wave of Force users, I think. Also there is also a Ladder - The Xmas Story mod, which takes place in a snowy canyon, which includes a similar kind of gameplay.

But I guess, you mean a different map. Perhaps someone else might remember more of these.

We've updated the city – its streets, markets and of course – the cantina  

The locals got their classic looks from Dark Forces II. Not exactly the same, but the similar style is there. Also added a few more variations. Female skins coming too! 

It would be nice to see a video with all these beauties! The progress is absolutely stunning! Love the designs and shaders!

I'd never seen this character, but had a look in SWwiki. Reminds me of a mix between Darth Vader and Darth Malak, and thus looks a lot like the Vader Clone from the Mainframe mod series.

This is sooo beautiful. I wanted to ask about the basreliefs in the front, but I see that you planned to add those from the start.

I do like the statue in the front, but I would replace the Sith statue with the Jedi ones.  

I feel odd a bit about this one. On one hand, I'm glad, an old classic gets a new look so that the fans who care about – could relive it once more with a crispy, fresh appearance and designs. On the other hand, the game remains to be old even with this remaster and most people would most likely say, that the game didn't age too well even with all the changes...

As for myself, I don't feel bad about Pixel graphics and Pixel art, my problem with Dark Forces is perhaps, that the general atmosphere towards the end of the game is more and more repetitive as I remember it from the original.

Some of the people I know voiced an opinion, that it would be far better to release a real remake with Unreal Engine and all the cutscenes done in 3D. But I would most likely try the remaster version.

1 hour ago, Lwkill said:

i really love the terrain on the dantooine screenshots! im curious how you made them it looks much better than being just radiant brushs

In the past the terrain included the meshes, but Olgo suggested making them more interesting one day. We never came to the idea back then, but now the map uses MD3 hills of different forms and sizes. Also different shaders, so that the close ones have grass. And the ones at the distance – don't use sprites.

On 7/10/2023 at 5:15 PM, Minoda said:

I'm absolutely loving how you've nailed the aesthetic of Dantooine here! My RP community could really do with a new Dantooine Temple to use, I'd love to use some of these textures, any ideas where I could get them or if you'd be willing to share? @NumberWan 

 

Feel free to DM

Hi! Thank you for your kind words.

The textures are based off the original ones from KOTOR, however we thought it would be best to create our own, so they were replaced with very similar ones, designed from scratch. Some objects are new as well.

We released Chapter I of the mod earlier, and we've never been against using our materials in other projects, so Chapter II wouldn't be an exception here. We plan to finish our work with this pack soon and thus all the materials (including textures, as well as new Dantooine models – lights, decorations, etc.) would be available too.

I like the way you can actually choose various kinds of response during a dialog cutscene. Also hiding from your enemies is a nice addition – haven't seen that in Star Wars for quite a while. Well, in the latest Battlefront II SP campaign this was an option, but not the primary one.

Scripts do work the way, as you wrote one here, but for certain reasons – they treat some things differently than we expect. I had a similar issue at one point, and my guess is that you have to rewrite your script as a "hierarchy".

I usually start with cameras in a cinematic script, thus "Camera Enable" and its other commands go first, then the actions of the X-Wing. However the Wait 1000 command after Cam01 and X-wing should be inside placed X-Wing lines, and all what comes next – including Cam02, Fade, as well as Fake Player (and his commands) are best placed inside X-wing perhaps as well. I'm not sure if it works fine, but you might give it a try. 

I would recommend making your Fake Player invisible via a separate script (via spawnscript command in the N options of your NPC). There is already such a script provided by the developers, I think, and it's scripts/common/invisiblenonsolid.ibi. I actually made such a script of my own for the very same reason.

You could also experiment with the last Wait 5000 command, by adding more time and see if anything changes here.

Oh, I see. Bacrana then.

Netradiant is very good in terms of moving walls, and adding something by perfect rotation. GtkRadiant has a few plugins however, and I sometimes combine working in these two in order to get the necessary results.

I like the way it gives away some Quake 3 and old Jedi Academy vibes. Really nice job!

I also missed the screens with the city – Coruscant, right? The noodle shop  Did you use Netradiant here?

More Updates, mostly on the characters. But the work on maps never stops, and we don't forget about other aspects of the mod, such as the Galaxy map below, now available during the briefings on Coruscant. More about this in the article here.

Been working on several models, which I'll post in a few days.
I guess, new spacers (based off classic JO Prisoners) are always a warm welcome.

Also finished a few maps and several main characters. Still not sure, if I could pull through some ideas, as they require coding.

7 minutes ago, CoryTrash said:

So what you're saying is use set_skin command for regular Ingame NPCs to unique NPCs? 

I use this method to add variations to the looks of NPCs. If you have Rebel Troopers in your map, for example, you can add new face textures and .skin files, which will then appear on your NPCs in the map via a script. However this method also has limits, as the game can process only a certain amount of skins per level.

There is a limit of NPCs per game and a certain number of NPC types per level (models/skins).

I don't know the exact number, but you can have, let's say, 40 unique NPCs in your map, and around 130 NPCs loaded at one time. I had my game crashed, when I added new skins via set_skin command in a script. Because I tried to trick the game, and instead of making too many NPC files, I created different skins, which can be switched in the game.

Very beautiful. Aside from the very unusual designs and details, what is equally impressive – the shaders, the lights and the general atmosphere. In some cases I wouldn't expect the JA engine to be able to bring up this quality. The shining and the "reflective" parts look very neat: the floors in Amber Garden for example, as well as areas in the End of Line Club.

The bed and other furniture in the Oasis rooms are beyond words – these look exotically perfect. 

Did you use Radiant for mapping? 

This looks very promising. While it's impressive, that the new lines are added into the story, even though through a Voice generator, I can't ignore the coolest animations! That's absolutely fantastic.

9 hours ago, Linken said:

The close-up of Jaden's eye while being confronted by Kyle made me think that maybe they considered giving Jaden yellow eyes in that particular instance, would've been cool to see. 

Actually some unused code I found did indicate that they planned on having Jaden's saber turn red during those final levels (but obviously that didn't happen).

Making the saber red is theoretically possible via a script – at least the commands do exist and the script can change that. At least I decompiled the original JA script and added some things into it, but not the color command. So it's possible perhaps.