Ghogiel Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 Be aware - Skyrim also has reflection maps. Black is dull - no reflection. White is super shiny.That sounds like the environment mask map.. not the reflection map itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teklanika Posted November 26, 2011 Author Share Posted November 26, 2011 If anyone has answers to these questions feel free to post here, that way everyone else looking for answers can read up! I'm still trying to figure this stuff out. I can't get the texture I want the way I want it, especially with the difficulty of making a decent looking normal map. The Nvidia plugin is terrible... haha :whistling: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconsflight Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 If anyone has answers to these questions feel free to post here, that way everyone else looking for answers can read up! I'm still trying to figure this stuff out. I can't get the texture I want the way I want it, especially with the difficulty of making a decent looking normal map. The Nvidia plugin is terrible... haha :whistling: ya please post results! and thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calabi Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 (edited) Can you not use something like this? http://www.quixel.se/ The above will only likely work for scratches and things though. I'm not sure but it looks like they bake the normal maps, so to get the smooth form you will have to model a new high poly and then bake that to get a really good high detailed normal map. Edited November 26, 2011 by calabi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teklanika Posted November 26, 2011 Author Share Posted November 26, 2011 (edited) Can you not use something like this? http://www.quixel.se/ The above will only likely work for scratches and things though. I'm not sure but it looks like they bake the normal maps, so to get the smooth form you will have to model a new high poly and then bake that to get a really good high detailed normal map. That program looks sweet! So if someone were to purchase that, what would be the course of action to get a new normal map off a stock Bethesda texture? Would we have to model a completely new *steel sword or something* and then use Quixel to bake the new map from there? Sounds too tedious to me. :/ Looks like the only way to make vanilla items look better is if we remodel them as a high poly model and bake them---which wouldn't make much sense considering I like the original model and don't have time to make one myself. So then, the only other way to make the item look good is to simply paint a new, high res texture, and use the default normal map; or at least, a slightly modified normal map. My girlfriend is bringing over a tablet for Photoshop that allows you to paint much more accurately. I'm going to try taking a steel sword 512x512 texture, scaling it to 1024x1024 or 2048x2048, and painting fresh details on to it. That should make the sword itself look much better. From there, I'll have to play around with the normal map and see what I can come up with. The default map is too dull and doesn't look elevated enough, so maybe I can fix that at least. Tweaking that and the glow map should come up with a nice result, hopefully! Edited November 26, 2011 by teklanika Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calabi Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 (edited) To bake a high poly you will have to use something like Xnormal or the methods in programs like Modo and 3DS Max. NDO2 wont bake from models only photos and things like that. I think It would be best to keep the existing normal map if you are just going to retexture. Maybe use NDO2 to enhance some of the scratches and smooth things out a bit. I dont know how much NDO2 can do though, I havent really tried it. Edited November 26, 2011 by calabi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viper2904 Posted December 1, 2011 Share Posted December 1, 2011 (edited) Ok, I am about ready to throw my computer out the window at this point. I am hoping someone here can offer some advice. I have tried tangent spaced normals, local, screen, and world... with every option possible. I have tried this with both Mray and scanline... I do not know what else to do. The issue is present in Mudbox and 3ds Max... the only place it is not really noticeable is Photoshop 3d so far. The noramls (or maybe how I need to setup the specular channel in max and mudbox?) are causing seams in the viewport display and on render. It appears that specularity actually intensifies the seams as well (I cannot locate the _s maps in the .bsas that are supposedly the specular maps, I assumed that the normal's alpha channel was being used as the spec, which i have not tested yet - otherwise, why would you keep the alpha channel in the normals?). The only way I have found to remove the seams almost entirely is to remove all specularity, which is not what I want to do while painting in realtime display in Mudbox. This is not the first time I have seen this problem, but it is the first time I have run into it with a 3ds Max - Mudbox workflow, partly because I am not generating the normals, I am loading them it would seem. From Zbrush, I have always had issues with normals (bad artifacting when generating the normals). Normal Map Setup in 3ds Max http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii168/viper2904/junk/NormalsSetupinMax.jpg Issues Present in Max and the location of them in the UVshttp://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii168/viper2904/junk/NormalSeams.jpg Diffuse with Normals viewhttp://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii168/viper2904/junk/NormalwithDiffuseSeams.jpg Rendering from 3ds Max, seams are still presenthttp://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii168/viper2904/junk/maxrender.jpg In Mudbox they are much more subtle, but still presenthttp://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii168/viper2904/junk/MudboxSeams.jpg Mudbox again.http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii168/viper2904/junk/MudboxSeams2.jpg And finally, Photoshop...http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii168/viper2904/junk/PhotoshopExample.jpg [Edit] After Extracting the alpha from the normal map as the specular map...http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii168/viper2904/junk/NormalsafterSpec.jpg After a lot of tweaking and testing, I think it would be ideal to just take the low poly (after EXTENSIVE rework of the geometry) into zbrush and make a new normal, then re-paint the entire thing in Mudbox. I do not like the Normal maps or the diffuse maps and I definitely dont like where the UV seems were placed. I am not certain if we can change the UVs without adding a new mesh and to my understanding we cannot replace the .nif meshes yet? I have to rework the meshes pretty intense just to take these into zbrush or mudbox for subdivision, there are a lot of open borders in every mesh I have looked at. PS: Just went through the forums trying to find how to put images in spoiler tag to save screen space, but could not find it... I expected to find that in the newbie forum.... Edited December 1, 2011 by Viper2904 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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