Fallout 4-Normal and Specular Maps

[gernash]

I'm personally tired of the landscape texture's and the "insane specular and over-the top Normal maps" looking at the ground is like looking as spilled jellybeans and when it rains.... don't get me started.

 

I'm new to all this just wrapping my brain around the 72dpi thing hurt a lot.

 

So Normal and color maps, DO they contain any Channel specific data ie in the Alpha channel? As some modeling software can store displacement maps there with the normal map.

 

The Specular Map is

Red - Metal reflection

Green - roughness - Specular

Blue - nudda

what about the Alpha?

 

When I try and search about this the internet just refers me to masking procedures not modeling information in FO4.

 

Does anyone know what each of the channel are for? if so could you tell me as it's driving me nuts.

 

 

[Deleted15964729User]

Everything you wrote seem correct from what I've seen and experienced. However I haven't encountered any specular or normals in FO4 that have utilized the alpha channel for anything.

 

Edit: I do feel material files is a bit of an untapped resource. Most mods and vanilla textures seem to be using same values for smoothness, roughness etc.

[Perraine]

From what I've also gathered through hours of aimless wandering around the interwebs ...

 

The Red channel is for - Reflections or the "metal-ness/chrome-ness" of the texture.

The Green channel is what used to be (in Skyrim) the black and white "Specular" map

The Blue Channel is for Sub-Surface Scattering, although I don't think it's very well implemented in FO4 from what I can gather?. - This is kinda like the _sk.dds files for the bodies in Skyrim I think?

 

There is also separate information in the .bgsm material file for the "wetness" or how the texture will look when it rains I think?

 

I'm pretty sure the game now completely ignores the alpha channel in the Normal Map for the "brightness/Gamma" of the texture.

It still uses the Alpha Channel in the Diffuse Map for transparency/translucency though (provide that the .nif file AND the material file have the Alpha property added/set

 

I've also seen a few .bgem files (on top of the standard .bgsm material files) but I have no idea what they are for. Material Editor opens them quite happily, but they seem to have a slightly different layout to the .bgsm ones.

 

I can't edit most of the _n and _s files for FO4 because I don't have Photoshop, I only have Paint.net which can however open most Diffuse Files. I have found though, that the game will quite happily use the older DXT5 files that Paint.net can create for both the Normal and Specuilar Maps, although lacking the ability to edit separate colour channels with Paint.net means you have to use "trial and error" to adjust the amount of red/green in the Specular to get the required result.

[gernash]

Playing around I think occlusion is carried as a negative in the alpha in the "whatever"_d.dds file, what's the "d" stand for?

 

And yea the intel texture works thingy removes all alpha data from "Normals" and from what i've seen stuff_n.dds and stuff_s.dds are both to be saved as normal map mode

Edited August 21, 2016 by gernash

[Perraine]

the _d simply means the Diffuse or the basic texture of the item. The alpha channel of which carries the transparency/translucency information. So if you want a part to disappear completely, you can just delete that part of the texture. You can also set varying levels of the Alpha for textures like Lace or Tights/Pantyhose. Or even just semi-transparent things like glass.

 

It also seems to get used by things that need a little bit of "blur" or fuzziness to look right. Things like tree leaves or grass, as most of these are for animated meshes, the Diffuse Maps are sometimes slightly translucent, which I think gives the texture a little bit of blur, when applied to an item.

[gernash]

I've just been playing with the "jelly bean effect" on the sanctuary roads, The only way I can Make the normals normal is to wash out most of the pic and enhance the blacks where the cracks and divets/holes are then make the normal with the nvida normal map filter (the Gimp version has some more control) or I can fiddle in CrazyBump till all I dream about is sliders......

 

Are there any other ways to make normal maps (other then "Baking" which i have not looked into)?

Also is there a streamlined process that you can batch up? or do you have to go through 20 road textures and manualy do each of them?

 

{repeat of 1st paragraph but inc the process}

I've found if you decolorize and sharpen the image (to define the blacks and reduce/remove the "picture") then adjust brightness/contrast to emphasize the black to white. Then make the normal with nvidia normal tool. This gives a grainy look with sharp edges to cracks. (that's the process I want to automate.)

 

To me a mod like this http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/16870/? is an example of normal maps gone to far IMO. I download it thinking ZOMG re-texturing of cars how cool!!! But it's basically the bump maps scaled to the extreme (so many jellybeans).

 

I've been downloading mods to enhance the look of the game not knowing 72dpi was it so 2k textures are where it's at unless the texture spans a whole house in game and your staring at the wall in 1 corner.

 

After playing with this madness I went through landscape mods I've downloaded and was surprised how many just did the PS->Normal and called it a day(this doesn't work very well or at all) and the Multitude of stock pics just resized.

 

ARRRRGGG I just read what I wrote ...... Apparently I'm ranting (Jellybeans and slider are going to haunt my dreams)

[gernash]

BTW gimp can do edit the _n and _s

https://www.gimp.org/

and the plugin

http://registry.gimp.org/node/70

instruction are on the plugin page to install it,it uses a similar interface to the Nvidia tools

need to do this when saving n and s files

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Normal_Map_Creation_in_The_GIMP

especially this

• Make sure that you have the appropriate layer selected (there should only be one)
• Go to the Channels tab and deselect the Blue channel (leave the Red and Green channels selected)
• Go to the Color Balance Tool. Image menu → Tools → Color Tools → Color Balance
• Leave the settings on "Midtones" and adjust the Red and Green values both up to 1, but leave Blue at 0.
• Click "OK" to complete the adjustment.

[gernash]

the intel tools just Automagically make "BC5 8bpp (linear, 2 Channel tangent map)" as the compression type.

I assume you use BC5/ATI2(3Dc) in Gimp to save them to interlope the alpha

 

But I'm very very far from knowing stuff.....

[gernash]

I found

https://github.com/kmkolasinski/AwesomeBump/releases

free version of crazybump

Now I feel like I know less there are wayyyyy to many setting in there...(Soooo many slidy bars sooo many)

[Deleted15964729User]

I'd say use the intel plugin for photoshop, it seems to be the one plugin that does all texture maps perfectly.

 

Another useful normal map creator is: http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/