DreadFeign Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 (edited) Hello folks. Long time lurker, first time poster here. I'm in need of some help with texturing. You see I am working on a race mod and I am using the Better Males/Sundracon meshes and CBBE v3 meshes and textures as a base. That's neither here nor there however as the problem isn't in the base textures it's in the other texture components. I know, for example, that malebody_1.dds is the base texture of the male body (torso/arms/legs/feet). I know that the _msn.dds and _s.dds files are the model space normal and specular maps respectively. My issue is that I'm not entirely sure how to make the malebody_1_msn.dds look the way it does by default/custom. I can make a typical normal map a la Oblivion, that's easy. I don't know how to create this fancier version that's all rainbow colored and popping out all over the place. So, my question is this. How do I properly create the _msn.dds for my new texture using Photoshop (yes I have the nVidia DDS tool plugin) and how I create the accompanying specular map to go with it? Could someone please explain it to me in detail and/or with screenshots for proper setting for the DDS tool Photoshop plugin GUI? Thanks in advance, guys! Edited February 21, 2012 by DreadFeign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkjoldBjorn Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Well i usually just open the diffuse map, run the plugin and set the plugin to avrage rgb with a height of 2 or 3 then adjust invert x,y,z if the depth is wrong.After that i take the newly created normal map which now looks kinda dull, duplicate put a little Gaussian blur on it, i usually start with 0,5( depends a lot on the texture you are sitting with)then i set the duplicate to overlay. you will see the details coming forth a lot better, then just copy the overlay duplicate until you are satisfied with the details you get on the normal map, you also get a good result if you increase the gaussian blur a little per layer you duplicate, sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. Keep duplicating layers with overlay, i sometimes duplicate up to 5-10 times then merge them all, copy the last and repeat the process once more to get the details forth, you just have to play around with it, because this can vary from texture to texture when it comes to how good it looks. When i have saved my normal map after this process i want to use the specular map as an alpha layer as well, sometimes that gets the details really good, at least on armors with smaller shiny parts. I do this by duplicating the normal map layer and using ctrl-shift-alt-b which is black & white, then adjust the colors in the pictures to whiten areas i want to shine, grey the ones who will not shine that much and black to those who will not shine at all (sometimes easier to just brush the area black afterwards). Now that you have created this specular map, you can copy this into an alpha channel and save (just remember to delete the specular map layer before you save. Then go back into the nvidia plugin with the normal map merged and check "normalize only" and you are done with the normal map. Im not sure if specular as alpha is commonly used on body textures though. the specular map you made as an alpha can also be used for a seperate specular map of course, but you might want to adjust the colors when you turn it black & white a little different for optimal effects (this also vary a lot, for weapons i increase the white a lot and tone down the black)Im not sure about specular maps for body textures however. But in short when it comes to settings: - Avrage RGB- Adjust z,x,y accordingly- height is pretty induvidual, so you need to play around with it. (i usually go with 2 -2,2 etc. just play around)- use gaussian blur (also play around with this for a optimal result)- duplicate layers and use them as overlay to the original background, reapeat the process until you think the details are good enough)- specular maps can be made out of the normal map with black & white (ctrl-shift-alt-b) and adjust the colors accordingly (blue, cyan, magenta is the 3 main colors used on the normal map, so adjust those for optimal result)- Remember to finalize your normal map by going into the nvidia plugin panel again and use "normalize only" And thats it. :) Might be more you can do, but this is the way i make my normal and specular maps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreadFeign Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Ah ok. The normal map is the _msn.dds texture right? I was under the impression it was different than the Oblivion normal maps because it looks more colorful/3d... Edited February 22, 2012 by DreadFeign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreadFeign Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 (edited) Still having some trouble with the normal map creation. I just cannot get it to look the way it's supposed to. Any ideas? Here's an example image of the malebody_1_msn.dds: http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d39/mystikx/ModelSpaceNormal_Example.jpg How would I go about recreating that???<br><br>EDIT: Figured it out. Requires some advanced work with the model...<br> Edited February 23, 2012 by DreadFeign Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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