Saber Color Request

[SpawnHyuuga]

I've managed to obtain a few other saber colors, but now I've come up with some ideas, I would like to do. Please if you could, give me a link to a tutorial for saber colors that can teach me how to make custom saber colors, post them here or walk me through it.

Colors:
Crystal, Black
Crystal, Poison of the Assassins

[JCarter426]

I can walk you through it. You'll need three things:

1. KOTOR Tool
2. A hex editor (e.g. Hex Workshop)
3. An image editing program (e.g. Adobe Photoshop)


First, you'll need to extract five things with KOTOR Tool.
1. A lightsaber template (BIFs-->Templates-->g_w_lghtsbr_01.uti)
2. A lightsaber icon (ERFs-->Texture Packs-->swpc_tex_gui-->I-->iw_lghtsbr_001.tpc; extract as .tga)
3. A lightsaber model (BIFs-->items-->Aurora Model-->w_lghtsbr_001.mdl)
4. A lightsaber model extension (BIFs-->items-->Aurora Model Extension-->w_lghtsbr_001.mdx)
5. A lightsaber color (ERFs-->Texture Packs-->_swpc_tex_tpa-->W-->w_lsabreblue01.tpc; extract as .tga)

Put all those in a folder so you'll remember where it all is.

All right, now the next few steps are kind of complicated, but the idea is pretty simple: what you want to do is edit all of those files so that you'll be making a new saber color, instead of replacing one.

First, open up the .mdl file with a hex editor and go to the search function (search for a text string). You want to replace "blue" with the name of your new color, but it is very important that they have the same amount of letters (e.g. "black" will NOT work; "blck" will). Also make sure that it isn't take (e.g. "gold" is used for the yellow lightsaber). Make sure to replace every instance. All right, once you're done, save the file.

Next, open up the .uti with KOTOR tool. Here you can edit the file to change the name and description. But the important thing you need to change is the model variation. Right now it should be 1. You need to change that to something else. Pick a number between 1 and 99, high but not too high. 71 is good. Change the model variation to 71. And then save the .uti, and rename it to replace the 01 with 71. Do this with all of your files, except for w_lsabreblue_01. Just replace the 01; for the 001s, change it to 071, etc.

Now, repeat that for the double-bladed lightsaber and short lightsaber. Yes, it's a lot of work, but it's worth it. Note that when hex editing the double-bladed saber file, there will be twice as many instances you'll have to edit. Also note that the double-bladed file names will have a 001 instead of a 01.

Now it's time to change the actual saber color. Open up w_lsabreblue_01 and edit it to your desire. Do this for the lightsaber icon as well. And be sure to save them as .tga, and rename w_lsabreblue_01 to w_lsabreblck_01 (or if whatever you used in place of blck).

All right, now here's the tricky part. Well, it's actually pretty easy, but because I did it wrong the first time, I wound up spending hours trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my saber.

Go back into KOTOR tool and double click the w_lsabreblue_01.tpc file. You'll get a new window. See the text box? Copy everything in it, and paste it into Notepad. Save the file as w_lsabreblck_01 (or if you used something other than "blck"...you get the point ). Now, this is very important. You have to change the file extension from .txt to .txi. If you don't do this, you'll wind up with one freaky looking saber. Trust me, I know. If you're using Vista, you'll have to change your settings so that you'll be able to see file extensions. Anyway, change the .txt to .txi, and ignore the warning you get.

Finished? Good. Now it's time to make your new crystal, and to make that lightsaber upgradeable. Extract the following files:

1. A crystal .uti (BIFs--Templates--Blueprint, Item-->g_w_sbrcrstl14)
2. A crystal icon (ERFs-->Texture Packs-->_gui-->I-->iw_sbrcrstl_014.tpc ; extract as .tga)

Open up the crystal's .uti and change the model variation to 71. Also change the description while you're at it.

Now open up the icon and edit it to your liking. Save it as a .tga and rename both crystal files to replace the 14 with 71.

Finally, open up upcrystals.2da (BIFs-->2da-->upcrystals.2da) with KOTOR tool. Create a new line, and edit it to match one of the other lines (e.g. the blue line). Replace all the 01s with 71. And replace "blue" with "black", so you'll know it's yours.

Now throw all of those files into your Override folder, and that should do it. If you want to make a new color, repeat everything above, only don't use blck or 71 this time.

If you have any problems, let me know.

[Teh Unreal]

Excellent tutorial for KotOR 1 sabers, it helped me a lot.

Is there any chance for a KotOR 2 tutorial as well?

[Kast.2da]

That works for KotOR I & II.

[Teh Unreal]

Originally Posted by Ferc Kast

That works for KotOR I & II.

Some of the files, at least, in their specified location in the tutorial above don't exist. Or at least what I can find =/

[JCarter426]

Should work for both. I actually wrote it with K2 in mind. Only thing I could think of that shouldn't exist in K2 would be the color crystal (they use a different naming format in K2). An example crystal .uti for K2 is u_colo_01.uti (in BIFs-->Templates-->Blueprint, Item).