Textures don't always follow the same naming conventions as the model they belong to. The texture is coded into the MDL file. The easiest way to find its texture is to run it through MDLOps and make an ASCII model. If you double-click on a MDL in KOTOR Tool it will automatically make an ASCII MDL and extract the appropriate texture/s for you. If you run it through MDLOps manually, it will spit out a text file telling you the texture file name/s.
Yeah, I remember something to that effect from NWN2. Looking through my old tools, I had retex/retint and MDBviewer. Problem is I can't find the model for a_helmet_07 (I did find the UTI in the templates.bif). Looking through the models, I just noticed they're not listed alphabetically which sucks. But I also remember from KotOR1 that the Verpine Band (a_helmet_??) had a texture name like I_VerpBand??.tga. Is there no way to find the association between the UTI and the model/texture files? If they're not using a similar naming convention, that makes it really hard to track.
First off welcome to forums.
Here's a link to a tutorial that should help with the texture;
http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=126482)
Thanks for the welcome and the help. I have been looking through the tutorials, and just took a look at the one you linked, which led me to double click on a_helmet_07.uti in KT. That showed me that the Base Item is a Mask and the Model Variation is 11. So looking through the models, I finally found i_mask_011.mdl which when double clicked extracted the texture I was looking for. Thank you very much! :)
Still, makes you wonder why it couldn't be a bit easier to track down.
Edit: Ahah! I found what I was REALLY looking for: baseitems.2da. This gives you the list of Base Items you can assign in the UTI and its itemclass, which is basically the nomenclature for the model. So for a base item type, the model name is itemclass_modelVariation. The texture doesn't have to follow the nomenclature as it is referenced in the model. Just thinking out loud here, but it might help other people.