OnlyOneWing Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 How do you make textures appear invisible? Is there a specific color that is read as invisible by the graphics engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiggySkyrim Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 It's in an additional channel, not the main bit where you colour it in. Certain models aren't told to look for a transprency channel by their NIF, so no matter how much tinkering you do it won't add transparency. Models which have transparency already are fine. If you press channels (next to layers in photoshop) there should be a channel called Alpha 1. In the diffuse texture I think this works as the transparency map, and in the normal map I think it works as the specular (shininess) map. I might have got it the wrong way round though. Think of white as 1 or full and black as 0 or none. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spamheinz Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 (edited) That is correct, the alpha map defines transparency in the texture. black being 100% transparent, white solid.In the normal map the alpha layer is the reflections/specular shinyness. white beeing 100%shiny and black no light reflections. This should help:http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Choose_the_right_DXTC_compression_algorithm Edited November 22, 2011 by spamheinz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tricolour Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 Transparency is invisible. PNG format, for example, preserves transparency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyOneWing Posted November 22, 2011 Author Share Posted November 22, 2011 Thank you guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuro1n Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Transparency is invisible. PNG format, for example, preserves transparency.But you cant use PNG for textures, DDS format (DXT5, ARGB (x.x.x.x) etc.) for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narmix Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 (edited) I have a question related to this. While you say that the normal's transparency determine's specularity, it seems some objects in the game have their own separate specularity map. For instance, bodies. They have a diffuse map dds, a normal map dds, AND a specularity map dds. Is this true? I mean, it seems that way. For objects that have this separate map, will increasing transparency on the normal map have *any* effect? Edited November 23, 2011 by Narmix Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyOneWing Posted November 23, 2011 Author Share Posted November 23, 2011 I was hoping to make certain pieces of clothing invisible in order to expose the skin beneath or redesign outfits... however when you make a "hole" in the alpha of the texture it literally makes a hole that goes all the way through the character. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tricolour Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 I use DDS2 converter to change from DDS files to PNG, edit in PhotoShop, then change back. That leaves "holes". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyOneWing Posted November 23, 2011 Author Share Posted November 23, 2011 (edited) I use DDS2 converter to change from DDS files to PNG, edit in PhotoShop, then change back. That leaves "holes". Nvidia has a DDS plugin that works with photoshop. It will save you the trouble of converting to png http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop I don't literally want to make the character "invisible" I just want to be able to make parts of the clothes not appear so for instance to modify cleavage. :) Edited November 23, 2011 by OnlyOneWing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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