Transparent Textures, + Shiny-ness

[2Beasty]

I can get it either invisible via masking or removing the layer in photoshop, but changing the opacity doesn't seem to do much. I'm guessing I need to save the .dds as a different format, or change something with my normal maps. Possibly changing or adding a setting to the NIF, I don't know.

 

All of the texures I've saved are also much too shiny. How do I tone it down?

[jet4571]

Bottom of this link:

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope/Change_texture

 

If you want to tweak the exact way that transparency is displayed, you can alter the values showing in the Block Detail window below,

 

Don't ask me what the values should be lol.

 

For the item being too shiny thats in the normal maps alpha channel. black will have no shine at all and white will be full shine. Find a grey inbetween that makes the right amount of shine for your model.

[Matth85]

The alpha channel of the difuse map is the transparency. Black means see through, and white means you can't. Find the value of grey you need. Then save the .dds as a DXT5.

The shiny part is because of the specularity map. Simply make a greyscale of your difuse map, change the values to represent how shiny you want it to be. White being plastic shiny and black being nothing. Then you can simply add it the the normal maps alpha channel and save it as a DXT5.

That is all the required photoshop work. You could also make a reflection value map, or _em, by using your specularity.

 

Other than that it is nifskope work. That is out of my skillset, sadly.

 

Cheers,

Matth

[jet4571]

I just looked at 2 nif's, 1 has see through but not completely gone, and the other is completly invisible.

 

Try flags 4845 and threshold 0 for see through and for full transparency is flags 4844 and threshold 128

 

another setting i found for transparant see through look is flags 237 and threshold 0

Edited June 12, 2012 by jet4571

[2Beasty]

Well those responses contradict a little bit. I was able to change the shine by changing the alpha channel of the normal map, but now I'm curious as to what changing the specularity map does.

 

 

How do I link the diffuses maps to the nif?

[Matth85]

but now I'm curious as to what changing the specularity map does.

 

Specularity controls the light reflection value. The alpha channel of your normal map is a Specularity map.

If a model got a specularity map as a texture itself, there is no need to use the normal map alpha channel. At least as far as I know.

[jet4571]

Contradiction is not saying the same thing 2 different ways lol.

 

As for what i am saying about Nifskope, thats what controls how transparency is rendered. You still need to make the texture with the Alpha channel setup like the majority of games will use and I am pretty sure you knew how to do that, then you need to set the nif itself to use the alpha correctly.

[2Beasty]

That that's my bad. I didn't realize the alpha of the normal map was a diffuse map. I've never done any modding before of any kind before, so it's all new to me.

 

I think I'm trying to over complicate everything. For the transparency, do I just need to have a white alpha channel in my .dds file with darker sections that I want to be transparent?

 

 

EDIT - I got it figured out. I was trying to add the transparency to a _d.dds file alpha, and then add it to the nif, not know what I was doing I think I messed it up. I think another problem I was having was that I didn't the alpha in the Nif on both sides of the cape I'm using.

 

Thank you very much guys, it was a huge help.

Edited June 12, 2012 by 2Beasty