eltucu Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Some doubts, why the feathers in the armor dont react like say, the grass? Or better said, why they didnt made the feathers act like a grass texture/model? The grass in the game isnt modeled by two polygons placed very close but one single polygon that displays the same texture on both of its sides right? Or it is always one polygon for one side, and another for the another even in "2D" stuff like grass, leaves n such? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ooofbaer Posted January 29, 2012 Author Share Posted January 29, 2012 (edited) Great idea, eltucu. If I want to make the feathers render like grass does -- if I want to mirror just one of the layers and delete the other -- how would I go about doing this? It is weird. But then, there are other interesting things going on with the Forsworn items: I've even noticed that the mesh directory and the texture directory don't match up -- one is in x/x/clothes/forswornarmor/ and the other is in x/x/armor/forswornarmour. A lot of armours have _m files, but the Forsworn armour doesn't. Many of the armours are simple, while the Forsworn armours are a real headache to retexture. I speculate that these were some of the first or the last armours that they did [probably the former], and somewhere between when they began creating equipment and finished creating equipment, they changed practices. Edited January 29, 2012 by ooofbaer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltucu Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 If you can edit the properties of the feathers, making them a 2D texture, i think it could be done. Unless the engine doesnt allows that mix up for armors. It does allows it for trees for example. Maybe they just put some inexperienced, through creative, guy in charge of making the Forsworn armors... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ooofbaer Posted January 29, 2012 Author Share Posted January 29, 2012 If you can edit the properties of the feathers, making them a 2D texture, i think it could be done. Unless the engine doesnt allows that mix up for armors. It does allows it for trees for example. I know the feathers on the male Forsworn armour are mirrored like grass is, so this shouldn't be a problem. I just need to figure out what to click. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltucu Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I was reffering to the model portion of the feathers. I dunno how its called. 2D model? Partly transparent geometry? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ooofbaer Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) This is over my head, for now. I've been reading up on how to use Maya, so once I have a hang of it I'll start a new thread to address how to go about changing the armour and what the best way is to do it. Alternatively, someone could read through this thread and tell me which option is best and what to click in Maya to accomplish my goal, the goal being to fix the female Forsworn armour's feathers. In fact, if someone wants to, they could even load a tutorial on the different ways to fix this fault. It'll be a good way to show some of the different ways to fix meshing problems. I imagine a lot of us would appreciate a tut on how to do that. Edited January 30, 2012 by ooofbaer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltucu Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) Well, since the feathers are made out of two layers of polygons, did you tried erasing one of the layers? Gah, no, tried to mess up the uv map of one of the layers (same effect as erase it), and although the faces can be viewed from the front and behind, it only gets lighten from the side the polygon is facing (pretty much the same as with vanilla mesh) Now i remembered what i hated bout the uvmap editor from NifScope, you cant select the polygons from the main screen then edit up in the uv map editor, you need to blindingly touch the polygons from the uv editor window while looking at the main window to see who is who. That or i dun know how to use it properly. Edited January 30, 2012 by eltucu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ooofbaer Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) I'm going to try to -a- resize one of the layers (make the top side layer bigger, or the under side layer smaller), which will fix the clipping problem; or-b- delete one of the layers and make the other layer mirrored. I'm sure -a- shouldn't be difficult, but I don't know how to even begin going about -b-. Since a polygon is only viewable from one side... It looks like the male Forsworn armour's feathers are mirrored... It should theoretically be possible? Like I said, I'm just reading through the Maya manual now. If -b- isn't possible, somebody please tell me before I waste time attempting it. :P Edited January 30, 2012 by ooofbaer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
throttlekitty Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) In the shader properties, there's a flag for rendering meshes double-sided, if you're going that route. But it doesn't look as grand, a 'backwards' polygon would get the lighting of the front side of the face, so the lighting won't look quite right most of the time. I think a better option for these feathers is to use a backlight map. I've a feeling these were supposed to use that to begin with. Assuming the normals aren't totally buggered for the vanilla feathers, just dropping the effect/mask in should suffice.Meshes\clutter\hagraven\hagravenfence01.nif to see how it's set up.When a polygon is facing the camera, but away from a light, the backlight effect kicks in, as seen in the image. It uses a mask to control how much light is passed through. This one also includes veins and darkened edges to nice effect. edit: deleting one layer can be a bit of a chore. In maya's attributes for the model > render settings > single/double sided toggle will help here. Select a triangle and move it to see which half you've picked up. You can grow the selection to the entire shell from there, assuming it's not welded to the half facing the other way at any point. (most of the time, objects with stacked UVs tend to get many many splits in the triangles, which is where the chore part comes in...) Edited January 30, 2012 by throttlekitty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ooofbaer Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) I think a better option for these feathers is to use a backlight map. [snip] This was a really good explanation, thanks. I hadn't noticed backlighting in the game, and I didn't know it was possible; it's perfect for this. Option -a- it is, then. (most of the time, objects with stacked UVs tend to get many many splits in the triangles, which is where the chore part comes in...) Does the "stacking" of UVs refer to the different ways that different parts of the object are directed to interact with lighting? What is a "split" triangle? Sorry, I don't have the jargon down, yet. Everyone's been really helpful with this. I'm blown away... Thanks, guys/girls. Edited January 30, 2012 by ooofbaer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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