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Jedi Academy turned 20 this year! We celebrated in a ton of different ways: mod contest, server event, podcast, etc. Thank you to all who have been a part of this game for the last two decades. Check out the anniversary content!

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Welcome to JKHub

This community is dedicated to the games Star Wars: Jedi Outcast (2002) and Jedi Academy (2003). We host over 3,000 mods created by passionate fans around the world, and thousands of threads of people showcasing their works in progress and asking for assistance. From mods to art to troubleshooting help, we probably have it. If we don't, request or contribute!

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This game turned 20 years old this year, and it is still one of the greatest Star Wars games of all time. If you're new or returning from a long hiatus, here are the basics of getting started with Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy in 2023.

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Getting Started with Modding Jedi Academy or Outcast

Circa

By Circa (edited)

This is just a quick guide of how to get started with modding Jedi Academy. Or rather, a list of guides and resources to get you started. These can be found in this tutorial forum on your own, but this is the best way to start, from the easiest to more complicated. Start simple and work your way up.

 

Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy run on the same engine, so most of what you learn here will translate to both games. Only a couple things are slightly different in the assets and mapping side. If you dive into the coding side, there will be many more differences.

 

If there are topics not covered here that you wish to learn, my best advice is to download a similar mod and look at how they did it. File and folder structure are what you need to look at for simple mods.

 

PK3 Files

Both games use PK3 files for assets. If you have downloaded a mod, it was hopefully a .pk3 file that you put in your base folder. You may have noticed that the game's base folder has 4 pk3 files already: assets0-3.pk3.Those are where all of the game's assets and configuration files are located. Learn about pk3 files here:

Basics of NPCs

NPC is an acronym for Non-Playable Character. In the JK games, that means characters like stormtroopers, mercs, Tusken raiders, etc. Enemies and friendly characters that aren't the player. The concept of editing or adding NPCs is very easy, especially if you've done any coding before. Both games have the same system, however in Jedi Outcast, all NPCs are listed in the npc.cfg file. In Academy, they are listed separately in .npc files. Learn about them here:

Skinning

In the modding world, skin is the term given to the textures of a 3D model, like a character or weapon. Skinning means changing or creating your own textures for a model. It's as easy as opening one of the textures in MS Paint and drawing on it (as a simple example). You can learn how at these tutorials:

Mapping

Most people would say to move to modeling after skinning, as a natural progression of knowledge, but I think mapping is easier to learn than modeling, personally. The biggest thing that will set you back with mapping is the program used to create maps: GTK Radiant. It's not the most user friendly program, and it's still very dated compared to modern tools. I already made a list of good guides. I recommend starting with RichDiesal's guide.

Modeling

This can potentially be the hardest to learn, simply because it takes a long time to gain the skill to create something worthwhile. It takes lots of practice if you've never done it before. I recommend starting with the free program called Blender, mostly because it's free, but also because there is a plugin that makes it easy to import and export .glm files. Otherwise the main program used is 3DS Max, which you can get the student version for free, as well. A term you will come across is often is "frankensteining" or "kitbashing" which essentially mean taking parts from models and combining them into one model. It's a great place for getting to know how modeling works.

Coding

Coding is difficult. You're not going to be able to read one or two tutorials and know how to achieve what you want. It takes time to learn. In the early days of JK2 and JKA, the only code we had access to was the multiplayer source code. In 2013, Raven released the source code to the whole game, of JK2 and JKA, so you can essentially do whatever you want to the game (essentially). I'm no coder, so any coders that want to give me good resources to list here, please do so.

Edited by Circa
fixed broken links

Futuza likes this
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Circa

I will say that the first thing I ever learned to do was skinning. Then I made NPCs and Bots for them.

That's a common progression as well, but I've found that most people start with playing around with cheats, which then lead to messing around with NPC's to create your own variations of characters, then into creating new characters. Plus NPC's are super easy and get you familiar with the basics of PK3 files without diving too much into the creative side which not everyone is able to do.

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Rooxon

My first mod ever was a reskin of the reborn, not a recolor even - a reskin. I went into the amazing tool that is photoshop and brush-painted onto him some black and red lines for details (first time I opened the software, all I was capable of ofc - I started really small), then felt awesome iirc (imagine the most amateur, worst and ridiculous thing that I still for some reason call a "reskin" - back then I was 12 years old). Next thing I found out was Virtue's saber tutorial (@@Circa you could also add that to the list, I think the website is still up) which introduced me to gmax, the next step. It focused my attention to modeling basics, which in turn made me excited to learn how in hell he managed to make that texture for that saber - which in turn made me look up tens of tutorials of photoshop texturing tutorials for different materials like metal, fabric or cloth, plastic, gloss illusion, basic shadowing. After which I was perfecting said things over the years, until I learned PBR (physically based rendering) texturing and clever modeling from @@AshuraDX which he was kind enough (and had enough nerve, for some reason) to show me. Couple of years and a lot of lost nerves after I became what I do now. With a tiny shred of courage I started trying to do other things than lightsabers, literary, after I first tried the modern workflows three or fours years back.

But this is just a story of me and how I became this... surprisingly popular and demanded mod creator here in this community. Still, I would love to see anyone who does not know these things and is not capable of doing these things to at least try their hardest and TRY to follow in similar footsteps. Rome wasn't built in one night. America wasn't conquered on day 1. Give it an honest try over a long span of time and do your best, to try and learn these things, put as much effort into it as if you were studying for your final college exam or working on developing your own business. It is nowhere near as serious as the last things I wrote, it is just your free time hobby, but It will be worth it. About now, I honestly enjoy creating stuff much more than I do playing games - even if I'm not around a lot anymore. Only reason for that is real life and lack of time, tiredness and motivation.

If anyone has ever any questions regarding modeling/texturing/shaders or getting-stuff-in-game, I'm always availible and will answer here or on discord as soon as I am able to and I will be happy to help out and solve your problems. :) I'm a jack of all trades in regards to JKA but these things I'm sure to have an answer for, to take the load off of other people. Grip onto the courage and JUST DO EET!

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Droidy365

My first mod ever was a reskin of the reborn, not a recolor even - a reskin. I went into the amazing tool that is photoshop and brush-painted onto him some black and red lines for details (first time I opened the software, all I was capable of ofc - I started really small), then felt awesome iirc (imagine the most amateur, worst and ridiculous thing that I still for some reason call a "reskin" - back then I was 12 years old). Next thing I found out was Virtue's saber tutorial (@@Circa you could also add that to the list, I think the website is still up) which introduced me to gmax, the next step. It focused my attention to modeling basics, which in turn made me excited to learn how in hell he managed to make that texture for that saber - which in turn made me look up tens of tutorials of photoshop texturing tutorials for different materials like metal, fabric or cloth, plastic, gloss illusion, basic shadowing. After which I was perfecting said things over the years, until I learned PBR (physically based rendering) texturing and clever modeling from @@AshuraDX which he was kind enough (and had enough nerve, for some reason) to show me. Couple of years and a lot of lost nerves after I became what I do now. With a tiny shred of courage I started trying to do other things than lightsabers, literary, after I first tried the modern workflows three or fours years back.

 

But this is just a story of me and how I became this... surprisingly popular and demanded mod creator here in this community. Still, I would love to see anyone who does not know these things and is not capable of doing these things to at least try their hardest and TRY to follow in similar footsteps. Rome wasn't built in one night. America wasn't conquered on day 1. Give it an honest try over a long span of time and do your best, to try and learn these things, put as much effort into it as if you were studying for your final college exam or working on developing your own business. It is nowhere near as serious as the last things I wrote, it is just your free time hobby, but It will be worth it. About now, I honestly enjoy creating stuff much more than I do playing games - even if I'm not around a lot anymore. Only reason for that is real life and lack of time, tiredness and motivation.

 

If anyone has ever any questions regarding modeling/texturing/shaders or getting-stuff-in-game, I'm always availible and will answer here or on discord as soon as I am able to and I will be happy to help out and solve your problems. :) I'm a jack of all trades in regards to JKA but these things I'm sure to have an answer for, to take the load off of other people. Grip onto the courage and JUST DO EET!

I'm pretty sure my first skin was a green JK2 Reborn with purple skin (or at least the icon had purple skin)

My second one was a "Knight" - otherwise known as a crappy recolour of the Snowtrooper that's bright white with a hint of aqua, and a red lower cape.

Good times...

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