Removing Reflectiveness

[zeralesaar]

Not totally sure this should be in this forum, so...yeah.

 

 

Anyway, my problem is that a lot of the armors I see and use are glassy and shiny. This is a complaint I've seen a lot, actually, because of the weird way they act in the dark and how the reflectiveness eats framerate at times. I personally just find it kind of unpleasant.

 

I'm specifically interested in removing the reflective properties of the Saint Armor from the most recent release of Romuska Fantasy Store; this is for private use, of course.

 

From what I've been attempting to learn about this problem so far, it should have something to do with the specular lighting properties of the armor, although I'm not completely sure.

 

 

Any help?

[SavageArtistry]

Not totally sure this should be in this forum, so...yeah.

 

 

Anyway, my problem is that a lot of the armors I see and use are glassy and shiny. This is a complaint I've seen a lot, actually, because of the weird way they act in the dark and how the reflectiveness eats framerate at times. I personally just find it kind of unpleasant.

 

I'm specifically interested in removing the reflective properties of the Saint Armor from the most recent release of Romuska Fantasy Store; this is for private use, of course.

 

From what I've been attempting to learn about this problem so far, it should have something to do with the specular lighting properties of the armor, although I'm not completely sure.

 

 

Any help?

 

I can't say I've done a lot of editing on armors, but I believe it's a combination of the "whiteness" of the alpha channel in the normal map, plus possibly some settings you can change in NifSkope.

 

Try reading this: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...ortal:Texturing

Also this search for "shine" in the CS Wiki may give some useful info: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...fulltext=Search

[zeralesaar]

Well, I've looked at the CS Wiki files on the matter, and I'm stuck because there seems to be a tab or something in the tutorial that I'm not getting in editing. Without a way to view the Alpha Channel, I really can't do much to it. -.-;

[BossDweebe]

Normal maps control the shine, but you can adjust the Specular and Emissive color with NifScope.

 

Click on the icon on the NiMaterialProperty to open a window.

Move the little dot at the bottom of the triangles for those two settings to the far left to lower

these settings.

The glossiness setting gets moved to the right to reduce gloss.

Play around with various combinations of the above.

I haven't found the Ambient or diffuse to have any effect in game.

 

If those setting don't do enough:

A non shiny normal map can be made (in the gimp) - Load the dds for the armor, do not load mip maps with immage.

 

Navigate to -Tool bar - layer - transparency - colour to alpha - click on from - type in 000000 and OK.

Then make a normal map using Alpha. Click on wrap as well. Play with other setting to get degree of

roughness you desire. Filter - I mostly use the 3X3. 5X5, 7X7 and 9X9, and scale - higher # = coarser.

 

After normal map back to transparency and - threshold alpha - push slider to far right.

 

Save, as an _n.dds use DXT3 or 5 and generate mip maps (be sure to back up original & Normal- or rename temporarily - first). Leave the Gimp and image open so you can un-do and make changes after testing in game.

(I only just noticed, and haven't tried DXT5n, but that may be the go for normals)

 

EDIT: HDR also contributes a lot to glare and gloss.

Natural environments/Natural weather helps a lot, but it does make rocks a bit too yellow and grass a bit too bright for many.