How do I make a glow specular?

[Tilarta]

I have successfully imported my new retextured NukaCola bottles into Fallout 4 and so far, the game is accepting the mod:

 

Modded Nuka Cola Bottles

 

But the one on the end there isn't glowing.

I made a glow specular, but obviously, I didn't get it right, since it isn't lighting up.

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu100/zrowngctr/Fallout/Fallout4/Textures/NCnvQglowPrb_zpswqtvy5mx.png

How do I make an object glow ingame?

[montky]

great question! and, thank you for your excellent modding!

apologies for my response... I hope it help you, it is the least I can does...

 

unity-blogs will help you a lot for lighting effects in FO4.

there are also some great tutorials on GIMP for generating bump maps and normals...

even with some pluggins there too.

 

it has to do with -

the bump map/normal map and the specularity map.

if you don't make the object mapped to a lightsource instance,

you can alternately make them 'glow' via that gathering of light/luminescence quality in the key color...

 

environment lighting might be many colors -

yellowy-orange, pinkish-purple, and white,

maybe others as blue etc...

that light strike your object and is reflect...

 

I believe certain colors under a certain layer of transparency,

result in the object 'being lit from behind'...

see the unity-blogs on how to illuminate objects etc.

 

if you unwrap a glass object etc,

it is I think a tangerine brilliant orange, under 2 layers of the transparency,

which produces the glow signature.

either that, or a particular purple...

Deep Blue surfaces are a specular map failure...

 

If you want to experiment a lot,

you can phase-shift and lens-distort/emboss the transparency map,

and imbue it with a pattern seemlessly if you want -

say, d'holbach, fractals or mandelbrot... demoivre etc.

any sequence you like it from the OEIS you could map onto the surface -

make your quantum cola even more 'quantum-y'...

you could make the reflection from the nuka-bottle be in the form of

Leibniz gasket if you want, etc.

a leibniz-gasket effect would look great for nuka cola, as that is 'bubbly'...

 

you can even emboss these effects INTO the lighting layer itself...

the 'brilliant orange' or whatever the key color is...

you can make it undulate as you like -

map it to a hypersurface or 3sphere etc.

such as for, a lava lamp effect... it makes it look like it is

lenticular.

 

it is a lot of fun, and can make the surface have different diffraction

depending on time of day and lighting conditions.

an object can have a lot of shadows, or can distort its spectra-fringe...

a mod I did long ago for

Elder Scrolls 3 morrowind was,

to make player character iridescent hahah.

 

you can also make 'oil' effects, or pearlescent -'halo' like effects,

or molten effects, using those technique.

 

-----

If only, the normal bump map and others... could be a .gif on a loop,

which the game 'reads'- that way, it would change in real-time...

(nb DO NOT TRY to do so, it will break your game at this time hehe)

[Tilarta]

Another modder helped me fix this, it turns out if you want a mesh to glow, you need to break it into two parts, one for the glow and one for the part that doesn't.

 

After that is done, it's just a matter of enabling a function in the BGSM linked to the glowing mesh.

 

I'm onto the next stage of the project now, the Nuka Cola Vending machine.

And that is going to be a lot more complex!

[montky]

@tilarta,

it is awesome that a pro modder help! excellent work, and thanks for sharing!

 

is that the nuka machine, with working 'face' like the Securitrons from FONV?

with lights, and sound?

that would be a tricky mod, but a popular one for sure!

[Tilarta]

@montky

The idea is that when the machine powers up, the monitor will activate to display a NukaCola image and the logo panel will light up.

Just so you see that it is connected to the settlement power grid.

 

I did wonder if it might be possible to put the Cappy&Bottle video on the monitor, but I don't know if meshes support animated textures.

Or the sound that goes with it.

And I'm still a beginner modder, so that is most likely beyond my current skillset at the moment.

 

The primary problem is that I don't know how to make NIFs Fallout 4 compatible.

I can tweak the models and make the shapes I need, but whenever I try to import them into Creation Kit, it causes a fatal crash.

The modders who helped me fix the last few broken meshes explained that the file tree and collision data not being formatted correctly are the primary causes of incompatibility.

 

And that is specifically the problem here, as I had no object to make a baseline comparison for any of that data, I had to make a rough NIF and then seek advice on how to fix it.

When I have a lot of free time, I might have to start going through the object files one by one and see if any existing functions can be redesigned to work with my mod.

 

The main drawback is the modelling software I am using isn't compatible with Fallout 4's NIF format.

Unfortunately the one that is compatible is ransomware and I can't afford the hundreds of dollars worth of regular subscription to "rent" the software license.

Which is why I usually seek help of someone who knows how to fix the format and then take it from there.

 

 

It will get more complicated from that point on, as I have to work out how to rescript the game to substitute the FO4 vending machines for my FNV vending machines and make them randomly generate nuka cola batches.

 

 

If I solve all of the above, then I'll see about the next phase, bringing Sunset Sarspiralla into the game.

The vending machine is the key principle that has to be solved, since once I understand it, I'll adapt it to create a Sunset Sarspy vending machine.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Tilarta

[montky]

cool!

you are doing much better than I -

I am terrible at Unity hehe.

FO4's python and papyrus is like alien script to me.

 

I like the scope and ambition of this mod envisaged,

for lighting proper nuka cola machine ala FONV etc

if your past work is anything to go by :smile:

finally, my V111 will look 'correct' hehe.

 

there was an FO4 mod,

which allows the playing of holotapes in a holotape player near adjacent connected TVs...

maybe...

 

if that were integral with the vending machine...

I mean, I can already no-clip and put a TV inside of a nuka vending machine hehe...

and it will play cappy and bottle on the Nuka Machine.

it is a good workaround for the moment.

 

as to the vending machine aspect -

you can spawn a 'buddy' inside of the nukamachine.

you can make that buddy invisible.

if only there was a way to change a spawned buddy's inventory to spawn from

a different list, then it could spawn nuka-colas...

(or, you could make a script to add x,y,z nuka colas to that buddy after x amount of ingame time)

I don't mind that the restored nuka cola vending machine adds alcohol to it hehe.

it is a shame that the objects don't spawn inside of the shelves in the machine itself though...

 

// lame pseudo-pipe dream

for playing movies and such,

I'd rather have

a surface of Verts/faces

that I can map and assign to play

an .flv or .gif... rather than all that complicated stuff.

in speaking to some modders working on Enclave mods,

such a thing may be possible for FO4...

 

then, I'd group-select that bundle of faces into a group,

and that surface would play the .gif or .flv in a directory in game...

that would be much easier hehehe.

I could then drag and drop any .flv or .gif I wanted into the folder,

and all the objects with that binding face group would play it.

 

making .flv or .gif is relatively easy and low on data,

so it could make simple animations...

.

this would make machinama much easier to make hehe.

// end rant.