LE How to "limit" Specular maps?

[Sader325]

Alright so I'm working on my second project an ebony armor retexture.

 

I finally figured out how to make and use specular maps which is helping a lot with this armor.

 

But here's the problem:

 

How do I lose this:

 

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f122/Sader325/TESV2012-02-1417-57-28-85.jpg

 

But keep this:

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/1613992-1329238487.jpg

 

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f122/Sader325/TESV2012-02-1321-07-30-14.jpg

 

Is there a setting that can limit the reflection in direct light?

[Sader325]

Oh god no, Jaysus replied but forum decided to poop itself.

 

OH THE HUMANITY =(

[Sunnie]

Is that why I keep seeing empty threads? :unsure:

 

On topic... is your specular map all white? You could use darker grey shades to limit the amount of reflection.

[Sader325]

Is that why I keep seeing empty threads? :unsure:

 

On topic... is your specular map all white? You could use darker grey shades to limit the amount of reflection.

 

It's not.

 

Jaysus said the same thing.

 

The file is here: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9109

 

Maybe you can look at it and give me an idea on how to solve this.

 

The thing I'm trying to do is keep the the effect in Screenshot #2 and #3 but reduce the ridiculous bloom effect in screenshot one.

 

If what I'm asking for is impossible then I'll just keep it the way it is.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Sader325

[Ghogiel]

I read Jaysus's reply, he basically said it was because you have a white specular map> the map in the normal maps alpha channel. And recomended you simply darken it up.

 

ah about the forum, I thought something like that happened as my reply to this topic is also missing... :confused:

 

I'll repeat what I said, I was guessing you are looking at the cube map effect. It is set up in the BSLightingShaderProperty. The shader type 1, and some other shader flags enable the effect, and you need 2 maps. A cube map and the texture usually found with the suffix _m. The _m texture is actually an environment mask map. If the cube map is very bright itself you can get some very blingy effects. If you do not specify both those maps, leaving the texture slots for it blank and use the env map shader anyway your stuff will look a bit whacksauced, it's pretty simple to make look good though, look at any armor using the shader, such as the vanilla ebony to see the shader set up, and just make sure you have a cubemap and a mask set up, and tweak from there.

 

to illustrate the cube and mask map effect I made a little vis ref: These 2 models are entirely the same, the only difference is one has a very bright _m texture the other a very dark texture.

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/209926-1322657664.jpg

 

Now if I change the cube map to my test one and leave the _m map white:

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/images/209926-1322660629.jpg

 

The diffuse map is still that dirty bronze color, but as you can see the environment map has a lot of power to affect the color.

[Sader325]

So... the answer to my question is...

 

No? I think.

 

I understand everything you said Ghogiel and I understand how all that works.

 

I'm just trying to understand whether there's a way to make the effect less pronounced in Direct (Bright) Light but still retain the effect that I get in low light. Like maybe theres a setting in the .nif the controls the upper limit of the bloom or something.

 

If there's no way to control that without changing the texture itself then my question is answered.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Sader325

[Ghogiel]

Well assuming your material is fairly vanilla, then it is down to your maps, if either the specular map is totally white your material will bling horribly in high light areas, or if the mask map is past a mid tone grey towards white you will overdrive it's effect, which can nearly make any real detail in the diffuse map pointless except tone change. last image especially show this, so be careful with it because it looks like ass when it goes wrong. if the map is correctly made you will not retard it's reflective quality in low light, it's a different render pass and works differently to specular maps. One thing you could do it try darkening the cub map itself...

 

there are setting in the material that control both the specular and environment strength. I haven't gone through them to test their effects. All those effects you are using and it's specular strength is controlled by that.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Ghogiel

[Sader325]

Well assuming your material is fairly vanilla, then it is down to your maps, if either the specular map is totally white your material will bling horribly in high light areas, or if the mask map is past a mid tone grey towards white you will overdrive it's effect, which can nearly make any real detail in the diffuse map pointless except tone change. last image especially show this, so be careful with it because it looks like ass when it goes wrong. if the map is correctly made you will not retard it's reflective quality in low light, it's a different render pass and works differently to specular maps. One thing you could do it try darkening the cub map itself...

 

there are setting in the material that control both the specular and environment strength. I haven't gone through them to test their effects. All those effects you are using and it's specular strength is controlled by that.

 

Got it, thats what I needed to see.

 

So basically I just gotta figure out whats making it go nuts in daylight and that'll change nothing in low light. I'll take a look at the cube map, I'm pretty sure its not the regular ebony one, we switched it to the cube map that gold uses.

[Sader325]

I'm beginning to think this may be less about the armor itself, and more about the different lighting styles in the game and how they handle bloom.

 

Either that or it just really doesn't like the color white.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Sader325

[Ghogiel]

the color white? what is white? not the diffuse is it? is it white white, or not quite so white. You are in some interesting territory with using white on just about anything. It is not the eassist color to do right.

 

Remember that the specular render pass is an additive effect on top of the diffuse color. If you are using a white diffuse, like really white, you need to play around a lot. I did a lot of white myself for stormtroopers in F3 and the whole environment map thing I wrote a lot about them and how to use it properly.

 

I didn't want to waste 70megs of bandwidth just to look at one texture and a nif... but I'll take a look now that you mentioned white.

 

Edit: ok you have added 2.2 to the spec strength, which makes the specular strength over 2x times more intense. I highly recomend changing this back to 1 or perhaps 1.2. That's probably part of the bling. leave the cube map strength as is until you test that setting. If spec strength at 1 still doens't do anything, drop the cube str to 1.

 

 

the diffuse map is a bit light colored for me, I might drop the tone a little notch. The diffuse and _m textures have blank white alpha channels, I highly recommend resaving those maps without alpha, this will drop those textures file size to 1/2. which will save on limited vram and be a lot more optimised and less bandwidth to DL. otherwise the spec and _m maps aren't so bright that it will be where the issue is.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Ghogiel