Struggles with .DDS files

[Longojing]

Hello modding world,

 

I am strugling to learn how to work with dds skin texture files.

the better is finding a tutorial i think but i can hardly find directly one about it.

 

I have been busy with texture files from the following mods to get that oily look you get with Glossmax.

i have searched manually for head meshes because they are not registered as 'skin' type and manually changed the settings in the niffs.

 

i am talking about results like these:

 

So i am busy with skin textures from these mods:

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/35244//?

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/18256//?

these are meant for:

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/14528//?

i managed, by using the omod version of the high resolution skin set from this link, to get a nice oiled shiny effect on the skin. though the tattoos are missing!

This is what the DevFootFemale.dds shows:

 

 

And like many other face textures found, it does not is oily like the body is, even though i checked every head mesh in the game maps

so i want to fix these textures and have no idea what to do with the 2 different files to be very honest.

I am using Gimp 2.8 with a DDS plugin to work with.

I get an image that seems te be wrapped around the surface of the object it is reffered too. That i understand.

But when i open the _n.dds file (normal map i assume?) i only get a raster full of blocks with some uclear details of the other same image.

Is there a tutorial for how to work with these textures so i can modify them myself?

and make them shine, or also, fix the tattoes that do not show up on the character.

I am sorry if i haven't searched good enough on the forums. though i didn't see anything about this specificly about this in the topic and i could not find these on various places like google, or on the forum search.

I hope i can get help. i will try everything that will be explained or send to me.

Thanks in advance,

Longojing.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Well, for one it is 'impossible' to not have the tattoos, if your body is actually using this texture file. They're part of it, and you can't get it without them.

However, the usage of skin textures on body meshes is all else but obvious.

 

A body mesh is treated as such, if a) the NiMaterial property of the NiTriShape/Strips is using the hardcoded game engine keyword "skin" (case doesn't matter),

and b) the "name" of the NiTriShape/Strips is including one of the hardcoded game engine keywords to tell which texture slot from the race record to use.

The ones I deciphered so far are: "upperbody"/"arms", "lowerbody", "hand", "foot" (again case doesn't matter). Which slot they refer to should be self-explanatory.

There's also "tail" it seems, but this one was never acting reliably in my own test runs, so I just skip it everytime. The letter ":" serves as a 'remark' indicator, telling the game engine that everything coming afterwards is not part of the keyword anymore. That's why in nowadays' body mods NIF files node names such as "Foot:Lowerbody", for example to name the legs, aren't uncommon.

That one is instructing the game engine to use the texture assigned to the "foot" slot of the race (in most body mods used for full-body coverage) and at the same time telling the 'reader' looking into the file that this part is meant to be the lowerbody, without interfering with the hardcoded keyword system.

 

So, if those two conditions are met inside the NIF file, the game engine takes full control of the mesh they apply to. Every Most material settings are ignored, as well as any NiTexture property's path to a DDS file to be used, and the skin tint and color settings as done during CharGen will control the material, as well as the textures assigned to the individual race currently 'wearing' the mesh in the race records.

That's for example why you can't have glow maps working on body parts, as glow maps require a non-zero "emissive" property in the material, and this the game engine will always override on actual body parts.

 

There are 'some' settings in the NIF though which survive the game engine overrides, and as such it is possible to create the wet-look gloss you're after via a combination of settings in the NIF and transparency of the normalmap texture "..._n.dds" (alpha channel serves as specularity map sort-of) going along with the skin texture assigned in the race records.

 

The normalmap itself is only used in shadow and shading calculations, to give perceived 'structure' to the physically 'flat' surfaces. But the alpha channel of this texture map is almost as important, due to the afore-mentioned function given to it. That's why many first-time texturers end up with saran wrap-like shiny surfaces, because they stored the normalmap in a format which destroys the alpha channel, making it all-white, transparency completely solid, and as such 100% specularity.

 

The real texture artists sure create their normalmaps 'by hand' or something, but the mere mortals among us modders usually use specific tools 'calculating' the normalmap texture from the diffuse texture, or maybe a higher-detailed version of the actual mesh even. I for one always create mine via a normalmap creation tool from a grey-scale version of the texture and setting up a certain amount of 'bumpyness', then I darken the grey-scale version some more and use this as the alpha map to prevent my texture from ending up all saran-wrap-looking in the end. I personally messed around some with selective alpha and bumpyness in certain areas to make my textures more reflecitve/shiny and/or 3-dimensional in appearance in the end. You would never catch me 'hand painting' a normalmap though, like I've seen the real artists do... that'd be 'overkill' for my limited painting skills.

[Nephenee13]

So you're trying to get oiled skin?

What precisely is the problem you are having, your post is a little all over the place, sum it up, concisely and specifically.

[Longojing]

So you're trying to get oiled skin?

 

What precisely is the problem you are having, your post is a little all over the place, sum it up, concisely and specifically.

i will have to make pictures to give a better over view on what i am looking for. now it's a litle late. i am going to sleep soon.

 

And for Drake, thanks for the info. i will have to re-read it to get some clarity cause i have to look at it carefully before i understand everything. you once helped me before with aging maps causing the shinyness of the face to disappear. i used 2 different files from 2 different mods to get the nice oily effect.

but since this face textures aren't shining, i guess i did something wrong too.

 

I have to recheck the files that i use for the face. Later today i will make a much more clearer example of what i use and what i am looking for to get done.

i did it kinda hasty, sorry for that.