Hi, I just recently dug out KOTOR and TSL and started replaying them when I tripped over all the new mods and tools. Since I'm a bit OCD about tinkering with games I couldn't resist playing around. I have a fair amount of programming experience in C, VB, Java, and Fortran so it hasn't been extremely difficult for me to tinker with the game, but so far I've only really been selectively combining, tweaking, and replacing bits of the available mods.

Anyhow I saw a screenshot for a TSL mod that looked like the PC dressed up as one of the Twin Sun assassins in the leather pants and halter-top, thought to myself well that's pretty cool. I was hoping to add in a clothing item that would do the same. Since this is my first attempt at trying to alter the appearance of a character, I was hoping someone could sort of backcheck me and see if I'm on the right track and/or offer any advice.

So my understanding is that to change to a different appearance/skin:
I would have to play around with the appearance.2da file and modify/replace one of the texture column entries. I can't really add in additional textures because it has to fit in an existing column in the appearance.2da file unless I want to use the disguise property which would overwrite the existing head. So I am guessing my best bet is to replace one of the textures that isn't normally used with my new entry?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Edit: Just to make sure I'm not completely lost the skins/texture/clothing files are the tga graphics files correct?

Darn it I just read on a little further and saw there's a texture variation field I can play with, does this work for common clothes?

Yes.

Open up Kotor Tool and tunnel down into Kotor II > BIFs > templates.bif > Blueprint, Item

Scan down and look at all the g_a_clothesXX.uti files. If you open those up, you'll see that each has a texture variation corresponding to its number, meaning each of them will use a different texture on the same model.

Some of the specifics aren't really important for the question you're asking, but in simple terms, the "clothing" model is always going to be determined by the modelb column in appearance.2da and then the textures for that model of course are set in the texb column.

Looking in those fields, we find that for a character (the one you create, not the NPCs) those values are N_CommM (for males) and N_CommF (for females).

Now those models are burried in models.bif (unless of course you're using modified versions, in which case they're someplace under the Override folder) and the textures can be found under ERFs > TexturePacks > swpc_tex_tpX.erf

The A B or C that you'll find in place of that trailing X determines resolution, which is used to decrease detail and memory usage on things as they get more distant. So long as you find the one you want in the 'A' package, ignore the others since you can only use one file of any given name as an override anyway, and you generally want the highest resolution possible.

Anyways... if you browse down to 'N' in that texture pack, you'll find textures named N_CommFxx.tpc and N_CommMxx.tpc. Each of those corresponds to a texture varriant, where xx is the same as the varriant number.

Now... Just what you have to change depends on exactly what you're trying to do. If you just wanted for example to make a neon green and purple "normal clothing" look, you could simply extract a clothing UTI, a clothing TPC (saving as TGA) and naming them with numbers above what's already present (say 20 or whatever). Then when equipped, your new copy of the clothing item will use variant 20, which will point to your new texture, also saved with '20' as the last two characters in the filename.

If however you want to make bigger changes, such as for example making your character appear as one of the Twin Sun ladies, you'd have to edit the modelb and texb fields of appearance.2da and point to their model and texture instead of the usual clothing models and textures.

The problem with doing things this way however is that all clothing would then make YOUR character look like the Twin Sun ladies, instead of normal clothing, since we can only specify a TEXTURE variant, and not a MODEL variant.

In simple terms, a model is the shape. A cardboard box for example would be a six-sided model. A texture is merely a 'wrapper' or 'paint job' over that shape, so if you want a BLUE box and a GREEN box, you use that same six-sided model, but wrap a different covering over it.

Not really sure if I'm doing very well at answering your questions here, so I'll hush for now. I know what I'm trying to say, but explaining things without ending up writing 30 pages of doc's has never exactly been my strong point. :lol:

-Kitt

/\/\/\*Nevermind, She says it better.*/\/\/\


Okay if I didn't get confused totally. If all your looking to do is change the appearance of a default texture for a particular model then you simply edit the texture in your paint type program and name it following the naming conventions used in the texture field for that body model. Now if you are looking to have your texture replace an existing texture you have the last 2 digits that define the textures variation number match one of the games default texture numbers. If you are creating a new item you simply enter in 2 digits to define the texture variation as unique from the default textures. Then you will need to create a item "UTI" file for your new item indicate the texture variation pointing to your new unique texture number. Now if I haven't confused you congratulations you have a mod.

Since no one said it Welcome to LF. :)

Since no one said it Welcome to LF. :)

Whoops. Quite right you are.

Completely missed the post count, but that's no excuse for a lapse of manners, so I'll echo that as well...

Welcome to the forums. Make yourself at home. :)

-Kitt

Thanks for the help & welcome. I think I understand the gist of what's going on, though I may have to reread it another time or two (totally my issue, nothing wrong with the explanations).

So it looks like the easiest thing for me to do would be to do just go ahead and override one of the model/tex column sets that I wouldn't normally wear like maybe the baggy flight suit thingy. Thanks so much for the help and rapid responses, good stuff to know. I'm sure I'll think of something to stump myself with again shortly.