Glowing Night Sights

[pickinthebanjo]

I am trying to set up a set of Night sights that glow at night as well as during the day. The sights I got set-up here seem to show up fine if there is any light behind them but in complete darkness they are not visible at all. I took a look at the .nif files for the plasma weapons since they usually got parts that glow but I could not figure out how to get these sights to glow.

 

I am wondering if there are any modders out there with experience in this area that are willing to give some insight into this.

 

It seems at the moment they work like Fiber optic sights but I am trying to make Tritium Night Sights so this would go a long way. Thank you.

 

http://s13.postimage.org/61aa2d81i/m30.jpg

[pickinthebanjo]

So nobody has any idea as to how to make things glow?

[pickinthebanjo]

Glow Map Tutorial

 

Another problem solved

[se7enraven]

Not sure if this will help, but sometimes the various weapon parts use the same material setting. If you forget to add the _g (glow) texture to those parts, they will be really bright in game. Peace!

[pickinthebanjo]

I found the problem was that the Emissive Color was not set to white and I did not know how to make a proper glow map at the time, that is a great tutorial and it solved the issue. Though while the green sights look great, I tried to make white sights and they were glowing way to bright, any idea on dimming the brightness of the glow would be useful and appreciated.

[se7enraven]

I have found that it is usually the bumpmap alpha channel that is to bright. I would check this first and make sure it is dark grey to black on the section representing the glowing part of the sight. I should mention this is the case if the sight looks fine in darker areas but to bright in lit ones. If the actual glow in darker areas is to bright, check the glow map and make the white areas more grey. Some key things to remember:

 

Bump/normal map alpha channel-the alpha channel in the bump map regulates how "shiny" an object is. The lighter the alpha, the shiner the object: white=crome/polished effect and black= matte/flat effect.

 

Glow map- the lighter (white) the area, the more it glows. Pure white can appear to bright in lit areas, so a light grey may be more desirable. Black is no-glow.

 

It may also be possible that the mesh itself may need the settings adjusted:

 

NiMaterialProperty-I have found that most of the time for glow emitting models the top two "triangle' thingies should have hollow dots located at the top of the triangles and the solid white dots to the right tips of the triangles. The bottom two triangles should have the hollow dots on the tops of the triangles (same as above triangles) with the bottom left triangle having a solid black dot on the left tip, and the bottom right triangle having a solid white dot on the right tip.

 

BSShaderPPLightingProperty-This can control certain effects of the model also. I am not very knowledgeable about many of these settings, but for objects and such, the shader flags under the "block details" window should be "SF_ZBUFFER_TEST" , "SF_EMPTY" , "SF_UNKOWN_31"

 

I hope this helps -Peace!

[pickinthebanjo]

I have found that it is usually the bumpmap alpha channel that is to bright. I would check this first and make sure it is dark grey to black on the section representing the glowing part of the sight. I should mention this is the case if the sight looks fine in darker areas but to bright in lit ones. If the actual glow in darker areas is to bright, check the glow map and make the white areas more grey. Some key things to remember:

 

Bump/normal map alpha channel-the alpha channel in the bump map regulates how "shiny" an object is. The lighter the alpha, the shiner the object: white=crome/polished effect and black= matte/flat effect.

 

Glow map- the lighter (white) the area, the more it glows. Pure white can appear to bright in lit areas, so a light grey may be more desirable. Black is no-glow.

 

It may also be possible that the mesh itself may need the settings adjusted:

 

NiMaterialProperty-I have found that most of the time for glow emitting models the top two "triangle' thingies should have hollow dots located at the top of the triangles and the solid white dots to the right tips of the triangles. The bottom two triangles should have the hollow dots on the tops of the triangles (same as above triangles) with the bottom left triangle having a solid black dot on the left tip, and the bottom right triangle having a solid white dot on the right tip.

 

BSShaderPPLightingProperty-This can control certain effects of the model also. I am not very knowledgeable about many of these settings, but for objects and such, the shader flags under the "block details" window should be "SF_ZBUFFER_TEST" , "SF_EMPTY" , "SF_UNKOWN_31"

 

I hope this helps -Peace!

 

Thanks man, I'll have to give it another go and see if I can get them to turn out well. I've never really understood texturing but this time around I've been trying it again so this is pretty helpful. It sounds like you seem to have a pretty good handle on texturing, your stalker items turned out very well.

[se7enraven]

Thank you. I have spent about four years creating a mod for Oblivion. In that time I have learned how to create models in Blender and import them through Nifskope. I have created textures ( editing: glow maps, bumpmaps, worked with alpha channels, ect) Using Photoshop. I have worked with the various tools in the SDK (construction set) World Building, landscape editing, scripting, object creation, quests, dialogue, NPC/creature creation, ect, ect. Although the mod was never released (various permission conflicts), this knowledge has allowed me to learn the GECK rather quickly. Because of modders like you, who release content and grant other modders permission to use it, I have been able to work on my own mods. So thank you for the "Stalker Weapon Mod", and any way that I can help you I will-Peace!