nobodycloak/northernlights

An open-source implementation of the Aurora/Odyssey engine, targeting the two Knights of the Old Republic games

The Northern Lights Project

The Northern Lights Project (a placeholder name) is a full reimplementation of the Aurora/Odyssey engine, targeting the two Knights of the Old Republic games (KotOR 1 and TSL). It is made of two elements:

• A full re-reimplementation of the Odyssey engine, intended to fix bugs and allow the game to run on modern hardware without the nightmares of the past...
• A level editor (named the KotOR Level Editor, or KLE) with similar (but extended) capabilities to the Aurora toolset from Neverwinter Nights, targeted at the KotOR games.

Please find a video outlining the features of the KLE here.

What Works

• The level editor is functional, and can save and load modules. It is still in (very early) private alpha, so please let me know if/when you find bugs.
• KotOR and TSL are both supported fully in the level editor.
• Model loading and animations (thanks in no small part to the work of rwc4301, whose work in turn seems to be partially based on the Xoreos project)
• NCS scripts run natively, although performance needs to be improved
• Many of the engine routines have been implemented, along with the corresponding systems
• I've got a rudimentary UI system working, but how exactly I want to handle this is still an open question
• Enemy combat AI is working (but is very simple; for now, I'm overriding the k_ai_master script and writing the AI logic myself).
• The action system has been implemented, but many of the actions require implementation
• Movie playback works (although it works by first converting all the movies to MP4, and then playing them). Eventually, using Xoreos as a reference, I'd like to read the movies directly from .bik format, but that's a lower priority.

What doesn't work

• Many of the systems currently use reflection to (very significantly) improve code readability. However, this comes at a performance cost. I might have to reimplement some things without reflection (the script system, in particular, is a target for this).
• The save-load system
• The effect system (as in, effects on characters, such as heal, damage, ...) is not yet implemented
• Combat and gameplay in general are very limited in scope right now. Dialog works, and some scripts work (but with large, game-breaking bugs).

Installation (for level editor - engine reimplementation is not ready for prime-time yet)

Please follow the following steps:

0. Go to this link (as it is the latest stable version of KLE): https://github.com/lachjames/NorthernLights/tree/0b994f127ab1f394e20e0cae2b514aff9fca2a6a
1. Download the repository, either by cloning it using git or just downloading it as a .zip file
2. Unzip the resulting folder somewhere on your computer
3. Open the folder in Unity as a project
4. Open the "KotOR" scene, in the "scenes" folder
5. In the top menu, go to Edit -> Project Settings, then click the "Aurora Preferences" tab. Enter the game you're working on (TSL is best supported for now), the location of your K1/TSL installation (where appropriate), and a "Module Out Location", which is a folder that you don't mind being completely erased frequently by the level editor (it's used for temp space during saving/loading).
6. Follow the guides at https://github.com/lachjames/KotOR-Modding-Guide/wiki to learn how to use the editor, including which windows are applicable for which tasks.

Who to thank

• Almost all of the code for loading models, GFF, LYT, RIM, MOD, ERF, ... files is either directly from, or derived from, the KotOR-Unity repo (https://github.com/rwc4301/KotOR-Unity). This project wouldn't have gotten off the ground without the amazing work of rwc4301.
• JC on the DeadlyStream Discord has been invaluable and this project would not exist without his knowledge of the game engine
• Thor110 for his help and support, tmonahan23, VicariousVeteran, and many, many others
• DrMcCoy and the Xoreos team for the Xoreos project (xoreos-tools is used in this project for a few things, and xoreos itself is a great reference)
• The Reone project, which
• KotOR.js, another project similar to this, whose public source code has been helpful when trying to crack a couple of difficult nuts
• MDLOps, whose source code I have relied on heavily when trying to understand the MDL/MDX format
• The NWN NSS/NCS Skywing documentation
• So, so much more... I need to continually update this section with people I missed, or new people who helped out :)