[LE] Texture Paths Order in NIFskope and TexBlend versus the CK and TES5Edit

[Darklocq]

Here’s what I’ve figured out so far trawling old forum posts and a wiki page (https://beyondskyrim.org/texturesets/), and it’s not making much sense when compared with actual practice:

 

[Apologies for the pseudo-table, but this forum has only half-assed BBCode support, and there doesn't seem to be a way to make it render a real table with text and markup.]

 

There are serious issues with this alleged information (which I've updated with the Outfit Studio names, too):

First off, no one but that wiki page appears to call *_s.dds files "subsurface" anything, ever. They’re almost universally called specular (the CK’s "backlight" label notwithstanding). The wiki does say that this is *_s.dds files, and a comparison of the same items in NIFskope and CK or T5E (or Outfit Studio) shows the same path in NS’s 7 and CK/T5E’s TX07 and OS's 7 Specular, so that part seems correct. I think the labeling and description of this as "subsurface tint" is simply wrong. Especially since there’s no semantic difference between "subsurface tint" and "subsurface color" (which is TS’s 3, CK/T5E’s TX03, OS's 3 Glow/Skin – the *_sk.dds files). Everyone but TexBlend calls *_sk.dds files "subsurface" (or something else, never specular), and *_s.dds files "specular" (never "subsurface").

But it gets worse. The CK and T5E apply "subsurface tint" to TX02, which corresponds with NS’s 6. So, we have three conflicting things claimed to be subsurface tint/color.

Next, I keep finding outfits that have the same *_m.dds texture used in the NIF for both NIFskope’s textures 6 and 8 (CK/T5E’s TX02 and TX06, respectively) at the same time, but which in TXST records have CK/T5E’s TX02 and TX07 (= NS’s 6 and 7, respectively).

So, I don’t know if this is an error on the part of the modder who made the gear, or an error on the part of whoever wrote the wiki material about what the NIFskope texture slots really are. Given that the gear looks great in-game, I suspect it’s the latter.

And it’s not clear that CK/T5E's TX06 Multilayer really does correspond to NS’s 8 Backlight. There appears to be no connection between the concepts "backlight" and "multilayer". In this case, "backlight" doesn’t mean "light shining through or around something from behind or within it", but "light reflecting off a surface from a light behind the viewer/camera", as I understand it. Then again, it was the iffy wiki that suggested this meaning.

Another thing is the claims about the *_g.dds, *_p.dds, *_b.dds, and *_bl.dds filename patterns. I've never encountered a Skyrim texture with any of these names (though I admittedly do not use parallax stuff, so maybe *_p.dds is legit). Every single time I encounter something in NS's texture slot 3, it is a *_sk.dds, for example.

Next, I can’t find anything anywhere other than the wiki page suggesting that the environment mask has anything to do with cube maps.

And finally, the order and numbering of the texture fields in Outfit Studio matches neither NIFscope nor the CK/TES5Edit order.

Anyone got more authoritative information sources on this stuff?

Edited October 26, 2018 by Darklocq

[FrankFamily]

6 isn't "greyscale enviroment or cubemap", it's enviroment mask (as you have written it's named in OS) and it does have something to do with cubemaps. It's a greyscale image used to determine where and with what strength the cubemap (slot 5) is applied to the model. White means full intensity, black means zero.

 

Note Skyrim has different shaders and the slots receive different functions depending on that, for instance slot 3, emisive isn't the same as subsurface color. It's just that if the shader of that model is glow then slot 3 is the glow map or emmisive, i.e. to control where it glows and those maps are usually named _g in skyrim. If it's another using subsurface then that slot is for that and it will be named _sk. I don't have much experience with skin shaders. Likewise the meaning of suffixes in textures can also depend on the shader being used and that's where the multiple _m with apparently different meanings may come from.

I also wouldn't trust suffixes to be completely consistent among vanilla assets, diffuse maps are sometimes suffixed "_d" for example, most of the time they have no suffix.

 

You can find some correct info here about the different shaders: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1188259-bslightingshaderproperty-basics/ Including a chart with the purpose of each slot.

Edited October 26, 2018 by FrankFamily

[Skybroom]

Thank you very much.

[Swe0Divx]

I think 8 is the Backlight Mask/Speculator and 7 is Multilayer if you compare this with a head nif

[maxarturo]

As FrankFamily said "Skyrim has different shaders and the slots receive different functions depending on that".

* Things do not work the same way as in the majority of games or what you may have learn in school.

Slot07 – Subsurface Tint Map or (MultiLayer Parallax) Inner Layer Diffuse and (Alpha) Inner Layer Depth

Slot08 – Backlight Map

Slot09 – Unused