How do I create a specular to apply glossy effects?

[Tilarta]

I need to apply these effects to an ingame object I have modded:

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu100/zrowngctr/Fallout/Fallout4/Textures/NCBNVkeymap01_zpsjglritz4.png

 

According to the info I have, it is the _s.dds file that controls this aspect of the object.

 

But the tutorial I found was not very specific, it just said "paint it red".

Since that doesn't help, I am looking for a more precise guide, one that explains it step by step.

 

I am using GIMP as my DDS editing program.

[FrankFamily]

"Paint it red" is quite the simplification.

 

Basically the _s textures of fo4 are specular and glossiness (both grayscale, therefore 1 channel is enough) packed in a single image using the two first channels (R and G) one being a gloss map and the other specular map (don't remember which one but if the tutorial said that for gloss paint it red then red channel should be glossiness). I'm pretty sure gimp has a channels tab just like photoshop, so just make your specular and glossiness maps separatedly (or one derived from the other) and copy them into the appropiate channels.

The blue channel is probably ignored but i'd say paint it black so the result looks green and red.

 

Just experiment with the values for both channels until you get the material looking how you want it.

[Tilarta]

Still working on it, but not sure it had the desired effect:

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu100/zrowngctr/Fallout/Fallout4/Textures/GcolorChannels01_zpsb7dba1bk.png

Is this what it's supposed to look like?

I inspected the object in Creation Kit and it seemed that the bottlecap was more metallic then the bottle.

But the label which I intended to be matt and have no gloss did!

The color values used here were 255 for metallic, 127 for glass.

I don't think I did it correctly.

Edited September 15, 2016 by Tilarta

[radiumskull]

I think Specular/Gloss maps are usually generated by baking a texture from the materials within the modeling program.

 

@Tilarta, what does the spec map look like from the original object you modded?

[Tilarta]

It looks like this:

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu100/zrowngctr/Fallout/Fallout4/Textures/NCF_s_zpsr6vf5vzx.png

I hope it doesn't have to be that detailed with all the sublayers on the side.

That I can just edit the channels and be done with it.

Plus, GIMP gave me an error export message I didn't understand, it said it was blocking the export because there were layers, at least that was my interpretation.

 

That is where I am having the difficulty, working out how to isolate the channels for individual editing.

[FrankFamily]

the stuff on the right is mipmaps, don't have to worry about them, when saving to dds it should autogenerate them (there might be an option to tell the exported to do so, if so, make sure it's checked) You seem to have imported the mipmaps as layers which is not needed, if you when importing it asks say no.

 

Since you have all the mipmaps as layers the exporter complains, delete all but the top or flatten the image prior to exporting.

 

What you should care about is the Red and green channels, you can visually isolate them with the eyes by the side (click on the eye to hide a channel). As you can see on the small preview the values are never as crazy as 255 but instead a bright grey on average.

 

You currently seem to have all channels selected (all highlighted blue) so you are getting the combined yellowish image, try clicking on one, it will probably highlight on blue only that one and you'll then be able to copy the channel to a new image for editing, then once done copy, select destination channel and paste to compose your final image from your edited channels.

 

As you can see there the blue is full black, make yours too. Then alpha isn't needed, if you save it witht he right compression it won't make it.

[Tilarta]

I fine tuned it a little more, but I still don't think it is working.

To be honest, I think I should just take the result and move onto the next stage.

I don't think it's worth worrying about the label being glossy when I've got bigger problems to come.