LE Issues with glossiness

[icecreamassassin]

Ok, so I think I have a good grasp of texturing but I can't seem to consistently remove glossiness from models using the specular map, so here's what I know and hopefully someone can point out the gap I'm overlooking.

 

-Diffuse Map has the basic color image of the object. I save these as DTX1 no alpha. Slot 1 in the textures of the NIF

 

-Normal map gives the object depth. The alpha channel is set with a black and white image which acts as the specular map (white is shiny black is flat). I save these as DTX 5 Interpolated alpha. Slot 2 of the textures in the NIF

 

-Environment mask: a cube map to emulate reflective surfaces. Saved as DTX 1 no alpha. Slot 5 in the NIF

 

-Environment Map: a black and white image, basically a copy of the spectral map in the normal map with a little higher contrast to accentuate the highlights more. Saved as DTX 1 no alpha

 

I left glow map off because I'm not using any, and it doesn't apply to this issue anyways.

 

So does it sound like I'm doing everything correctly? because I'll paint black over and area in the alpha of the Normal Map and in the environment map and all areas are still glossy. :( What am I missing?

[spookymunky]

heh, just realised lowering the specular amount of the nif would actually reduce a lot of the compression headaches I sometimes have with clothes / robes.. the lower the number the greater range the smelly 16 color / whatever alpha has... sigh at the added conflicts and effort at editing every single mesh though :smile:

 

life would be so much nicer if someone could figure out a decent compression format for games hehe.. like .jpg is a controllable mid point between .gif and .bmp... dxt compression we have worse / similar to .gif quality, or .bmp / tga quality... and that's it hehe, I haven't found a middle ground.

 

oh, finally remembered why I started a new reply :tongue:.. another advantage of saving textures in glorious 16.7 mil colors is when I go to DDSopt my textures for vanilla quality release I am not running the risk of introducing extra articafts while hopefully keeping skyrim smoother :smile:

 

Edit: I run the uncompressed/lossless versions through ddsopt also for release hehe, I hate dxt 1-5 so much I use 24 / 32 bpp for most hero armors / weapon diffuse maps, and I am so cruel to my pc I give every one of the 30 plus followers I have amassed in my last game the hero armor / weapon sets I have modded, normally only have a few around at a time but I do sometimes summon the army (requiem is mean!) so nice ddsopt mipmap levels helps :smile:. I don't use high color depth for normal and spec / environment map kind of things these days really.. or I don't tend to release them if I do since the visual impact vs tiny loading lag really isn't worth it I don't think, and may be better spent on more true color / 4k diffuse maps... unless you want amazing looking fabric.... :wink:

 

Maybe I am using dds opt wrong, like dxt5 may add a few more colors at the expense of a wasted alpha channel for diffuse maps.. through experiments I have rarely been able to tell which is actually worse.

 

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/bit-depth.htm

 

... dxt1 @ 4bpp that we are using for diffuse maps that have no alpha has a color depth of 16 whole colors, and yet sometimes it looks nicer than other formats.. lol

 

it is depressing :smile:.. some effects / textures require such a high resolution to not look disgusting at a low color depth that even on android it is acceptable to use 24/32bpp texture maps (e.g. in some cases you might get away with a 32x32 / 64x64 24bpp texture instead of using a 256x256 / 512x512 + 16 color texture in attempts to achieve a similar smooth effect, and actually save on memory), and yet ultra ultra pc games like witcher 3 I am forced to look at the ugly green artifacts on roach's bum :tongue:

 

Edited December 19, 2015 by spookymunky

[spookymunky]

*I may have broken something ?..

Edited December 19, 2015 by spookymunky

[spookymunky]

*oops, how do I delete this post ?... :smile:

Edited December 19, 2015 by spookymunky

[icecreamassassin]

yeah see I tried what you suggested with the file compression from Photoshop using the Nvidia plugin and chose the formats you indicated and other than making the file preview not visible it did nothing different. I then blacked out the specular and the EM and same results as before. The odd thing is that the NIF is set up exactly the same way as another model that was provided to me by Kettlewitch and while it works fine, I can't seem to duplicate the results. Evey field in the mesh I am trying to get textures to work for is for the most part identical where it counts. I am even using the same cube map as the other model, but I still get the same damned shiny results despite the alpha being masked out

[icecreamassassin]

it's so weird... I just checked another model I did this to and it works perfectly fine... I can't for the life of me figure out what I did differently here

[spookymunky]

hehe, I can feel your pain... been there too often.. hmm.

 

annoyingly I have never made notes on errors in .nif files, or how I fixed them hehe.. never found a way to speed up checking every entry against another either.. hmmmmm :smile:

 

emmission color / levels can sometimes stop a texture from ever becoming truly black, and one twisted bethesda artist seemed to enjoy making the odd hood / gloves from an armor set different from the rest hehe.

 

any color field in general you want to check is the same... hmm, lighting effect 1 and 2 can cause odd results...

 

specular color, specular strength, glossiness.. there is so much to compare and my memory isn't that great, but nothing is instantly jumps out as me as a mistake you might be making that relates to what I have come across.. maybe..

 

I can have a look at the files if you want, though you seem to be doing things right so dunno if it will help hehe, sometimes 4 eyes are better than 2 ? :)

 

[spookymunky]

I think you can also delete the bslightingshaderproperty from one .nif and paste the copied branch from another... edit a bit to point at the right textures and you should be good hehe. May have used as a last resort now and then :wink:

 

Edit: .... select the BSlightingshaderblah on a similar mesh that works and hit ctrl + c, or right click -> block -> copy branch... then load up the evil file, delete it's BSlightwoof using ctrl + del, or right click -> block -> remove branch, then select the parent nitrishape and hit ctrl + v, or right click -> block -> paste branch.

 

using multiple nifskope windows for the same mesh, and the same shortcuts as above you can then paste back in the BSShaderTextureSet that the mesh started out with...

 

... maybe, I usually just re-do the texture strings hehe

Edited December 19, 2015 by spookymunky

[KnightRangersGuild]

If you want to fix the glossyness of your textures just erase the normal map, that how i do it and it works evey time! I found it works much better to make your own and looks better too, >filters >maps>normal map, set scale to 4, tick "wrap", >save as>tick "generat mipmaps"if it has an alpha property choose "compression/dxt3, otherwise dxt1 is fine. If you canged a lot in the textures or made from scratch, then choose dxt5. If it's cloth then i choose "none". Save! Now load your new normal map and simply erase it! The proper way i believe is to add transparency, also adjusting the light or darkness of the normal map will effect it too, like how light casts off it. For instance the cloaks of skyrim mod has messed up lighting effects in certain light but if you darken the normal map a bit it fixes this issue.

This method works every time for me. Hope it helps out.

Edited December 30, 2015 by KnightRangersGuild