Texture Problem

[Boodrl]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm having an issue creating a texture for my mod. I was successful once but I didn't write down the directions. I tried to recreate it but it failed miserably. Specifically it is for a hair texture. I'm using Gimp to create the texture and I read on Vorna's tutorial that the normal map goes into the red channel, the diffuse map goes into the green channel and the alpha map goes into the blue channel. I made my diffuse channel grayscale and my normal map came from my diffuse map. My specular map also came from my diffuse map but I made it darker and changed the levels. I tried pasting my specular map into the alpha channel but it doesn't work. So then I tried a layer mask and pasted it in there. That seems to do the trick but I believe there is an issue with the compression

 

I believe there is something wrong with the compression too. What settings should I have it on? Any tips would be helpful to create textures. Should I save the maps in there separate files before combining them into one .dds file. Should they have separate compression settings? I also have photoshop Cs4 with the nvidia .dds plugins. Although I am not as familiar with photoshop I'm interested in the tips and advice for that program too.

 

 

Many thanks in advance

[chibievil]

well when u make it dds what your setting on it has to be :

X 8 8 8 XRGB 32BP Unsigned

2D Texture

no mipmaps

 

that what i export my dds and always worked fine,

[Boodrl]

Thank you for the settings chibievil. My textures are still a mess

 

This is a picture of the back of her head. There appears to be weird patches of discolouration.

 

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/9180/47383805.png

[Kaerar]

Try using DXT3 or DXT5 for the .dds as I believe the hair needs the use of an alpha channel. DXT5 can give a better result than DXT3 but is a larger texture.

[Boodrl]

I have to add a channel in photoshop (it's called Alpha1) and i place my specular map in it but when I go to save as a .dds it says too many channels to export. Is there someway to bypass this problem?

[Kaerar]

Yes! Open a specular map .dds file from another item.

Alter the image size to be what you want (for instance 1024x1024 for an HD one).

Copy the main part from your file to the new one.

Select channels on the right (next to layers tab) and tick the alpha channel. Once that is ticked untick the RGB channel.

Now you are working with the alpha channel only.

Go back to yours and copy the part that goes in the alpha channel.

Paste it into the alpha on the new file.

Edit further as needed.

Save as a DXT3 or DXT5 option in the nvidia dds plugin dialogue that pops up. DXT3 is less detailed than DXT5 but is a smaller file size. If you need decent contours and shading in the alpha channel use DXT5.