Help: Remove gloss in normal map

[V4d312]

Hi guys, I need to know how do I remove the gloss effect on normal map.

 

I have made a new normal map for ebony armor, but now the fabric part becomes glossy in game.

 

How do I achieve in removing the gloss effect on the fabric parts but at the same time maintaining the gloss effect on othe parts of the armor?

 

Btw I am using Gimp to do my normal maps

 

Many thanks in advance! :)

[GrindedStone]

Start with the _m or _em you see it called all kinds of names. Enviroment mask- This is a greyscale image of the texture, black to white. Black is dull or flat, white is shiny or gloss. It's used when you have an item that you only want certian parts of it to be gloss or shiny, but when it's missing often the render engine will basicly make a guess on what it should be based off the normal map alone. Rather than say a single color between black an grey that the artist picked out. You see them as little tiny versions of the defuse texture but in greyscale black an white, but like I was saying you can totally just make a tiny map that is all black, all white or somewhere in between depending on how it looks. Don't get this confused with Enviroment map which is an actual reflection of the surrounding world used to make chrome an mirror an such.

 

The Normal itself in other render engines *ahem* *cough* (gamebyro) uses an estimate hidden in the alpha channel. Basicly depending on how defuse or transparent along with the color it estimates how glossy it should be. GIMP-Tools-Color tools- Curves I think thats it, anyway it allows you to select only the alpha channel then you can grab the dot on the bottom left, bring it up to the top right to bring the alpha channel into 100 defuse (not transparent) For our use really it's only the last top right grid box that is helpful anyway, but all the way is basicly zero gloss. The added bonus is that defuse textures can be encoded in DXT-1 which is max compression which helps a lot performance wise. DXT is a compression language for grapics cards. It's the same exact image but the grapics card can access it much faster.

 

Color is next. HDR for what little it adds to a scene, practically ruins the color white an anything even near white. Dubes swear by how much HDR adds. Which is basicly only glowing lights. The color white an everything near white is much more useful to a modder than say glowing neon lights for example. Don't confuse it with the light beams or lighting an shadow, which are different. That's why I say, for what little HDR adds it takes away a great deal more. You can use either one, but when using HDR or Bloom the color white will have to be really close to the color grey, an not like light grey. You bring those colors down in steps both in weight an brightness which is followed by an in-game test. It's a lot of extra work to create HDR & Bloom Safe content, an harder to get it to look good at all. If HDR & Bloom are turned off you are allowed to use much more toward actual white, which is also easy to make look it look good.

 

Meshes contain material properties, which there is a bit of gloss in there, but not as much as the other areas. The surface also determines it, which wouldn't be in the mesh so much as the normal map, which is basicly detail that is added onto the mesh. A rough surface will absorb an scatter more light than a smooth one. GIMP will allow you to load in your defuse texture twice, then you can use one of them as a preview for the normal map plug in box shape or whatever. Then you can move the shape around trying different normal map settings an also the scale which is the depth basicly. It doesn't always turn out as something we can use but CRAZYBUMP works great. Usually if you can't get GIMP to create one that will work, then CRAZYBUMP will an the other way around.

Edited January 22, 2012 by GrindedStone

[trees415]

The gloss effect is typically determined by the specular map, however in this case you can simply adjust the brightness of the alpha channel in your normal map. Making it brighter will increase the glossyness of your texture, whereas a darker alpha channel will cut down on the the gloss effect. Edited January 21, 2012 by trees415

[V4d312]

Hi guys many2x thanks for the information, deeply appreciated!!!

 

I still can't get rid of the glossiness, here are the steps I took.

1) grab the _n.dds load it into gimp

2) go to layer window and right click to select add alpha channel

3) go to tools-color tools-curves

4) select alpha channel on the drop down channel list

5) drag the dot on the left hand bottom corner all the way up to top right corner

6) click save and save to overwrite the _n.dds file

 

Where did I go wrong? Am I suppose to do this on the _m.dds file?

 

Grindstone- once again many thanks for all your trouble writing down the tutorial for me. However I am a bit confused the part where you explained about using one of the diffused textures as a preview for the normal map plugin view? What does this mean? And what are the steps to achieve it?

 

Once again many thanks in advance :)

Edited January 22, 2012 by V4d312

[GrindedStone]

I never load mipmaps into GIMP because it wasn't designed to work with .DDS which is probalby why it sucks for doing that compared to some other programs that were designed to work with .DDS At any rate it's also more work to load mipmaps into GIMP plus getting it encoded into DXT. So once the work is done on the image in GIMP with mipmaps not loaded, I just hit save, and then use Paint.Net to open it (which it's set as the default program for .DDS so I just double click it) as soon as it loads up I Ctrl S to save, which prompts with DXT an an mipmap settings. DXT-1 is for all your defuse textures (non transparent) DXT-5 is for mostly all of your normal maps, but there are a few rare cases where DXT-3 should be used. DXT-5 is estimated alpha, DXT-3 isn't. Say you spend a day or two hand crafting a normal, then you might want DXT-3, but that doesn't happen very often, if ever.

 

I drag what I wanted to work on in GIMP to the desktop, because it's more easy to find. Launch GIMP, file, open, click desktop an the file you want is right there. Uncheck to load mipmaps. File, open, pick the same file you just opened, uncheck to load mipmaps. Now minimize one of the two windows. Do what you do to make the normal map, but in the 3D preview you can select a defuse. This will load onto the 3D preview shape so pick the image you minimized. Then click the normal map settings window at the top so it's active, you can then maximize the 3D preview window to full screen, which should give you the ability to change settings an preview in full screen at the same time. You can also come out of full screen an checkmark use specular map, an adjust the slider to the middle, this will light up a bright spotlight in the middle. Go back into 3D preview full screen an you can use the light to help see the normal. It's a optical illusion so you have to move the shape around to see it, which requires a bit of light to see.

 

Once the normal map is created or perhaps you want to matte a gloss normal that is already created, get it into GIMP without the mipmaps. Tools, Color tools, Curves. There is a little box that lets you select which channel to adjust the curve for, so click that an pick alpha, then grab the bottom left dot an move it up to the top right all the way. Notice how the normal isn't transparent anymore. File, Save. Open it with Paint.Net, save it in DXT-1 with mipmaps. This puts it near zero gloss from the normal, sometimes you want a little bit of gloss in there so just focus on the top right box of that grid in curves, halfway in that little box is about half glossy. It should always remain on the diagonal line that goes from the bottom left to the top right though. I'm sure you could adjust the color weight, darkness, or even change it to black an white, but most of the time you don't need to worry with that.

[GrindedStone]

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/Techsupport/1-1.jpg

 

The bright spot is that checkbox, use specular map, I mostly only use it to preview because it gives you that bright spot in the middle. You can then move the 3D object around to see what it's going to look like. Adjust the scale or the filter until it looks kind of okay, then exit full screen an uncheck use specular map. You should make a normal that uses a specular map an then go see what it looks like in-game, just so you'll know.

 

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/Techsupport/SRFile2012_1_21_21_4_14_250.jpg

 

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/Techsupport/SRFile2012_1_21_21_34_37_609.jpg

Edited January 22, 2012 by GrindedStone

[V4d312]

You are a legend grindedstone I FINALLY DID IT!!! My very own ebony armor is now complete. The gloss is now gone and did a small adjustment using nifskope.

 

Once again mate thank you very2x much.

 

I will share this armor set once I feel its worthy enough :)

Edited January 22, 2012 by V4d312

[GrindedStone]

http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac156/grindedstone/Synx/daga3mahoochmaflaugh.jpg

[ericore]

Review GrindedStone's posts. They are very good.

Here's my own incomplete analysis with the Skyrim Alduin Normal Map.

If you open the standard Alduin Normal Map, you will notice a few things:

1. First the background is transparent in all channels

2. The trace or parts of Alduin that are to be accentuated that information is in the alpha channel.

3. The other channels are color info only, no trace, RGB channels are applied at maximum with transparent background, enabling one these channels colors the trace to that channel,.

 

After putting create a normal map of Alduin either from the diffuse or normal map with crazybump, I get the following:

 

The alpha channel is black.

The RGB channels are non-transparent.

Selecting the alpha and blue channels shows sold blue.

The trace information is in the opaque green and red channels.

 

Huge difference from before.

Alduin is now glossy.

 

Analysis:

Since the alpha channel is black, the glossyness cannot be caused by the alpha channel.

Since this is a normal map, bright color channels will create a glossy effect.

Especially when the color channels are opaque! Not only are the edges glossy, the whole thing!

In conclusion with regard to normal maps, glossyness is brought about by opaque color channels and the whiter the alpha channel the more the whole shall shine.

In this example, shine is not a problem - only glossyness.

Therefore if only could simply make the RGB backgrounds transparent - problem solved, but I do not know how.

Nor do I understand why crazybump gave such a crazy output.