Creating a shiny part of the texture

[Astal]

I Looked bit I couldn't find a topic for this. Is there an easy way to make a shiny texture?

An example of whar I mean: some textures, such as grass.dds, have a second texture that is the same texture, only its neon purple. It has the same name too, only with an n at the end of it (grass_n.dds). I want to make a shiny texture for my custom ones, but how can I achieve this?

[Blu02]

That's the normalmap for the texture. If you open that file in Photoshop, click the Channels-tab on your right menu. There you have a set of channels; red, green, blue and Alpha. The RGB-channels holds info for the normalmap which defines shapes on the texture surface. Alpha-channel however holds a black and white specularmap, which defines how shiny the surface should be, and where. You use the grey-scale for this, so the brighter it is the more the surface will shine, and the more dark it is the less it will shine. Check the alpha-channel and uncheck the RGB-channels in order to modify it.

 

If you want to go into details you should copy the alpha into a new file, where you can more easily edit it with adjustment-layers or whatever you want. When you're done, simply merge all layers and copy it back into the original alpha-channel, then and save as usual (With "interpolated alpha"). Or you can simply use a copy of the colormap to make a completely new one. Just add a black and white layer over it, and then I recommend using "Brightness/contrast"-layers in order to affect the different parts of the texture without loosing details. When you're done, merge all and paste into the original alpha, and save.

Edited December 6, 2011 by Mr. Bravo

[Astal]

Thanks dude. That helped me out immensely.