My lightsaber blade-color experiments...

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:34 pm

Well, I was just fiddling around with the lightsaber ODFs, and I tried to change around the colors of the saber a bit. I basically took the "bluelightsabre.tga", changed the color to orange, then replaced the "bluelightsabre" blade texture in the lightsaber's ODF with "orangesaber". Then, I put in the code "255 140 0 128" for the trail color so it's orange. Munged it, tested it, and it worked:

But, as you can see here, there's a slight problem.

The blade's just a block! Now, I know for a fact that I did everything just right. I mean, the texture looks exactly like any of the other blades, and as you can see, the colors are all correct. But, I don't know why, but the blade just isn't... well... a blade. I don't know... I might be missing something. Might be in the "Common" assets. I might have to look into it. But, as you can see, I've made fairly good progress. If I can figure out why the blades aren't working in the right shape and fix it, I might release a little source pack for some different colored lightsabers.

darth_chooie · Post by **darth_chooie** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:37 pm

It has to do with a Shader type file, because if you look at the other sabers, they all glow.

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:39 pm

Hmm... you might be right. I'll try to find which file it is. Probably somewhere in there.

EDIT: Nevermind, I think I found the problem. I forgot to put in a .tga.option file. I looked at the "bluelightsabre.tga.option" file, and it contains a line that says "boarderalpha = 0". I think that's our glow effect, right there.

RevanSithLord · Post by **RevanSithLord** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:43 pm

Looks great. You should make a total jedi vs sith war or, Jedi/Clones vs Battledroids or something.

Plus, I sense a Jedi wookiee.

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:49 pm

Nope, turns out adding an "orangesaber.tga.option" file didn't do any good. Still a block. I'm baffled... how did they get their blades to work right?

Post by **EraOfDesann** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:52 pm

This happens when you alter lasers, explosions, and lights. The early version of Majin's Thule Moon map had the same problems.

darth_chooie · Post by **darth_chooie** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:02 pm

What folder do you put modified textures in? I would like to make some new colored sabers for my map

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:28 pm

Desann, I know what you mean. I tried this same thing in BF1 (trying to change the green saber to a yellow one), and the same thing happened. I was hoping this time, since the Jedis and lightsabers and everything are more supported and customizable, I could pull it off. It's disappointing, really... though, there's got to be some way to fix it. I mean, the devs did it, we might be able to.

Chooie, I basically just ported in the entire Rep side into my project's side folder. Then, in the Mission.lua, I simply put "dc:" infront of "SIDE\\rep.lvl",", so it was "ReadDataFile("dc:SIDE\\rep.lvl",". Then I just worked from there, inserting my different lightsaber blade textures and editing the ODF files to call for them. But, for some reason, lights don't really enjoy being messed around with...

Post by **Teancum** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:49 pm

Do you have an alpha channel on your new texture?

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:51 pm

If you mean the line in the .tga.option file that says "Boarderalpha", then yes. If not, then no, no I don't.

Lord-Bandu · Post by **Lord-Bandu** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:08 pm

if you edited the actual TGA texture you must save it as 32bit not 24bit .

If youve done it in the ODF with the RGBA try messing with the 4th number ( A ) .... if it only has RGB then I dont know .

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:15 pm

Well, since I needed to use an image converter to get it to .tga format, I couldn't exactly pick 32 bits or 24 bits. So, I'm guessing it's not 32 bits then. Anyway I can change that?

Post by **Teancum** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:34 pm

No -- the TGA actually needs it's own alpha channel. That's what gets rid of the boxy look.

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:34 pm

Which is what, exactly?

darth_chooie · Post by **darth_chooie** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:36 pm

you would need to copy the original TGA, and save it as orangesaber.tga, then open it in PS or similar program, then recolor it then save it. If you dont have PS i could save it with an alpha channel if you need

Post by **Teancum** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:04 am

@ Schizo -- try this one (right click, save as)

http://portfolio.iu.edu/smmelton/orangelightsabre.tga

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:39 am

It worked.

Thanks for your help, Tean.

darth_chooie · Post by **darth_chooie** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:42 am

looks very nice, you should try making some other shades too, maybe me and you could make a mod with this, i could skin some new jedi and you could make new sabers

RevanSithLord · Post by **RevanSithLord** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:51 am

Oooh, I want to help skin with you guys too.

Looks very nice btw. Schizo, maybe you can make a map based on Thule (featured in Star Wars the Clone Wars console game) but it's when Mace was talking about the great sith war and it showed thousands of Jedi/sith on the holoscreen on the ancient battlefield. That'd make an awesome fight right there!

Schizo · Post by **Schizo** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:55 am

I'm thinking about making some all-out Jedi vs Sith war maps. Battle of Ruusan, anyone?