Mekii Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Hi! I have finally got some time for myself to learn about GECK, working with textures and hopefully I soon can take time tolearn 3D modeling. So far it is going good with GECK but I seem to have got a bit stuck on the texture part, or well, it isalmost done, just the final touches left. The little thing that I can't seem to figure is how to add an glossy effect to my item/armor/piece of threads, so it get a bit of a latex look or something in that direction.I'm pretty sure it's not painted directly onto the texture itself, so, my thoughts goes to the xxxx_n.dds file.Though I'm not sure at all on that it got anything to do with an glossy effect at all. Just an wild guess.This also leads to another question, how do I create an xxx_n.dds that fits my texture?I've been looking in a few tutorials about texturing, non seemed to explain this, but I can almost guess onthat I might have missed it. It's a bit over 3AM here so I'm not quite awake So, if someone could either explain "how to do this and that" or point out an tutorial explaining these two things I'd be very grateful since I completly fail to find it myself at this time. Thanks in advance! Mekii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony the Wookie Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 The specular map holds the data of how much something shines, but I have never put one into Fallout, so im not sure what you would save it as... probly not much help, but at least you have a term to search for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekii Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 The specular map holds the data of how much something shines, but I have never put one into Fallout, so im not sure what you would save it as... probly not much help, but at least you have a term to search for Any help is good help if it can get one closer to the goal. :thumbsup: Edit: Oh yea, this were an excelent hint, found an useful tutorial right way. Thankies Wookie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeguRyel Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 The xxx_n.dds is the normalmap, it gives structure to a geometry without changing the geometry; that way you can make a square look like a piece of wood - I think it tells the light how to reflect. I use the nvidia filter for making the Normalmap from the diffusemap. For that, I open the texture of the object, change it into grayscale (to discard the colour information), change back to RGB, then adjust the contrast. The darker the deeper. When you use the Nvidia Normalmap filter (for Photoshop that is) on that, it gives out a weired blue picture, that can be used as normal map ;) I don't know how to make things shinyer, but when I'm stuck with a problem I try to compare the .nif I'm working on with one original with the attributes I want - takes time, but that's how I found out some things. Sorry I can't help you on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekii Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 The xxx_n.dds is the normalmap, it gives structure to a geometry without changing the geometry; that way you can make a square look like a piece of wood - I think it tells the light how to reflect. I use the nvidia filter for making the Normalmap from the diffusemap. For that, I open the texture of the object, change it into grayscale (to discard the colour information), change back to RGB, then adjust the contrast. The darker the deeper. When you use the Nvidia Normalmap filter (for Photoshop that is) on that, it gives out a weired blue picture, that can be used as normal map ;) I don't know how to make things shinyer, but when I'm stuck with a problem I try to compare the .nif I'm working on with one original with the attributes I want - takes time, but that's how I found out some things. Sorry I can't help you on that. Very helpful information on the Normalmap there, got a bit lost in the tutorial I'm using atm. I've almost got things looking as wanted now, from here I just need to find a .nif somewhere with simular attributes to my wishes. :thanks: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eldiabs Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 What little experience I have seems to lead me to believe that the alpha channel on the normal map controls how shiny a texture is. White is shiny, black is not shiny. If you do not have an alpha channel in your normal map, it's easy enough to create one by copying one of the Red, Green, or Blue channels and renaming it. You can open up any xxx_n.dds file from fallout 3 if you need a reference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skree000 Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 to make your object look glossy, first give it a completely white specular map by making the Alpha channel of your normal map solid white. That should be insanely high spec. Then, in the material properties of your Nif file for the part you want to be glossy, ramp up the Glossiness value to something like 60. Save and enjoy :) Note, solid white specular maps are really sloppy and not really good practice, but it gets the job done if you dont care or arent picky :) In reality the best quick spec maps are a completely desaturated (see; grayscale) version of your color map. Copy and paste that into the alpha channel of the normal map. Thar ya go. (note, thats not always 100% the best way, but 80% of the time its good enough) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekii Posted July 25, 2009 Author Share Posted July 25, 2009 It sounds so complicated, but I'm pretty sure it's easy to get the hang on after a little while. Think I completely faild on my first atempt though. But shame on the one giving up. Trial and error. :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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