Of Decals and Specularity

[xmetalxthrasherx]

okay so I'm working on my mod and decided I wanted to add better blood, inluding the bullet holes in bodies. So I set up my files. I have the replacment bullet hole texture with alpha channel (left picture). I have the normal map (top right picture) and the alpha channel for the normal as my specular map (bottom right picture)

http://i40.tinypic.com/op654g.jpg

 

But there is no shinniness. I can't understand why it wont work. Any ideas? :wallbash:

 

PS: Does anybody know why when you shoot a body there is only a chance to see the wound decal and it seems to show up in certain places more than others?

[Skree000]

are you remembering to get an alpha of your colormap so that it can cut out your shape? i think that goes in the alpha of the color.

 

your setup for your spec in the alpha of the normal looks fine, thats how it works... i would make sure your order in Nifskope is correct, if its a nif file

 

Colormap

Normalmap

-empty

-empty

-empty

[Skree000]

ALSO when you save your normal map, make sure you save it as a DXT5 (smooth alpha)

 

if you are saving as ARGB or DXT1 dds you wont be retaining the alpha info you want.

[xmetalxthrasherx]

ALSO when you save your normal map, make sure you save it as a DXT5 (smooth alpha)

 

if you are saving as ARGB or DXT1 dds you wont be retaining the alpha info you want.

Thanks for replying, but I've already done all of these things, still no specularity. I also made sure to have shininess turned up to 300 in the GECK. So i can't imagine what's wrong yet.

[xmetalxthrasherx]

Sorry, I hate bumping this topic, but I figured someone must know something. Anybody, help? Like I said, sorry for bumping this, but really i'm doing this for the fallout community. i this people could really enjoy this aspect of my mod if i could only get it working.

PS: Skree, you said I can't save it as ARBG? But that doesn't make sense. Dosen't the "A" in "ARBG" stand for Alpha?

[Skree000]

ARGB is an uncompressed dds, which also takes up alot of the memory footprint to load since its fully uncompressed.

 

Dxt1-5 are compression options that save alot of memory.

 

 

have you tried making the spec map all black or all white? then look at the results? if there is no change then you can be assured that its not even detecting your spec map at all.

That would be my first thought.

[xmetalxthrasherx]

ARGB is an uncompressed dds, which also takes up alot of the memory footprint to load since its fully uncompressed.

 

Dxt1-5 are compression options that save alot of memory.

 

 

have you tried making the spec map all black or all white? then look at the results? if there is no change then you can be assured that its not even detecting your spec map at all.

That would be my first thought.

I made it all white and still no specularity. i also made sure to set the specularity map check box to on in the GECK.

[xmetalxthrasherx]

I think I may decided that decals on characters can't have specular maps. Can anybody confirm this?

[Phoynix]

they do, like when they are gibed the gibed bits are spec.

 

Are you sure you have an alpha channel in your dds?

 

Try sticking it on the colour not the normal, can always try giving it an enviromental effect, thats fourth I think 3rd is glowmap.

[Skree000]

after playing around, i think i have your answer.

 

look in the nif file. Theres tons and tons of hidden settings, properties and flags in the data blocks. specifically material properties.

 

Check to make sure the Glossiness isnt too low or too high. Check to see that its even registering the alpha, and isnt over-riding the spec. Theres atleast 10-20 different things in the nif you can try. I guarantee thats your answer. (unless theres some kind of fundamental thing you are overlooking elsewhere)

 

try that. Nifskope is a mystery wrapped in a riddle sometimes.