Why do UV maps come out so messy?

[ub3rman123]

Select the faces that are the wrong way in edit mode and press ctrl-n to flip them to the outside.

[baduk]

Hi!

 

Just select the faces that are messed up before going mesh > normals > flip

 

ITs looking good, I wonder tho what u can do on the mirror part to make it more glassy looking?

 

There is cubemap or maybe putting another mesh ontop of the mirror pane and have water shader or transparent on it?

 

 

btw, whats the difference between recalculating oppositie direction and flip a normal?

I think the normal is perpendicular to the face so flip is same? and then blender automatically smooths the normals also.

Edited January 22, 2011 by baduk

[kungfubellydancer]

ITs looking good, I wonder tho what u can do on the mirror part to make it more glassy looking?

 

There is cubemap or maybe putting another mesh ontop of the mirror pane and have water shader or transparent on it?

 

I was wondering that myself. Some games such as Sims support mirror features, in which mirrors have an actively reflecting surface, but I don't think Bethesda games ever utilized that. There is even a mirror in Prey, from what I can remember. But, yeah, water shaders seem to reflect nicely. I'll try to use one of those.

 

And yes, I inverted the normals. I'm not sure why I asked that, I've done it a lot before. :/

[kungfubellydancer]

I duplicated the mirror and added it to the mesh, but did not add collision. I changed the shader to Shader_water, and when I loaded the game, it crashed when I approached the room with the mirror in it. Was there something I forgot to change?

 

The Shader type is SHADER_WATER

and the shader flags are SF_ZBUFFER_TEST | SF_EMPTY | SF_UNKNOWN_31

[baduk]

Hi!

 

I dont know how to use water shader, If you look in bsa file you can find water placeable nifs. They are a plane with nitristrips block that has watershaderproperty instead of bsshaderpplightingproperty. There is no texture sets.

 

I think the game crashed because you have textures on the mesh that is using water shader.

 

The cube map is maybe a good idea to try also. You can specify the _e.dds in the bottom texture slot and have a _em mask file that controls where the reflections occur. the mask goes in the 5th slot.

 

It is compatible with other textures when you add the multiple textures shader flag.

 

Look on these helpful tutorials for making it. This one is the layout of the cube map, I think you only need to have the 3rd square detailed.

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=199

 

This one is how you use it. Maybe instead of having an environment mask tho you can use alpha transparency to fade it out at the edges where it is cracked.

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=197

[kungfubellydancer]

Well, the watershader thing had no result, but I tried the cubemap.

 

Good thing is, the mirror now reflects light very well, after I created both a 120x120 _e map (of a room) and 60x60 a _em map (pure white). But it seems to me that the cubemap I made is not working, only the environment map, which was pure white. For the cubemap, I used an image of a gothic room, set the dimensions to 120x120, and made 6 layers, all named x+, x-, y+, etc etc, so that Gimp would recognize it as a cube map. But it doesn't appear to work on the surface of the mirror. I did it this way, because I was following a tutorial.

 

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj27/kungfubellydancer/ScreenShot169.jpg

[baduk]

Hi!

 

The cube maps for fallout 3 are weird. U gotta have all the squares rotated a certain way for orientation and then you gotta line all of em up horizontally. So i guess that a non fallout 3 cube map tutorial will not get the expected results.

[kungfubellydancer]

I meant to use your tutorial, and I did, up until it asked me to save it as a cube map. GIMP's dds plugin doesn't allow it to be saved as a cube map unless it is 6 layers of 512x512 (or similar dimensions), and with the names x+, x-, etc. I don't know why, and frankly, I think it's rather stupid, as I'd much rather create a long image with 6x1 ratio, but it won't allow me to save it as a cube map.

 

I think I might just install nvidia's dds plugin one of these days.

[baduk]

Hm i duno. i think if u got photoshop u should try that and its also got that neato ndo thing for making normals maps on it.

 

or you can try paint.net cause i keep hearing good stuff about it.

[kungfubellydancer]

I have photoshop for my mac, and I love it more than GIMP, but the license isn't compatible with Windows...

 

Anyway, I tried making a new cubemap. I used the same method as the one for my mirror, except instead of a photo, I used a simple gradient. Needless to say, it worked perfectly on my mirror, and on all the other things I put it on, lol.

 

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj27/kungfubellydancer/rainbow.jpg

 

As you can see, the results vary, and I'm still trying to figure out why. All these objects and the other ones I tested are using the same envmap (rainbow gradient) and envmask (medium grey). For The mask on the far left seems to ignore the envmask and is full-out rainbow. The coat is ignoring the envmap, and is just super-shiny, like latex. The mirror seems to work just right, and still has the specular highlights seen in one of the earlier photos in this thread, though at the angle here you can't see it. The gold lamp is, like the coat, ignoring the envmap and using only the envmask, and therefore has some nice speculars, but no rainbow sheen.

 

Some other things I tried were hats and clothes, and all seemed to ignore the envmap, but became like latex, just like the coat. Is there any reason why some objects will ignore the mask, some ignore the map, and some ignore both/neither? Remember, these were using the SAME envmask/maps.