Pure White Argonian

[talion]

Hi, as I said in the small Topic Description field, this is a request either for a finished texture or advice on making the texture myself. I've been trying for some time now to make a texture for an Argonian with pure white scales. I've met with success to some point, as can be seen in the screenshots I've posted of my weapon mods. However, in order to get that appearance, I have to find pristine lighting conditions because otherwise, the face looks like like it's covered in bad clown makeup and the body is tinted another color (usually a blusish tint). Plus the texture I made is missing a lot of detail, so it's harder to make out the scales even in good lighting conditions. Here's a picture of the character I've been using for screenshots to show what I mean. It's not as apparent here, but the problems are much more noticeable in-game. Sorry in advance for forgetting to remove my UI before taking the screenshot, but it shows what I was intending to show, so I didn't think it necessary to start the game back up to take another.

 

http://i400.photobucket.com/albums/pp83/Argonianiac/WhiteArgonianAttempt.jpg

 

As you can see, his whole face looks kind of flushed and there are streaks of blue and green across portions of his face. You could probably also tell by looking at his shoulders that I tried to make up for the lack of detail in his body scales by using a jacked up normal map, which just looks crappy in the end too.

 

So what I'm looking for now is either a better texture or advice or instructions on making a better texture myself. I don't have great photoshop skills, so I think the advice/instruction would help me out a lot more as a modder, but at this point I'm willing to break down and just accept a finished piece if someone wants to make it. Thanks.

[Vagrant0]

I think the problem is that you are washing out too much detail by having the white skin color. It's just too white, not enough gray tones. The streaks of blue and green should be added for some sort of highlights and variation after a grayscale texture is created. The normal map probably looks wrong because the heights being used are reversed (atleast it looks that way from the screenshot) and there is too much contrast between the top of a scale and the edge.

[talion]

I think the problem is that you are washing out too much detail by having the white skin color. It's just too white, not enough gray tones. The streaks of blue and green should be added for some sort of highlights and variation after a grayscale texture is created. The normal map probably looks wrong because the heights being used are reversed (atleast it looks that way from the screenshot) and there is too much contrast between the top of a scale and the edge.

 

Huh, I never thought of just doing a straight up greyscale. I'll give that a shot and see how it goes. Thanks.

[kieranfoy]

Cpuld I suggest giving them permanent vampire eyes, so they look like albinos? Might be nifty. These could be Cave Argonians.

[Vagrant0]

I think the problem is that you are washing out too much detail by having the white skin color. It's just too white, not enough gray tones. The streaks of blue and green should be added for some sort of highlights and variation after a grayscale texture is created. The normal map probably looks wrong because the heights being used are reversed (atleast it looks that way from the screenshot) and there is too much contrast between the top of a scale and the edge.

 

Huh, I never thought of just doing a straight up greyscale. I'll give that a shot and see how it goes. Thanks.

Not saying a straight grayscale, but probably a heavily modified one. Lack of pigmentation wouldn't change the fact that there would be shadows, highlights, variations of depth.

http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/albino_alligator_1sfw.jpg

 

http://www.spectacularplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/albino-alligator-3.jpg

 

less than 5 minutes in google found those.

[talion]

I think the problem is that you are washing out too much detail by having the white skin color. It's just too white, not enough gray tones. The streaks of blue and green should be added for some sort of highlights and variation after a grayscale texture is created. The normal map probably looks wrong because the heights being used are reversed (atleast it looks that way from the screenshot) and there is too much contrast between the top of a scale and the edge.

 

Huh, I never thought of just doing a straight up greyscale. I'll give that a shot and see how it goes. Thanks.

Not saying a straight grayscale, but probably a heavily modified one. Lack of pigmentation wouldn't change the fact that there would be shadows, highlights, variations of depth.

[Picture]

 

[Picture]

 

less than 5 minutes in google found those.

 

 

Well it still gives me a starting point to work from. I do have a number of reference pictures like the ones you posted. My problem is in achieving a similar look.

[talion]

My newest attempt using the advice I've been given here:

 

http://i400.photobucket.com/albums/pp83/Argonianiac/WhiteArgonianBetterDetail.jpg

 

Certainly more detailed than the first one and the color streaks are much less noticeable, so unless I learn something new sometime, this will probably be the one I stick with. I never figured out the normal map for the body. Everything I tried just ended up with that jagged look, so I just switched my normal map out for the Argonian normal map that came with the body mod I'm using (Robert's Male v5), which appears to be the same as the normal map for every body in the mod, but at least it's not all jaggy.

[SkyChuz]

Plz link ;-;

[motarx]

Now I want to retext Oblivion Genetic's Argonian and make a lizard called Scales-Like-Clouds.