Confused about oblivion textures (making texture mods)

[FOCookie]

So it's a rather quick question and I won't take up too much of your time hopefully.

 

Seeing in the files there are roughly three images to replace per texture. So far what I have understood is the normal color map (the base texture that I drew) and the normal map (which I have as well). The color map is "example.DDS" while the normal map is "example_n.dds".

 

Then there is a final THIRD file which is "example_g.dds" for textures in oblivion .BSA. I read that this is referred to as a grayscale image? Is that also called a displacement image? Or is it a specular image??? I'm so confused by all the different terms. Which type of image will I need to generate or create to replace that grayscale third and final image type?

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!!!

 

 

Backstory: 100% new to modding and never made a texture... here take a look at two random examples I drew up today from scratch tell me what you think... (already dxt1 compressed the colored lava and it's 2k x 2k)

 

The first one is a (in my opinion) finished lava retexture. The second is a dirt texture I did for practice while bored and in the middle of doing the lava texture. I think it helped me a lot haha... (it's work in progress)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m109/FlippedOutCookie/lava01_COLOR_zpsutn2ggkt.png

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m109/FlippedOutCookie/lava01_COLOR_zpsyvwomnep.png

[DrakeTheDragon]

The "_g" files actually are so-called "glow" maps. I'm not completely sure anymore if they're only gray-scale, but I guess it was that way. But one thing I'm absolutely sure, not every mesh has or needs one.

 

What they do is rather simple, really. The material property of the mesh defines an "emissive" amount, that is what color and how intensive the light "emitted" by the mesh should be. And the glow map now simply puts a mask over it to make only certain areas glow and only in certain amounts.

 

The main color is defined by the diffuse texture, of course, but I think the emissive property can also define the color. The real emission must be some kind of a mixture between the two in the end, like reddish color emitting through a yellow surface creating an orange glow. And the glow map simply masks the surface so not every area glows the same amount of orange.

 

Without an emissive material property nothing will glow, so it's not only matter of texture files, and without a glow map, I think, everything will glow. Proper combination of diffuse texture, emissive material property of the mesh and gray-scale glow map can create really interesting combinations of glowing in the dark differently than in bright light and all these things.

 

 

Getting back to your specific example the lava tile will definitely need an emissive property, as lava is actively glowing all the time and emitting a lot of light. Without it, you'd need to first shine a lot of light onto it before anything even begins to glow, like lava only glowing during day and being black when in darkness.

 

If you do need a glow map though for a lava tile mostly depends on what kind of glow effects your lava surface should have. If it's only a bright homogenous mass of red or orange, it most likely won't need a map to make certain areas not glow, but if it'll also contain like swimming patches of already cooled-down magma stone that is no longer glowing or not glowing anymore right now, then a proper glow map to remove its glow might definitely be an idea.

 

 

I can't really remember anymore what DXT type to use for a glow map, but it won't contain any transparency or anything, so DXT-1 is most likely the way to go.

 

 

As for the "specular" and "displacement" components, well, I don't know about the 2nd, but the 1st is actually an in-built part of the normal map file. Specularity is determined by the alpha channel of the normal map file ("_n"), that's why completely solid normal maps (or normal maps stored in a format without alpha channel/transparency) usually cause surfaces to shine like crazy, and anything but almost invisible normal maps will make surfaces look like plastic wrapped.

 

There are special texture blend settings determined for the mesh in the NIF files as well, to create even more shine or things like environment mapping/mirror surfaces, but even those are to the most part directly controlled by the normal map's alpha channel, or by that definition, the specular map.

[FOCookie]

The "_g" files actually are so-called "glow" maps. I'm not completely sure anymore if they're only gray-scale, but I guess it was that way. But one thing I'm absolutely sure, not every mesh has or needs one.

 

What they do is rather simple, really. The material property of the mesh defines an "emissive" amount, that is what color and how intensive the light "emitted" by the mesh should be. And the glow map now simply puts a mask over it to make only certain areas glow and only in certain amounts.

 

The main color is defined by the diffuse texture, of course, but I think the emissive property can also define the color. The real emission must be some kind of a mixture between the two in the end, like reddish color emitting through a yellow surface creating an orange glow. And the glow map simply masks the surface so not every area glows the same amount of orange.

 

Without an emissive material property nothing will glow, so it's not only matter of texture files, and without a glow map, I think, everything will glow. Proper combination of diffuse texture, emissive material property of the mesh and gray-scale glow map can create really interesting combinations of glowing in the dark differently than in bright light and all these things.

 

 

Getting back to your specific example the lava tile will definitely need an emissive property, as lava is actively glowing all the time and emitting a lot of light. Without it, you'd need to first shine a lot of light onto it before anything even begins to glow, like lava only glowing during day and being black when in darkness.

 

If you do need a glow map though for a lava tile mostly depends on what kind of glow effects your lava surface should have. If it's only a bright homogenous mass of red or orange, it most likely won't need a map to make certain areas not glow, but if it'll also contain like swimming patches of already cooled-down magma stone that is no longer glowing or not glowing anymore right now, then a proper glow map to remove its glow might definitely be an idea.

 

 

I can't really remember anymore what DXT type to use for a glow map, but it won't contain any transparency or anything, so DXT-1 is most likely the way to go.

 

 

As for the "specular" and "displacement" components, well, I don't know about the 2nd, but the 1st is actually an in-built part of the normal map file. Specularity is determined by the alpha channel of the normal map file ("_n"), that's why completely solid normal maps (or normal maps stored in a format without alpha channel/transparency) usually cause surfaces to shine like crazy, and anything but almost invisible normal maps will make surfaces look like plastic wrapped.

 

There are special texture blend settings determined for the mesh in the NIF files as well, to create even more shine or things like environment mapping/mirror surfaces, but even those are to the most part directly controlled by the normal map's alpha channel, or by that definition, the specular map.

Very helpful source of information.

 

Read it a couple times and plan on coming back to this post to digest further as needed. Thank you so much.

I plan on trying to finish two texture packs within this month. An oblivion texture replacer and a mythic dawn paradise replacer. Here's hoping I can get decent enough at doing retexturing to make something worthwhile. Noticed it's hard to find good replacers for these two areas.

I don't know if you're going to be able to read this but do you have any suggestions for in-game areas?

Edited March 13, 2016 by FOCookie