What is the purpose of material swaps?

[EmissaryOfWind]

I haven't touched that at all so I can't tell you, that would be strange, but not impossible with beth

[Ethreon]

Doesn't it also affect the impact sound when you smack it into stuff?

Material and sound have nothing in common.

[PoliteRaider]

Doesn't it also affect the impact sound when you smack it into stuff?

 

No, that's Sound Category, PHY<insert object type>.

 

For example PHYGenericWoodMediumL [sNDR:0003F3EA]

[Fatalmasterpiece]

Ahh I remember back in the day when all we had were diffuse maps and specular maps... normal maps didn't even exist yet! In fact I think I remember before specular maps and all we had was the alpha channel on our textures! Ahh I feel old, and now there's this materials bs to learn >_<

[PoliteRaider]

Ahh I remember back in the day when all we had were diffuse maps and specular maps... normal maps didn't even exist yet! In fact I think I remember before specular maps and all we had was the alpha channel on our textures! Ahh I feel old, and now there's this materials bs to learn >_<

 

It's pretty cool though in that you can just have the one .nif and switch out the textures without replacing the whole model. Seems to help a bit with performance.

[steve40]

 

Doesn't it also affect the impact sound when you smack it into stuff?

Material and sound have nothing in common.

 

 

They do. Impact data sets choose different footstep sounds depending on the material type, for example.

But there's a distinction between material types and material swaps.

"Material swaps" are the equivalent of "texture sets" in Skyrim. You can swap the textures on an object without having to edit the texture paths in the nif itself.

Also, it looks like there is a new Papyrus function that will do material swaps. Skyrim didn't have this feature iirc.

[EmissaryOfWind]

Does that mean dynamically changing textures is now possible? Because that's an exciting perspective.

[PoliteRaider]

Does that mean dynamically changing textures is now possible? Because that's an exciting perspective.

 

I'm not sure. I've been trying to play around with this and got a little stumped.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the vanilla game ever implements a dynamically changing texture, or if it does I wasn't able to find any of the examples when I went looking (I could have easily missed it though). It should theoretically be possible, but without finding an example of it I'm not sure how to go about doing it.

 

With every example I found (such as power armor paint), the game changes textures by switching to a new model (potentially with the same nif though) with the material swap predefined rather than performing it dynamically on an existing object. I don't know whether this is just something Bethesda never ended up trying or if it's actually not possible for some reason. Someone smarter than me is going to have to take a look at it though to say for certain.

[Gruffydd]

Ahh I remember back in the day when all we had were diffuse maps and specular maps... normal maps didn't even exist yet! In fact I think I remember before specular maps and all we had was the alpha channel on our textures! Ahh I feel old, and now there's this materials bs to learn >_<

 

I'll help you feel younger.

"Channels? Textures? I used to code a MUD where all we had were characters on a monochrome screen. Just green and black words and numbers that you had to read to play the game. Now get off my lawn, you hooligans."

Nope. That just made me feel older.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Gruffydd

[EmissaryOfWind]

 

Does that mean dynamically changing textures is now possible? Because that's an exciting perspective.

 

I'm not sure. I've been trying to play around with this and got a little stumped.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the vanilla game ever implements a dynamically changing texture, or if it does I wasn't able to find any of the examples when I went looking (I could have easily missed it though). It should theoretically be possible, but without finding an example of it I'm not sure how to go about doing it.

 

With every example I found (such as power armor paint), the game changes textures by switching to a new model (potentially with the same nif though) with the material swap predefined rather than performing it dynamically on an existing object. I don't know whether this is just something Bethesda never ended up trying or if it's actually not possible for some reason. Someone smarter than me is going to have to take a look at it though to say for certain.

 

 

What's the function called?