Basic Scale Armour Re-Colour W.I.P.

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

**Please let me know if this post is: a) too long, b) in the wrong place, c) some/all of the links are not working, d) some/all of the pics are not visible (403 errors, etc.) or hosted in the wrong places, e) anything else!** :thumbsup:

 

EDIT: Here's a link to the uploaded mod! http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5078

 

 

 

Yo! :laugh:

 

 

This is my very first-ever attempt at a mod for a game (also my first post here at Skyrimnexus! Yay!), so I'm very keen to get your helpful advice & feedback (read: chimp on roller-skates requests help staying upright). :happy:

 

After many excruciatingly educational hours over the past two days spent browsing of the internet, I have successfully managed to install BSA Unpacker, FO3 Archive Utility (along with JAVA, which is required to run it, & which caused me much head-scratching until I realised I didn't have it!), and get my Skyrim .DDS files into GIMP (including GIMP's .DDS Plugin ) to play with! Yay! Below are the results of my first attempt at a very simple Skyrim armour mod: a basic re-colour of the Scale Armour textures (note: once unpacked, these are found under "hide" armour - basically anything in there which has the word "heavy" attached to it).

 

I figured I'd give this particular one a try because I disliked the rather garish yellowish tint & bright aluminium-esque metals of this vanilla set & thought a simple re-colour might be easy to do. Also, it was a set which had not been given a great deal of attention as yet & I thought people might like an option.

 

What follows is my attempt to run through what I did step by step. It's pretty basic stuff & may be a little dull for experienced people, but if you can wade through it all your feedback would be greatly appreciated! :yes:

 

 

STEP 1: RE-SIZING THE TEXTURE IMAGE

 

 

After I had extracted Skyrim's textures & meshes .BSA archives using BSA Unpacker, & then extracted their contents using Fo3 Archive Utility, & made copies of what I wanted to vandalise use to the desktop, I was ready to open them using GIMP.

 

 

The first thing I did was to try & re-size the texture (Shift-T) - in this case, the female "cuirassheavy" texture - from 1024/1024 to 2048/2048. Believe it or not, this simple step gave me absolute buggery! I could not tell whether the re-sizing had actually happened or worked - on the screen it still seemed that they were the same size, or had increased in size without me being able to view anything on the screen outside of a 1024/1024 panel.

 

A workaround I finally hit upon for this was to Ctrl+S save, then close GIMP completely, then re-open the file. This seemed to work just fine.

 

After much fuddling with various functions & features, I hit upon a system I was happy with, as follows...

 

 

 

STEP 2: COLOUR ADJUSTMENT.

 

 

- Ctrl+A Select All

 

- "Bucket Fill Tool", Black, Opacity 40%, Fill Whole Selection

 

- "Bucket Fill Tool", a red-brown I mixed, Opacity 20%, Fill Whole Selection

 

 

Next, I adjusted the saturation of the image, like so:

 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/FastestDogSkyrimPics/HueMaster.jpg

 

Hue: Master, +40%

 

(I get the impression that many texture-mods have had saturation levels cranked to the max - I like a bleaker feel & kept it modest)

 

 

 

 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/FastestDogSkyrimPics/HueYellow.jpg

 

Hue: Yellow, -90%

 

(The whole idea of this caper, really!)

 

 

Once colours seemed about right, it was time to sharpen the image...

 

 

 

STEP 3: SHARPENING THE IMAGE.

 

 

This was a little tougher, and I did have a few false starts. I originally browsed GIMP's help section for this, but had difficulty. I then had a go at following this tutorial, but became lost in the weeds several times (it always seemed to occur between steps 5 and 8 - something vital seemed to have been skipped. Case in point: suddenly "Floating Selections" appeared out of nowhere). If you were familiar with GIMP however, & really did know what you were doing well enough it would probably be a very informative piece.

 

I ended up using the counter-intuitively named "Unsharpening Mask" function (Filters-> Enhance-> Unsharpen Mask in v2.6), and at first cranked it a little too much, like so:

 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/FastestDogSkyrimPics/Screenshot5859-1.jpg

 

It doesn't actually look so bad there, but it seemed very harsh & grainy in-game - probably because I had earlier monkeyed-around with the Contrast settings...

 

 

 

So, I began again & had another go, like so:

 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/FastestDogSkyrimPics/UnsharpMask-1.jpg

 

That's not actually far above the default settings - really the only thing which has been increased is the "Amount" setting from 0.5 to 0.75.

 

 

 

Rinse and repeat for all the male & female "heavy" texture pictures (at no stage did I touch the map ones - the files marked with an "n" after the name), and we have the (temporarily) Finished Product!

 

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/3538713-1325426189.jpg

 

 

Apologies for the poor outdoor lighting there - believe it or not, those were taken outside in blazing sunlight. :huh:

 

 

 

PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED:

 

1. These files seem a little big... 16MB for the cuirass, for example. I do not know why. This has not caused any problems for me during in-game testing, but it is something I'd like to get to the bottom of & hopefully produce a more compact & streamlined version ASAP.

 

 

2. This:

 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/FastestDogSkyrimPics/Screenshot3586.jpg

 

This is taken in soft indoor firelight. Notice the reddish-brown flecks all through the fur trim, & how it tends to blur into the colouring of the leather? This is likely due to the brown "Bucket Fill" layer which I applied to the texture in its entirety, as I wanted a brown wash across the metal parts as well as the leather. It doesn't do so well on the fur trim though. A better job would have been to target the specific areas I wanted to hit - I actually tried that using the "similar colours" option on the Bucket, with poor results. Going forward, I will need to work out an easy tool to use for something like this...

 

From a normal playing distance in 3rd-person though it looks just fine - although I do notice the uniformity of the brown. Still, it IS nicer than the heavily yellowed tint on the vanilla textures.

 

 

3. This:

 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/FastestDogSkyrimPics/GIMPWarningMsg-1.jpg

 

This warning msg popped up from time to time in GIMP - usually at the point of saving an image I had just re-sized as per Step 1, eg: from 1024/1024 to 2048/2048 (see above).

 

It didn't seem to create any hassles, & certainly didn't prevent me from using the new textures in-game. However, I suspect that "volume maps" may be problematic with a more complicated mod-attempt in future, & I will probably need to know what that warning means & how to avoid it...

 

 

4. Going forward, I will need to learn how to match a texture like this to TNT's excellent various Athena/Hera Bodyshop offerings which I use as I am matching the Hera skin file to Bella's AWESOME face mod (all visible in the above shots), and also Caliente's CBBE body model which is also in widespread use.

 

 

 

This mod will now be posted in its W.I.P. Testing Phase version to the Skynexus "Files" area! Please use, test, and enjoy! Don't forget to offer any helpful feedback you can! :happy:

 

EDIT: Here's a link to the uploaded mod! http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5078

Edited January 2, 2012 by FastestDogInTheDistrict

[Perraine]

What colour is the specular map for that armor? Some textures use a greyscaled, highly contrasted version of the diffuse map as an alpha layer on the normal map for lighting, while others use a separate specular map, if there is a separate specular map file try converting that to greyscale, that may get rid of the 'brown stain'

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

What colour is the specular map for that armor? Some textures use a greyscaled, highly contrasted version of the diffuse map as an alpha layer on the normal map for lighting, while others use a separate specular map, if there is a separate specular map file try converting that to greyscale, that may get rid of the 'brown stain'

 

 

Hey Perraine! :)

 

I'm honestly not sure what colour it might be - I have not (yet) played with maps at all in making this re-colour. Tutorials do exist for doing this in GIMP though, so I may very well tackle them. :sweat:

 

Many thanks for your feedback! :yes:

[Perraine]

The masks or specular maps can be a bit tricky depending on whether the item uses a separate 'itemname_s.dds' file or whether it uses the alpha channel of the normal map ... You notice it most when changing say leather to metal as the leather originally had a "brown/orange" light reflecting effect, so unless you change the mask/specular your metal will still have the same brown/orange tint

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

The masks or specular maps can be a bit tricky depending on whether the item uses a separate 'itemname_s.dds' file or whether it uses the alpha channel of the normal map ... You notice it most when changing say leather to metal as the leather originally had a "brown/orange" light reflecting effect, so unless you change the mask/specular your metal will still have the same brown/orange tint

 

Ahhhhhh - I think the alpha-channel/normal route *may* ring a bell! Is this similar to what that route would be, around steps 5-9 - GIMP "Smart Sharpening" tutorial?

 

If it is, then it's something I did actually have a crack at, but unfortunately could not manage to master at this stage. :sweat:

 

I think there are tutorials for extracting specular maps from normal maps (eg: "curiassheavy_n" maybe?), such as found here, if that is what is meant. If so, then it's something I have not tried as of yet. :unsure:

Edited January 11, 2012 by FastestDogInTheDistrict

[Perraine]

Those tutorials are a it long winded and dry and to be honest a bit over fussy ... The easiest way to crate an alpha channel is to simply take your existing texture an make a high contrast, greyscale version of it

 

Check these Videos, they aren't specifically for Skyrim, but they are helpful I found:

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

Those tutorials are a it long winded and dry and to be honest a bit over fussy ... The easiest way to crate an alpha channel is to simply take your existing texture an make a high contrast, greyscale version of it

 

Check these Videos, they aren't specifically for Skyrim, but they are helpful I found:

 

That does sound a lot easier! I'll run a "monkey-see, monkey-do" session with those tutorials ASAP & give it a go! Thanks a ton Perraine! :yes:

[aquilegia]

3. This:

 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/FastestDogSkyrimPics/GIMPWarningMsg-1.jpg

 

This warning msg popped up from time to time in GIMP - usually at the point of saving an image I had just re-sized as per Step 1, eg: from 1024/1024 to 2048/2048 (see above).

 

It didn't seem to create any hassles, & certainly didn't prevent me from using the new textures in-game. However, I suspect that "volume maps" may be problematic with a more complicated mod-attempt in future, & I will probably need to know what that warning means & how to avoid it...

 

Personally, I think I would avoid saving in DDS directly from GIMP. I have read of bugs involving mis-handling of colors (and that is all too easy to do, with dxt compression and some dds formats, for example the distribution of colors in DXT [and 565] formats is slightly non-linear).

 

Also, there is only one volume map in the game, and that should be detected when you load the image and not when you save it.

 

Anyways, my guess would be that that message is protesting about mipmaps from the original image (or maybe it's confused about layers in your image, but if that was the issue, the message should not be claiming that they are different sizes). Some DDS image saving mechanisms include too many mip levels -- that ought to be harmless (we are typically talking about extra 1 pixel wide and/or 1 pixel high "copies" of the image that are scaled to show up so far away that no one should ever see them) but overly aggressive file format validation might get confused. Images that come with the game often have extra mip levels.

 

But, if you save using TGA (or BMP) , then load your image in DXTBmp, you can save it to any of several DDS formats from there. The DXT compression techniques all handle colors the same way but the higher numbers give you smoother alpha handling. The 888 formats are uncompressed. Also, when dealing with your video card's memory threshold (when it starts acting up because you do not have enough video memory), pixel counts mostly do not matter -- only file size matters (DDS textures are loaded straight onto the video card... though how it gets dealt with there can vary, depending on the card). (But images saved by DXTBmp often have extra mip levels)

[ishmaeltheforsaken]

Specular data will always be in the normal map's alpha channel. You cannot have a separate specular map.

 

Other games allow this, like Dragon Age, but this is the Skyrim forum and the thread for a Skyrim mod, so any talk of that is incorrect.

[FastestDogInTheDistrict]

3. This:

 

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/FastestDogSkyrimPics/GIMPWarningMsg-1.jpg

 

This warning msg popped up from time to time in GIMP - usually at the point of saving an image I had just re-sized as per Step 1, eg: from 1024/1024 to 2048/2048 (see above).

 

It didn't seem to create any hassles, & certainly didn't prevent me from using the new textures in-game. However, I suspect that "volume maps" may be problematic with a more complicated mod-attempt in future, & I will probably need to know what that warning means & how to avoid it...

 

Personally, I think I would avoid saving in DDS directly from GIMP. I have read of bugs involving mis-handling of colors (and that is all too easy to do, with dxt compression and some dds formats, for example the distribution of colors in DXT [and 565] formats is slightly non-linear).

 

Also, there is only one volume map in the game, and that should be detected when you load the image and not when you save it.

 

Anyways, my guess would be that that message is protesting about mipmaps from the original image (or maybe it's confused about layers in your image, but if that was the issue, the message should not be claiming that they are different sizes). Some DDS image saving mechanisms include too many mip levels -- that ought to be harmless (we are typically talking about extra 1 pixel wide and/or 1 pixel high "copies" of the image that are scaled to show up so far away that no one should ever see them) but overly aggressive file format validation might get confused. Images that come with the game often have extra mip levels.

 

But, if you save using TGA (or BMP) , then load your image in DXTBmp, you can save it to any of several DDS formats from there. The DXT compression techniques all handle colors the same way but the higher numbers give you smoother alpha handling. The 888 formats are uncompressed. Also, when dealing with your video card's memory threshold (when it starts acting up because you do not have enough video memory), pixel counts mostly do not matter -- only file size matters (DDS textures are loaded straight onto the video card... though how it gets dealt with there can vary, depending on the card). (But images saved by DXTBmp often have extra mip levels)

 

Wow - that is a ton of info! Much of it is, at this early stage, still above & beyond my level of knowledge, but I expect it will lead to a series of very welcome "Ah-HA!" moments as I dig deeper into making texture mods! Many thanks, aquilegia! :thumbsup:

 

 

 

Specular data will always be in the normal map's alpha channel. You cannot have a separate specular map.

 

Other games allow this, like Dragon Age, but this is the Skyrim forum and the thread for a Skyrim mod, so any talk of that is incorrect.

 

Yes - I have now looked at the normal map files & there is indeed an Alpha-channel already applied. Many thanks Ishmael! :yes:

 

 

 

Here's a question for you guys...

 

I would like to make the Scale Armor mesh - and hence this texture - compatible with Caliente's BBE mod.

 

Can you by any chance recommend some thorough, beginner-friendly tutorials which would assist me to do this? :happy:

 

(*I did find this walkthrough, which sounded like it *might* be dealing with the process (?), but I can't really tell as I quickly became lost... :unsure: )

Edited January 10, 2012 by FastestDogInTheDistrict