Mod Help

[andrewguy12]

Alrightyyy, This problem is very annoying. I made various swords. Everytime I made one it turns out fine. Textures are beautiful in the game and everythings seems to be going fine. Except for one thing.... Its black in the menu!!!! Why?!!? Every single mesh I make it seems that this black curse appears out of no where and bites me in the bottom. Im all like why, I get no response. Well if you can help please reply, even if your not sure give it a guess cause I try and try and still its being annoying. Heres a pic to let you know what im talking about.

[PanzerOfGod]

I had the same problem with a new guard cuirass and shield recently. You need to have a _n map of the texture. Otherwise it won't show in the menu, and I'm pretty sure light won't gleam off it.

[andrewguy12]

I had the same problem with a new guard cuirass and shield recently. You need to have a _n map of the texture. Otherwise it won't show in the menu, and I'm pretty sure light won't gleam off it.

Ahhh, I think your right!! But how do I make one. It seems that all the _n texturs are all bright with a weird color. And would I have to change anything with the Nif or just place it in the texture folder where the textures of the sword is located.

[Vagrant0]

I had the same problem with a new guard cuirass and shield recently. You need to have a _n map of the texture. Otherwise it won't show in the menu, and I'm pretty sure light won't gleam off it.

Ahhh, I think your right!! But how do I make one. It seems that all the _n texturs are all bright with a weird color. And would I have to change anything with the Nif or just place it in the texture folder where the textures of the sword is located.

They're normal maps, they're supposed to look like that. The blue-green-red is used for generating all those little bumps and engraving which aren't part of the mesh. The alpha layer of the normal map controls how shiny the object is. If it is a retexture of an existing mesh (provided you didn't do anything too drastic with the texture), you could probably just copy and rename the existing normal map to fit with your new texture. If it is a new mesh, you may need to create this yourself within gimp or photoshop. Unfortunatly the wiki seems to be down at the time of posting, so can't give you a link, but I'm pretty sure you could search for it.

[andrewguy12]

I had the same problem with a new guard cuirass and shield recently. You need to have a _n map of the texture. Otherwise it won't show in the menu, and I'm pretty sure light won't gleam off it.

Ahhh, I think your right!! But how do I make one. It seems that all the _n texturs are all bright with a weird color. And would I have to change anything with the Nif or just place it in the texture folder where the textures of the sword is located.

They're normal maps, they're supposed to look like that. The blue-green-red is used for generating all those little bumps and engraving which aren't part of the mesh. The alpha layer of the normal map controls how shiny the object is. If it is a retexture of an existing mesh (provided you didn't do anything too drastic with the texture), you could probably just copy and rename the existing normal map to fit with your new texture. If it is a new mesh, you may need to create this yourself within gimp or photoshop. Unfortunatly the wiki seems to be down at the time of posting, so can't give you a link, but I'm pretty sure you could search for it.

 

 

Vagranntttt, hi there!!!! So what your saying is that I should just rename (for example) Blade.dds to Blade_n.dds and it should work in the menu?

 

 

 

I just did that and it worked!!!! :D But the only problem is that the texture has changed in game, too. I'm not sure why. Now it looks really shiny and bright and I'm seeing some random green when theres no green in the texture, any idea why?

[PanzerOfGod]

So what your saying is that I should just rename (for example) Blade.dds to Blade_n.dds and it should work in the menu?

 

If you used an existing texture or a not too drastic retexture of one from the game, then in the same folder as the texture in the bsa files, there will be a normal map. He means you should use that as your normal map, but rename it to "<insert whatever you called your texture>_n.dds". (Sorry if I misinterpreted or said it badly, Vagrant)

[andrewguy12]

So what your saying is that I should just rename (for example) Blade.dds to Blade_n.dds and it should work in the menu?

 

If you used an existing texture or a not too drastic retexture of one from the game, then in the same folder as the texture in the bsa files, there will be a normal map. He means you should use that as your normal map, but rename it to "<insert whatever you called your texture>_n.dds". (Sorry if I misinterpreted or said it badly, Vagrant)

Oh thankss man. You savedd me!! I'm going to give you a kudo man. :D

[Vagrant0]

So what your saying is that I should just rename (for example) Blade.dds to Blade_n.dds and it should work in the menu?

 

If you used an existing texture or a not too drastic retexture of one from the game, then in the same folder as the texture in the bsa files, there will be a normal map. He means you should use that as your normal map, but rename it to "<insert whatever you called your texture>_n.dds". (Sorry if I misinterpreted or said it badly, Vagrant)

No, you explained it right. Trying to use the actual texture as the normal map probably wouldn't work too well since the coloring would be wrong to translate into bumps, and the alpha layer is probably white (which is why it's all sniny). You can convert the actual texture into a normal map, and that's usually the best thing to do, however since I don't use Gimp, I wouldn't know how to explain how to do this.

[andrewguy12]

So what your saying is that I should just rename (for example) Blade.dds to Blade_n.dds and it should work in the menu?

 

If you used an existing texture or a not too drastic retexture of one from the game, then in the same folder as the texture in the bsa files, there will be a normal map. He means you should use that as your normal map, but rename it to "<insert whatever you called your texture>_n.dds". (Sorry if I misinterpreted or said it badly, Vagrant)

No, you explained it right. Trying to use the actual texture as the normal map probably wouldn't work too well since the coloring would be wrong to translate into bumps, and the alpha layer is probably white (which is why it's all sniny). You can convert the actual texture into a normal map, and that's usually the best thing to do, however since I don't use Gimp, I wouldn't know how to explain how to do this.

Yeaa your right, but I found out that instead of using the actual texture I used one from oblivion that was a plain _n (weird color). It works great. I'm gonna update some mods, this really helped.

[threedees]

If you use photoshop you can use this plugin to make normal maps: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photosh...ds_plugins.html

 

You just open your custom texture and apply the normal map filter (the default settings work for me) then save it off as *_n.dds

 

Not the best quality but works well for mods.